25 Days of Christmas

This December, for the first time, I decided to do a Christmas activity each day from Dec 1-25. Our 25 Days of Christmas was wonderful. It helped me focus on the important things during the Christmas season. I didn't get caught up in the busyness. Our Christmas season was intentional. The kids loved the activities - and so did my husband and I.

Here are the final days of our Christmas countdown.

Day 19: Ice Sugar cookies and take some to our neighbors. We made snowman faces and Christmas trees.

These cookies are amazing. I got the recipe from a friend when my husband was stationed in Virginia, almost 10 years ago. Here's the recipe: Festive Iced Cookies


Day 20: Make teacher gifts. The kids loved making their teacher gifts this year.

Day 21: Eat snowman ice cream.

Day 22: Go to a Christmas movie (Arthur Christmas).

Day 23: Read the Christmas story and memorize a Bible verse (Luke 2:11).

Day 24: Attend a Christmas Eve service at church.

Day 25: Family time... Open Christmas presents, Eat a Christmas cake for dessert after dinner, and make our Gingerbread house.

25 Days of Christmas
If you want to read through all of the activities for our 25 Days of Christmas, just click the 25 Days of Christmas link on the right side of the page, or click here: 25 Days of Christmas. If you get to the end of the page, but you haven't seen all of the days, just click the Older Posts link to see the rest.

Christmas Heart

We had a fantastic Christmas celebration. Family. Laughter. Gifts. Thankfulness for God's blessings. It was sweet.

These are my kids on Christmas Eve. Their hearts were full of Christmas anticipation and excitement.

"I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year."
~ Charles Dickens

Lights

Day 18: Drive and look at Christmas lights.

The kids got on their PJs. We drove around town looking at Christmas lights.

This house had their light choreographed to music on an FM station. (Super cool)

This house had a light decoration that had an animal theme. It was called a "Whale of a Nativity" and they were taking donations for the local animal shelter. (It was awesome.)

Christmas Campout

Day 17: Watch a holiday movie and camp out as a family by the Christmas tree.

We got in our jammies, got a yummy snack, and watched a fun holiday movie. (I love the boys faces in this picture.)

We camped out around the Christmas tree. The kids thought it was the coolest thing in the world that we all slept by the tree.

Red and Green Night

Day 16: Red and Green Night: We enjoyed a red and green dinner.

We had spaghetti with green noodles. Bread with green butter brushed on top. Salad with tomatoes, red and green peppers, and a choice of red or green salad dressing. As a side, I threw in some red and green grapes. It was festive fun.

Dessert was one scoop of red peppermint ice cream and one scoop of green chocolate chip mint ice cream.

Kids in the Kitchen

Day 14: Make Pretzel Hugs.

The kids and I made Pretzel Hugs. They were easy to make and fast to bake. They were also easy to eat.

I got the recipe from Family Fun: Holiday Pretzel Treats. We made two kinds: 1) pretzels, Hershey kisses and Hershey-ets and 2) pretzels, Rolos, and Hershey-ets. I was super excited to find the Hershey-ets. These are seasonal hershey candies that resemble M&Ms. But, unlike M&Ms, these candies are safe for someone with a peanut allergy. Great news for us!

Day 15: Make Sugar Cookies.

The kids cut out cookies and decorated them with sugar. They used a lot of sugar! It was sweet fun.

Snow Play

Day 13: Eat snowman treats and play with "snow" indoors.

Our afternoon treat was snowmen faces made out of powdered doughnuts, cut up carrots, chopped chocolate chips and icing:

The kids loved them.

The kids thought that our Christmas fun thing, as they like to call it, was done. Boy were they surprised! They went into the other room to find stations set up for them to play in the "snow."

I was sure that my younger two kids would love this activity but I was unsure if it would be enjoyed by all. It was loved by each of them (age 4, 6, 8 and 10). My 10 year old led the way in building a snow mountain.

The shaving cream can was easy enough for my 4 year old to work.

The kids could use paintbrushes or their hands.

Army men got to play in the snow, too.

Sounds effects were animated.

The snow was prettied up with glitter.

A great time was had by all.

Cleanup was minimal. I carried the containers to the bathroom and washed them out in the shower.

Did I say cleanup was minimal? Well, it would have been...

It's just that I'm just the kind of mom that says "yes" when my I-love-to-get-messy son asks,
"Can I paint my belly?"

Ho Ho Ho!

No Shopping and Snow Flakes

Day 11: We took the kids on a no-shopping trip to Toys R Us.
This was fun for us all. We let the kids walk around and get excited about toys. We made lists of ideas. And then, we left. We were relaxed and we stayed for a long time. When we left, all of the kids left with good attitudes. It was a win-win. We got ideas and they had fun.

Day 12: Make paper snowflakes and hang them. Make edible snowflakes and eat them.
We cut out snowflakes and hung then on our banister.

We made Sweet Tortilla Snowflakes. Edible snowflakes- a simple, sweet treat! Cut out snowflakes from folded tortillas, bake them, and sprinkle them with powdered sugar.

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Wordless Wednesday: Brothers

Snow Dinner

Day 10: Pancake snowman, cotton candy snowballs, and snow topped chocolate milk for dinner.

The kids were super excited when we brought dinner to the table.
Here's a posed recreation of the excitement.

It was tasty.

We almost had a snowball fight.

My little chef let his pancake get cold (he still loved every cold bite) while he perfected his snowman.
The perfect snowman pancake (picture per my son's request):

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