The Pierce Personalities: Christmas Countdown!!

Well, the Christmas festivities have begun!! On December 1, we started doing Advent together each night at dinner. Starting last year, we followed the scripture readings and activities in a book called Countdown to Christmas. The activities are short and PERFECT for toddlers and preschoolers. It was even great last year, when Caeden was only one year old.

The first night, we talked about how it's almost Christmas, and explained what Advent is (in toddler-terms). We then made a chain to hang, so we can countdown the days until Christmas. Each morning we tear off a link and explain that this shows how many days we have until Christmas!

The next night we talked about why we have Christmas trees and why we decorate them. Then we made an ornament together. First, we let him paint two pine cones, and put glitter on them. When he was done, I hot-glued ribbon on them, and hung them on our tree! (Side note: Since we did this same Advent book last year, he also has a homemade ornament from last year too - kind of a fun tradition!)

We also made a CUTE snowman ornament that I had found online. We bought blue plastic ornaments, painted Caeden's hand with white acrylic paint, then had him "grab" the ornament. After his handprint dried, I drew the snowman details with permanent markers and wrote his name/date on the palm. LOVE. IT.

And today, our third day, we talked about the angel who came and told Mary she was going to be a mommy. We modeled it with Caeden's nativity scene, and also showed him pictures in his book. We then made an angel with construction paper. I had the head, cheeks, and heart body cut out ahead of time. I let him glue the cheeks on the face, and glue the face on the body. Then we traced his hands on yellow paper, cut them out, and let him glue those on the back. Then he got to do glitter again (two days in a row....lucky boy!). Turned out super cute -and now it's hanging on our fridge!! Except Reid made fun of the mouth I drew and said it looked like a ghost. HA! I was just trying to make a singing angel... :)

PS - If you're interested in buying the book, they have much simpler activities. But you know me - I'm an over-achiever. So don't think all the activities are this complicated. I just adjust them to make the crafts more "keepsake."

Now, I also have to mention that Caeden went to his first Christmas parade today and loved it! He truly enjoyed just standing and watching all the floats go by. He even got to see his best friend, Ella, riding on one of the floats!