25 Days of Christmas Days 1-3

If you look in my archives for last December, you'll see posts about our family's 25 Days of Christmas celebration. This is year number 7 of 8 that we have started celebrating with the kids on the first of December with little things each day. Some days the celebration is bigger, but most days it is simple. Here is what we have done so far this month.

Day 1

Paper chains

I thought the kids might have outgrown this Christmas countdown, but, after discussing whether or not we would do it this year, I have concluded that there is a possibility that we will be making paper chains to countdown the days until Christmas until the children are married and begin to do it with their spouses and their own children. I'm good with that. I love seeing paper chains hanging around the house this time of year.

Day 2

Movie Night

This movie is hilarious. I love it. Eric loves it. The kids now love it. It is one of the few movies that make my very short list of quotable lines. It may not have anything to do with the true meaning of Christmas, but it is good for a laugh! Or many, many laughs. 

"You see gum on the street, leave it there. It's not free candy."

"The best way to spread Christmas cheer is singing loud for all to hear."

Day 3

Finnish Star Craft

You can find this craft HERE. Fair warning, don't do this with 7 and 10 year olds. Maybe 12 year olds could handle it with direct instruction. My sister kind of warned me, but I wanted to do it so desperately that I did it anyway. The star at the top is the one I did out of random scraps just so I knew how to instruct the kids. The one on the bottom left with the plaid green/red and matching red accent paper is Ava's. Eric helped her. I helped Lukas with the blue star. He chose an accent paper that doesn't show up very well in the photo, but it looks perfect in person. Ava used 2-sided paper, which was the only scrap of 2-sided Christmas paper that I could find(2-sided paper is probably best for this craft). I love them all. If you decide to try this, you can use paper or fabric. I would love to do a bunch of these with fabric for another year. Another FYI...the tutorial isn't very specific about how large your strips should be. Ours were 12 inches long and 3/4 inches wide (my first one was 1/2 inch). They're huge. My sister's other warning was that making them small made them much more challenging, so we went with big. I love them, so it's all good. But...they will not be hanging on the tree since they would kind of take over the landscape.

Check back again soon for more 25 Days of Christmas highlights!