It has begun!

Have you been enjoying celebrating the advent? My little ones sure have. I thought that after giving so many fun Christmas ideas in my last post, I should update which ones we are actually doing. I definitely had to narrow down my choices to keep the sweet season of advent simple.

Last year I wanted to do the Jesee tree, but I just didn't get it together in time. But I went ahead and made the ornaments so I would be ready for this year and I was ever so glad that I did! The girls have really enjoyed the Bible stories and putting the ornaments on our tree. I love Ann Voskamp's jesse tree devotional and made the ornaments with her templates, but I also read about a Jesse Tree storybook and decided to purchase it for our girls because I knew they would enjoy the pictures and storyline a bit more. It is about a grumpy old carpenter who is carving a Jesse Tree for a church and a little boy who begs him to tell the story of each carving. The readings are a little long for Karlie, but Karis absolutely loves it.

I really wanted to do an advent calendar with random acts of kindness for each day, but I just didn't have enough time to get it together before December got here. I'm thinking about just setting aside one day each week (probably on our day to run errands) starting with the new year to do a random act of kindness with the girls. I really want them to start thinking about how to be kind to others all the time, not just at Christmas.

I am not a crafty Mama. I really want to be and I really enjoy doing crafts with my girls, but I'm not usually one to plan ahead well in that department. If we have time to do something fun, we usually end up baking! But my Karis loves "making decorations" and the fall season had me scanning Pinterest moments before she woke up, trying to find something to make with what we had on hand. I stumbled upon "Truth in the Tinsel: An Advent Experience for Little Hands" and immediately knew it would be worth the $4.99 to have something all planned out for me, using everyday household items, that would be an easy craft to point back to the story of Christ's birth. And we have loved it! We haven't been able to do our craft every single day due to a busy holiday schedule, but it has still been worth every penny to me.

I have to admit that the most exciting part of my girls' day, however, is probably opening up their daily Christmas book. I was just going to do one book each day, but they were so excited that I just couldn't make one of them wait til the next day. So yes, we will open 50 Christmas books before Christmas. Thank goodness for the library!!!! It is amazing how excited they get when they open a book, even though they might have read the book 50 times last season. What a fun tradition! I found a great list wonderful Christmas books to request at the library HERE.

Have you started any Christmas traditions this season? I'd love to hear about them!