New Advent Tradition

OK - nearly a week since the last blog post - sorry!  We have been very busy around here (isn't everyone).

Today led to the first part of decorating.  Last year when putting all the Christmas items away I did a very smart thing and organized the decorations a bit differently (and labeled all the boxes).  I put all of the advent, nativity and Christmas card items in one box and made sure it was at the front.  That worked well when we went to pull the advent items out today!  Like the cute Fisher Price Little People Nativity.

We have lots of advent calendars and wreaths so I didn't really think about making anything new for this year.  But when I saw this idea on one of the blogs I follow I decided it would be an awesome tradition for this family!  Christmas Books Advent Calendar - perfect - we LOVE books around here.

I knew I had at least 25 Christmas related books for the kids and was going to pull them out today anyway.  Turns out I had over 50 Christmas books so decided to do a separate batch for each boy.  If you're amazed at that amount of books you should know books are very important to this family.  Some of the books are Christmas books my husband and I had as kids and many are books bought on sale (long before we had children but knew we would some day).

All the books were randomly mixed throughout the month so we would have traditional Christmas stories, Christian messages and winter stories all mixed in.  Thinking back to last year there were a lot of books we just never got around to reading so this should help!  Hmmm - how did those candies get in the picture?

I used Living Locurto's Advent numbers (free printables on her sight) to mark all the packages.  I didn't have a 2" punch so I just left them square.  I'm trying to get over my perfectionist attitude and realize my little guys don't care how it looks - the time spent with them and the tradition we start together is what matters.

I also have the backs numbered in case the numbers fall off.  I used different color schemes of wrapping paper to know which group was for which boy.  Clark enjoyed helping me glue all of the numbers on the top.  Searching for the right day will be a good way for him to practice numbers throughout the month!

They were all put in my large wire basket and set next to the door.  I decided these should be where I can keep an eye on them so they aren't opened too soon!  Clark and I sorted them by size and put them in the basket.  Look at all the skills he's getting from this project!

Tonight Clark pulled out the number one's so we could read them as a family.

The boys enjoyed this part!

Of course, we all enjoyed the reading part too!

We hope this will become a fun family tradition.