A Christmas Tradition

We keep this Advent Tree on an end table in our dining room.  This is our third Christmas with it. I was in the first trimester of my pregnancy with Curtis when I made this and I still remember how nauseous I felt while painting these boxes. Totally worth it though! Each box contains a Hershey kiss for each kid as well as a slip of paper with a simple Christmas activity for us to do. The kids really look forward to opening a box each day.

Here are our activities for this Christmas season:

1. Make a Christmas craft (we had a few of those seasonal dollar crafts from Jo-Ann's)
2. Attend the Christmas tree lighting ceremony at Wood Park
3. Make Christmas cards
4. Light the second candle in our Advent Wreath
5. Decorate the kitchen window for Christmas 
6. Read the story of St. Nicholas and leave out shoes
7. Make confetti ornaments
8. Make peppermint hot chocolate (hot chocolate stirred with candy canes)
9. Do something nice for someone
10. Make handprint/footprint reindeer
11. Light the third candle in our Advent Wreath
12. Sing Christmas songs
13. Watch 'A Mickey Mouse Christmas Carol'
14. Read a special Christmas story
15. Go on a Christmas scavenger hunt around the house
16. Attend the Living Nativity in Mt. Laurel
17. Back and decorate Christmas cookies
18. Light our fourth Advent Candle
19. Complete a color-by-number Christmas tree
20. Pray for Tamene (the boy we sponsor through World Vision)
21. Watch 'A Charlie Brown Christmas'
22. Complete 'Mr. Snowman Mad Libs'
23. Read the Nativity story
24. Go to the Christmas Eve service at church
25. Light our Jesus candle and sing 'Happy Birthday' to Jesus!

Here are a couple of the crafts we've made:

And the boys painting

That's about all I have for photos. Sorry about that. Here is what I've been really busy with:

The majority of my free time has been spent crocheting away! My business is doing pretty well. So well that I had to temporarily put it on vacation so that I could complete my current orders and then have a little down time for Christmas and our trip back to Wisconsin. I'm down to my last twelve hats now so I am getting there!

I'll try to take more photos this week. :)