Advent Day 1

For the last few days, we've been decorating the house for Christmas!  I always look forward to putting up our Christmas tree each year and I love seeing all the homemade Christmas ornaments from previous years!  The girls are bursting with excitement too!  There's just so much magic during this season and it's so special to see it through the eyes of little ones.  

We participated in the Truth in the Tinsel Advent experience last year and the girls really enjoyed reading the scriptures and creating the ornaments and crafts.  I wanted to participate again this year, but didn't want to do the same activities from last year...we truly don't have enough space to create and display all the ornaments, again.  So, we're participating and will be tweaking along the way. 

   

 

Day 1:  Candle

"When Jesus spoke again to the people, he said, 'I am the light of the world.  Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.' "
John 8:12

Izzie created a dry bean candle holder last week at Coop, so we decided to make several smaller ones for today's Advent activity.  

If you're curious to see our last year's Advent Day 1 candle activity, click here.  

We've never celebrated Christmas with Santa.  My husband and I made the decision years ago, when Izzie was just a baby, not to incorporate Santa into our Christmas celebration.  Times have changed.  The girls are super excited about Santa this year, thanks to Christmas cartoons and young friends.  The girls know and understand that Christmas is about birth of Jesus Christ, so we've decided that it will be okay to participate in Santa activities this year too.  We're jumping in with two feet! 

Last year, we created our own Christmas tree count down.  

Inspiration and printables can be found at Mama Jenn. 

However, this year we're using my husband's childhood Christmas count down calendar.  We're still using the cards from Mama Jenn.  

In addition, we added a new member to our family, Rose Cookie, the Elf.  

Yes, we're participating in Elf on the Shelf!  Rose Cookie made her first appearance and the girls were beyond excited!  It was amazing how quickly they began to correct their own behavior because Rose Cookie was observing them.   

We spent the afternoon at our local library creating Gingerbread Houses with friends! 

      

    

 Later in the evening, we headed downtown to watch their first Christmas parade! 

     

I love this time of year and I love making memories as a family!