Advent Planning

After a quick search on my blog, I realized I’ve never documented our Christmas / Advent activities for my munchkins. I found this post from 2007 and a list of our Christmas books from 2008 but that’s all that turned up in my quick search. (Lots of December Daily goodness under this tag, but that still only shares a bit). This post is to sketch out our ideas for 2012 and maybe help me remember for next year. : ) Please note: while I have listed many items here, the reality is that we not get to all of them – other things come up, kids get sick, mamas get tired. These are jumping off ideas. : )

What holiday planning looks like for me. Messy. Lots of lines and scribbles. : )

Truly, though, the holidays are messy in general. Too many activities. Family drama (every family has it, some just more elevated that others!) The inevitable sickness that hits the family and threatens to derail carefully constructed plans. The goal of my planning is hopefully not to push us into a state of burnout and overkill because of too many good things. My goals are to:

1. Have options. Things change on a day-to-day basis around here with four kids and unexpected plans or germs and an arsenal of ideas that can be flexible is important.

2. Have a loose plan. More plan = less panic for me. : )

3. Make memories for our family.

4. See Jesus. We take time to read about the sweet baby that God sent and remind ourselves the baby came to seek and save those who are lost. (Luke 19:10)

With those goals in mind, here are some of our plans for the next 4-5 weeks…

Activities with Books (remember, we won’t get to all of these books or ideas, and I’d bet money that even with the best intentions there will be days we will miss on our Advent readings!):

• The Faith of St. Nick: An Advent Devotional, with the girls
• Behold the Lamb of God: An Advent Narrative
• scripture to tie in with the days of advent. Combining resources from Good Morning Girls blog, The Jesus Storybook Bible, our ornaments from Ann Voskamp’s free Jesse Tree Advent Devotional. Note: we read through her devotional last year and I loved it. However, it was a bit heady for my girls. N2 has mentioned to me how much she loved reading in the evening together and putting our ornaments each night on our Jesse tree so we are going to hopefully continue that … just bring it down to their reading/listening level).
• Lots of Christmas storybooks! (I have listed our favorites at the link and have some that are new to us that I’m hoping to try out this year).
• December Daily creating for me

Activities at Home:

• decorating the tree (actually, deciding a plan for a tree. We got rid of our very old fake tree in our move last year and didn’t replace it last year with a one year old boy running loose.)
• making chocolate covered pretzels and / or pretzel hugs.
• making peppermint playdough. (We made our first batch of homemade playdough last week over Thanksgiving at it was a success so we’re going to try a Christmas version!)
• lots of Christmas family Friday movie nights. (We have a stack of favorites that we pull out ONLY at Christmas and are packed away the rest of the year.)
• a candlelight picnic in our family room on the floor and watching Little Women with the girls for the first time
• ornament crafts
• making homemade bird feeders for our backyard and for gifts
• decorating sugar cookies
• make snowflakes (out of coffee filters)
• making gifts for teachers and neighbors and delivering them

Activities Out of the Home:

• caroling with our Community Group
• the little girls’ choir concert
• a special outing to the Nashville Children’s Theater
• a special outing to see a friend perform in a local production of White Christmas
• looking at Christmas lights
• Christmas Eve service

As I look at our list now that it’s typed out, it doesn’t seem like there is much on there. As much as I want to add a few more ideas, this will leave some room for spontaneity if something comes up, and it will also leave margin if we need some downtime. And the beauty of the internet, if I spot a good idea out there that I wish we had time to do, I can always pin it for next year. : ) I would also like to have a few more service oriented activities on there, but we have some limitations with ages of the kids (i.e., several places we have checked with in our area about volunteering aren’t geared for little ones to help and prefer for them to be older). Our caroling with our small group is at a long term facility that our church has a relationship with and I would love to develop a routine of going over there and not just at Christmas.

Happy Wednesday. We are having a slow school day today. I had one little with a very upset stomach at bedtime. (The kind that resulted in extra laundry and a bath before bed … ick.) She was up a couple times with it during the night, but we seem to be on the mend today. Ergo, she and Mama are running at about half-speed. There has been a slow start to our school day, lots of coffee and hot tea, and now we are about to get busy as soon as I put a certain boy down for a nap. So thankful for homeschooling for days like these. : )

December Daily // 27-31

Here are the last few shots of this year's December Daily.

December 27:





December 28:



December 29: this page is a little different for a few reasons.

1. I didn't really have a picture or holiday moment captured by camera for the 29th.
2. My number "29" that came with my Elle's Studio kit was chewed on by the baby. Seriously. Ooops. : )
3. I needed a place to insert our Christmas card so this is where it went.

Ergo. No Day 29 in the album. : )



The left page is a red envelope that I tucked a small journaling card in with notes on our cards this year.



In between the envelope and the card is a transparency that came with my album.



December 30: The number isn't attached to the page. I couldn't decide where to put it on the page, so I just didn't. : )



Minus the number 30.



December 31:



The back.



Thus wraps up another December Daily. It's now in my mini-album basket to be brought back down next December and remembered, and all my Christmas scrapbook items have been packed away until next year. A few thoughts that have run through my head as I've wrapped this up:

- this was totally doable alongside Project Life. Some days the photo was duplicated, but the journaling had a different spin depending on which album it was going into.
- I loved this little album from Elise Blaha. I loved that it was 4x6 and I could just punch my pictures and insert them if I wanted to. Occasionally I struggled to figure out where to put my journaling, but it wasn't a big deal. If I go with this album size again next year (highly likely) I will add more pages in for writing and up my binder ring sizes so everything fits.
- The splurge on buying the Elle's Studio Christmas kit was totally worth it. All my numbers were there for me, as were some journaling spots, banners, glitter alphabet stickers, and fun Christmas scrapbook paper. I still have about half the product from the kit left and I've tucked it away for next year and will hopefully add a 2012 kit from Elle to restock it.

Thanks for reading along with this year's December Daily. Next week, it's back to normal Project Life posts and I'm really looking forward to breaking out my Clementine kit and getting to work.

If you want to see the rest of my 2011 December Daily and missed those posts they are linked here:
December Daily Prequel
November 29 - Dec 4
Day 5
Days 6-12
Days 16-18
Days 19-22
Days 23-26

December Daily // December 23-26

December 23: cousins playing Uno. I love the fact that they all were hee-hawing about something in this picture they thought was funny.





December 24:



December 25: I'll probably go back and journal some here - either on the back of the 24th or on the back of the 25th. I haven't decided yet. : )





December 26:



I'll probably just have one more wrap-up of my album. I'm planning on Saturday, the 31st, being my last day. Project Life 2012 starts on Sunday and I can't wait to break out my new kit. The Clementine kit and album was given to me by my sister for Christmas and it is so pretty. I'm trying to refrain from going ahead and breaking into it as I finish out my 2011 album! ; )

December Daily 19 - 22

A few December Daily pages...

December 19: Date night. There was Italian food, Irish reels, Christmas carols, no cell service at the symphony hall, and a babysitter. You really can't top a night like that.


Up close. Glitter letters from the alphabet set that came with my Elle's Studio Christmas kit.



The right page is from the front of the program. There were people taking (non-flash) photos there, but I decided not to pull my camera out and just enjoy the evening.



December 20: A fun little "currently" form from this blog that I filled out today and included in the album. I would love to fill one of these out for everyone in the family and may work towards adding a few more of these today as I can snag munchkins to sit a second and help me fill it out. : ) The right picture is one I snapped from our Community Group Christmas get-together.









December 21: We had a low-key day today. My nephew was over and I threw all the kids outside for the morning. There was a promise of the Christmas movie after lunch, but it was cool and sunny all morning and they desperately needed air and exercise. : )



The boy LOVES it when his big sissy gives him a ride on the tricycle. She balances him on the seat and sits behind and pedals.




December 22: There has been much crafting the last few days. T and N1 went to Michael's and scored on a bunch of little craft kits and the girls have taken turns at the counter and worked on gifts for cousins.



Happy Christmas Eve Eve. We have the cousin here for 1/2 a day (they are currently playing Uno quietly up in the school room - a Christmas miracle!) and then we are going to load up and go visit Daddy at his office before he is off for the long Christmas weekend. We have little girls getting very very excited about Christmas at our house!

December Daily // December 16-18

December 16: our last Friday Fun School of the year, complete with extra friends, lots of playtime, performances from the little girls directed by the big girls, yummy lunch and conversation between mamas, and completely forgetting/running out of time to do our story and craft because there was so much fun going on.



December 17: N1 had the opportunity to go to a special holiday concert with her Girl Scout troop and afterwards there was time to try out some of the instruments. She came home and asked for a cello for Christmas. : )



December 18: documenting our Christmas movies, something I don't think that I've done in any of my previous December Daily albums. I love Christmas movies and we only get ours out at Christmas time. I included some thoughts on this tradition, plus a list of the Christmas movies that we have on the back of the library card.



T and I also enjoy watching the Lord of the Rings trilogy in December ... makes for inexpensive stay-at-home date nights after the kids go to bed. Granted, I can't stay awake as late as I used to and that means that we can make the movies last even more nights as we usually end up watching one movie over the course of several evenings. : ) I've already mentioned to him that when The Hobbit comes out next Christmas in the theater we need to add that to our Christmas to-do list. : )

December Daily // The Missing Day 11, plus 14 and 15

December 11 ... the girls' choir concert.



The glitter letters on the side are my favorite. : ) Journaling card is Elle's Studio.



The photos of N2 and B's groups are attached to a page in the album that came with this little ribbon tab on it. Perfect for page turning.



December 14: we ran away to the zoo this morning.



Journaling card from Marcy Penner's shop. (She's created them for Project Life but obviously they can be used for anything).



The photo grid was created using PhotoShake on my phone. Seriously, some of these iPhone picture apps are very cool.



December 15: we hosted a little dinner for a few of Travis' work colleagues. I typically make chicken spaghetti when we have company over - it's easy and feeds a lot of people, and I can make it in my sleep. : ) However, being Christmas, I wanted something different and a bit more festive and spotted this Brown Sugar and Balsamic Glazed Pork Loin on a blog. And it was a crockpot recipe - bonus - as I really wanted to get a full day of school in and didn't want dinner to be a huge all-day thing.

Super-duper good. My pickiest child ate four helpings. I bought a four pound pork loin and between five adults and three children (baby not included), it was picked clean with maybe one serving leftover. Definitely worth including in the album. Also, because once guests arrived I never remembered to pick up my camera.








The recipe is included inside the envelope in the album.



No school today! On the agenda: laundry, laundry, some catch up on my December Daily album, hanging with the kids and T (who's off today), more laundry, and then a Christmas date night tonight with the Mr.

Happy Monday indeed. : )