Its December! I love December! Probably my second favorite month! In Arizona it was starting to get cold and the holidays! Here it is chilly getting colder and the Holidays! December it is FINALLY acceptable to embrace all that is Christmas. Although I say do Christmas as soon as you want! Christmas was up here before Thanksgiving and trust me, Thanksgiving definitely was able to shine! (But people definitely have opinions on when its OK to bring out Christmas and I think everyone agrees December is safe!)
December we get to start all our advents and count downs to Christmas! This year we have five we are working on! Last year my Sister, Lara made us an awesome advent for Christmas. She colored and cut out and laminated all the pieces that make up the Christmas story. She also made a felt manger scene that we get to put those people on. I’m sure some people would make it look like a beautiful scene depicting the Christmas story. Ours however is a chaotic scene depicting the Christmas story. The Inn Keeper is in the sky with the angel right now. But the kids LOVE being able to put them wherever they want. With each piece of the story there is a poem that tells their story. Its really beautiful advent!
My mother-in-law Nadine gave me an ornament advent for my birthday. Each day we get to hang a new ornament. Each ornament is accompanied by a scripture and a story explaining that piece. The kids love this one as well!
Grandma Tanner also sent us an advent. Its another felt one with Mary and Joseph journeying to Bethlehem. Each day we move them closer and closer. There are also other people we can add to join the journey. (The angels, shepherds, and baby Jesus will join us soon.) The kids love moving them closer and closer as well!
When I was kid we would make up a Christmas chain counting down until Christmas we would write on the paper links something to do to help us get ready for Christmas. That was one of my favorite traditions so I did that with my kids as well. Ryan LOVES it and every chain we make he wants to write stuff on it. He was extra excited for our Christmas chain and kept asking if we could make it. Finally on December 1 we were able to!!!! Some of the things we add to our chain are; blanket rides, making sugar cookies, making orange/cinnamon rolls, making ginger snaps, reading a Christmas book, watching a Christmas movie, drinking hot coco, looking at Christmas lights in our jammies, etc. Its so much fun to do and the kids LOVE doing it!
The last advent we have is the light the world Challenge. We do something every day to try to help us remember Christ!
Its been a fun December so far and we have been busy with all our advents! It helps us get excited for the holidays and keep Jesus at the center!
Lilly’s class also sent home a paper asking what holidays we celebrate and to write out our favorite traditions. I LOVE this! I am so glad that Lilly can share what she does and what she loves about Christmas, but also learn that not everyone celebrates Christmas and learn what they do celebrate! Ryan also is learning about other holidays and traditions as well and wants to learn more about Hanukkah. I told him about when I was little my Grandma taught me to play with a Dreidel. I’m glad that my grandma taught me about it and made learning about other’s cultures fun! I’m glad that my kids will have that as well!
This is also our first Christmas in Washington and we are so excited because there is SOOOO much to do here over the holidays! We will also have Christmas guests with us this year so I am trying to plan out things to do with Chris’ family when they come, and making sure we get to do all the things we want before they come!
I saw that there are boats that light up and do a parade for those on the beaches watching. This sounded cool to me, and they do it all December. Last Saturday there was one fairly close to us so we decided to check it out and see if it was something that the McBrides might like. Sadly there was a huge accident along the way and we almost missed it.We got to the beach as the carolers on board were singing their last song. The boats were lit up and you could hear the singing very well. There was a bonfire on the beach and the kids could play on a playground. We loved it and hopefully we will be able to take the McBrides with us later in December!
The part about December that I don’t like is the colds and sickness that it brings. I had a nasty cold, Ryan has one now. Chris says he is feeling something coming, and Lillian just has a runny nose. I am hoping we don’t get anything too bad and we can enjoy our holidays!
