Monday, November 26, 2007

Getting ready for the countdown

It has become a tradition to wrap up 24 Christmas books and let the children take turns picking one out for their bedtime story each night in December before Christmas. They love unwrapping the book and the surprise of what the book is going to be. We have some Christmas books, but I get most of them from our local library. I am fortunate that our librarian doesn't charge me when our books are overdue, so if I have a few books out for 4 weeks instead of 3 it isn't a big deal. :-) I have asked my Mom to help me wrap books this year, so we will be getting together sometime before Saturday to have our wrapping party.

I like to have more than one countdown activity, so each child can have something to do each day in December. They take turns, so every day they do something different. We have a string of 24 red mini bags that we use each year to keep track of what day it is and how close we are getting to Christmas. We start with day 1 and move a doll closer to the 24th as she sits in each bag along the way.

I found a nativity puzzle that I printed on paper that I'm going to use for another countdown activity. I will cut the paper pieces and then the children will pick a piece each day to place on another paper that will have the outline of the whole puzzle, so they will match their piece to the one on the outline.

I need one more idea, any suggestions?

9 comments:

Phae-Jae said...

I LOVE these ideas! I'm inspired:)

Janae said...

Joey, these alls sound like really fun idea. I especially like the wrapping of the books! A couple things my kids have done is making paper chains with red and green construction paper. Also, christmas candy, or small gum ball (24). This last one takes much restraint on the childs part though:)

Richelle said...

I saw these ideas today and thought they looked like fun:
http://freestuff4kids.net/2007/11/26/make-your-own-christmas-countdown-calendar/

Dawn said...

Great ideas! A couple of years ago I bought a magnetic nativity set from a catalog (can't remember which), and they're supposed to put one piece up on the fridge each day. Didn't work too well, though, because they like to have the whole thing up all month, and they lost a few pieces.

I doubt Kristen will make it to the end of February. My fear is that she'll be on bed rest and then what do we do with the kids??

mindyluwho said...

The last three years I have bought a nativity set and wrapped each piece seperately in pretty boxes with numbers on them. There are usually between 10-12 pieces depending on the set I find. I add in a couple of poems, some candy and a craft or two to bring the number up to 25. I save the Baby Jesus as the last present to be opened on Christmas day. That way I get to collect my nativity sets and the kids have something fun to look forward to each day.

I like the book idea!

Cindy said...

I love those ideas! You are so creative!

Gabriela said...

Cute ideas- I did the book wrap last year-but I didn't have 24-I like the idea of doing it as a countdown.

Gina said...

That is sooooo FUN! Great ideas for family traditions to start at our house! Thank you for posting this!

Unknown said...

I love the idea of the Christmas Books... Ive never really done anything like that with my kids, This year I did get them some of those Chocolate Advent Calendars, they were like 99 cents at Reny's in Belfast. Maybe next year Ill do something a little more creative like you... The only real tradition we have started (this year was our first as my childrens father and I separated in 2006) with my fiance is to let the kids each pick out their own special Christmas ornament when we go cut down our tree at Piper Mountain in Newburgh, we will do this every year and when the kids move out, they take their ornaments with them!