Advent Calendar 2008

My original plan was to just recycle last year's advent calendar but when I looked at it there were several things that we just couldn't do in Egypt. Things like visiting Temple Square or going Christmas Light Looking. So I made up some new ones, only I forgot to include any "grown-up" Christmas stories. Rachel doesn't really have the attention span for that, though, so I suppose we can read those as we see fit and add more grown-up things as our family grows.

Here's what we'll be doing this year:

• Watch "Mr. Krueger's Christmas"
• Watch "Nora's Christmas Gift"
• Watch "The Story of the Other Wise Man"
• Watch "The Nativity"
• Watch "Joy to the World"
• Reach the Christmas story and act it out
• Watch the 1st Presidency Christmas Devotional (Dec. 7)
  
• Choose a favorite Christmas song to sing
• Take a donkey ride on Daddy's back
• Play a game together
• Sing your favorite Christmas hymn
• Watch Mommy and Daddy dance to "their" song
• Turn on Christmas music and dance around together
• Go caroling to a friend or neighbour
• Go to the branch Christmas party (Dec. 13)
• Share your testimony about the Savior
• Tell why you love someone
• Send out Christmas letters (Dec. 5)
• Call Grandparents to wish them a Merry Christmas (Dec. 24/25)
• Share a favorite Christmas memory
• Draw a Christmas picture
• Make snowflakes
• Bake Christmas cookies
• Sing Christmas songs around the Christmas tree

The ones with set dates will be reserved; no surprise fun on those days. The others I cut into strips and put them into an empty kleenex box. We'll take turns drawing them out and hopefully it will help us get into the Christmas spirit. Another benefit of putting them in the box is that if we draw out a time-consuming one and Andrew still has too much homework we can put it back in and fish around for a quick one and leave the time-consuming ones until after finals.

Wassail Recipe

Hey, here is my mom's (and grandma and great-grandma, etc.) recipe for wassail.

1 Gal apple cider/juice
1 pt. orange juice
1 c. lemon juice
4 c. water
2 c. sugar

in 'spice bag': (or any semi-porous cloth wrapping; I've even used an old t-shirt)
24 whole cloves
12 allspice berries
6 sticks cinnamon
2 small-ish pieces whole ginger

Mix all the juice stuff together, drop in spice bag, simmer at least 1 hour. (I usually let it simmer for more like 4-6 hours, but sometimes this leads to a very strong concentration. If this happens to you, just add a little water).

More Christmas Traditions

Since Andrew's parents gave us their old full-size tree, we have an extra tree in our storage shed that is just a few feet tall.

We both really like Christmas so at first we thought we'd just set them both up. But then we remembered that our apartment is really too small for that. We thought about giving it away, but I'm still a little partial to it since it was our first tree.

So I kept thinking of what to do and how we could use it. As I was decorating our wreath, I came up with an idea.

I thought that it would be fun to break that tree out on Christmas Eve and make homemade decorations for it. Just like the snowmen on our wreath contain personal notes to us, I thought we could make little ornaments and attach notes to them before putting them on the tree. The kids could make paper chains and snowflakes, and any other little ornament idea we come up with.

We are also planning on making little ornaments with the kids' pictures on each year so they can see how they grow. We thought we'd reserve those for the tree on Christmas Eve--then we can look at our pictures, make ornaments, write notes of love and gratitude and decorate the tree with them. It would be a great way to channel that Christmas Eve energy that children have.

Then on Christmas morning we'd take out the notes and read them to each other.

Granted, this might take some censoring from Santa when the children are old enough to fight and be mean to each other. We wouldn't want any hate notes to ruin a Christmas morning for anyone. That's the beauty of being Santa. You can make things go the way you want. You hold the magic.

We also have a nice-sized lump of coal that James Gillespie gave me last year. Isn't he a sweet boy?

I'm going to put some glaze-stuff on it so that it doesn't get everything black. Then on Christmas Eve, Santa will choose someone's stocking and put the coal inside of it with all the goodies. Whoever gets the lump of coal will get to put the star or angel on the top of the tree the next year.

We don't have a star or angel yet, but we want one. Right now our tree is topped with a snowman, which seems overtly pagan to me.

Advent Calendar

Andrew and I have been talking a lot about traditions we want to have in our home. Some are being carried over from our own childhood homes and others we are inventing on the spot.

We feel that since families are being attacked at every side that having fun family traditions can help the fight on our side. Families come first.

With that in mind as the holiday season is fast upon us, we've been seeking out Christmas traditions.

Karen gave us a little advent calendar all stocked up and ready to go...but we still had the old one that she gave us so I was thinking what we could do with that one. Surely we didn't need two calendars with treats.

Instead I thought of 24 things to do as a family to help strengthen our relationships. I typed them up and cut them out and put them randomly in the calendar so not even I know where most of the papers are. There are a few that we planned out.

The second is the first presidency fireside, so we'll be doing that on the second.
The eighth is my friend's wedding reception and we'll be going into SLC anyway, so we are planning on going to see the lights at Temple Square that day.
The sixteenth is our anniversary, so that's when we'll force Rachel to watch us slow dance in the kitchen.
And the twenty-fourth is Christmas eve, so we'll of course be reading the Christmas story and acting that out.

And then I had to strategically place things that Andrew and I could both do on our own (readings, etc) because sometimes he isn't home until late, late, late so it is almost impossible to get family time in. But at least we can read the same message and talk about it over IM or on a later date.

Other than that though, these are all placed randomly in the calendar. None of us have any idea when they will pop up. It should be fun.

• Watch Mr. Krueger's Christmas
• Watch Nora's Christmas Gift
• Watch The Story of the Other Wise Man
• Watch The Nativity
• Watch Joy to the World
• Read the Christmas Story and act it out
  
• Watch the First Presidency Christmas Devotional
• Read President Monson's talk
• Go see the lights on Temple Square
• Everyone choose your favorite Christmas song to sing
• Read this short Christmas message
• Read a message by President Hinckley
• Let daddy be a donkey and take turns riding around on his back like Mary and Joseph
• Read a Christmas story from the library
• Play a game together
• Sing your favorite Christmas hymn
• Read President Faust's message
• Watch mommy and daddy dance to their song
• Go Christmas Light looking
• Turn on jazzy Christmas music and dance in the kitchen
• Play a game together
• Sing your favorite Christmas carols
• Go caroling to a neighbour
• Read what some prophets remember about Christmas

I have had some more ideas for Christmas traditions but it's late so I'll post them later I guess.