It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year

Now that we have had Thanksgiving (which is one of my favorite holidays by the way), I am ready to think about CHRISTmas.  I personally do not believe in doing anything for CHRISTmas before Thanksgiving.  I like to enjoy each holiday as it comes and focus on it as much as possible.  I have been doing the 1st Thessalonians 5:18 Challenge AKA the 30 Days of Thanksgiving Challenge which I will be sharing when I finish up.

Now to talk about CHRISTmas ideas.  I love to make each holiday really special for my kids.  With CHRISTmas, we like to make it last the whole month.  Each year, I sit down and plan out an activity for each day of the month.  This year I am hoping to put it all together in a neat format so the kids can open something or uncover something or pull out a paper that tells what we are doing somehow.  I am not sure about the presentation, but here are my ideas so far:

The #1 thing I am excited about is the Jesse Tree. This year we are going to be going through the Advent Jesse Tree book and each night the kids will unwrap a new ornament to go on the Jesse Tree. What a great way to keep focused on the real meaning of CHRISTmas.  I will share more about that as we go on.  Today I wrapped each ornament in a separate box.  The kids will love opening them and putting them on the tree each night.

Outside of that, we will be visiting family, see some church productions, go caroling with our church, do some outreach projects, go to Disney on Ice, go see different lights/decorations, go ice skating, make cookies, make ornaments, build a gingerbread house, have a Polar Express movie night, build a manger, act out the real CHRISTmas story, watch CHRISTmas movies, read CHRISTmas books, and make other CHRISTmas crafts.

I would love to hear what you are doing for CHRISTmas. :)