For as long as I can remember, I created some sort of Advent calendar for my daughter to open throughout the month of December. When I met J, the tradition continued on to all the kids, so now they look forward to some sort of daily Advent activity that leads them right up to December 24th.
Some examples of my past ideas include a “book a day” calendar where I found twenty four beautiful holiday children’s books and wrapped/numbered them for each day of the month. I remember Payton loving this idea and looking forward to the story each night.
I also found this wooden tree at Target a few years back and filled it with questions about the holiday season. Each morning, Payton had to open the slip of paper and answer the question or talk about the prompt before she got her Hershey kiss.
Last year I created these tags and had them numbered in a pretty bowl. The kids opened one each day and answered (often times we discussed it at dinner), and they also got a piece of chocolate for the day. Here is a sample of the tags:
This year I decided to focus our Advent conversations on GRATITUDE. We all have so much to be thankful for and often times life gets in the way of that. Looking at the glass half empty can sometimes be the easier way to live, but being gracious and having gratitude for all we have is something special.
I found these gratitude conversation starters on www.creativefamilyfun.net and I instantly fell in love. Not only do they cover gratitude, they are a way for kids to think about what they have. The prompts guide them to providing a thoughtful answer. I can’t wait to hear the kids’ answers! Note: I had to create a few extra on my own to have a total of 24.
I created simple tags with numbers and cut them out so they are ready to go.
To assemble, I decided to use the strung picture frame that I created for J’s birthday party and place each slip of paper in a burlap sack. I ordered these from Amazon and I liked the grey color as a change to the normal tan.
I tucked each slip in a sack with five kisses and tied them up with a tag.
To hang them, I used chunky clothespins I fould at Michaels and I love how it turned out! We don’t have a specific space for this, so I just leaned it on the corner cabinet in the kitchen for all to see. It can be easily moved if we need to get in the doors. Take a look…
I’m really in to the conversation, and I do think the kids enjoy that part. But – I also am not naive to the fact that they have an excuse to eat chocolate in the morning! xo
Comentarios