Friday, December 01, 2006

24 Days of Christmas

We're trying a new family tradition this year, inspired by an idea on Kiddley, and I'm really excited about it! We've created our own family "advent calendar", but with activities to do together instead of chocolates. (OK, so chocolates do have their place, but we thought it would be fun to try something different).

I bought an inexpensive foam mailbox from Michael's and decorated it with foam letters and decorations. Then I bought a pad of small-sized Christmas scrapbook pages and folded each into an envelope shape, with an activity written inside for us to do that day. Some of them are more involved and take some planning on our part, and others are just plain silly! I am keeping a master list of all the activities so I can be sure to have the right materials ready, and so that if something comes up on short notice I can always substitute an envelope.

I am so happy with the way it turned out, and total cost was only around $20-25. I figure we can keep the mailbox and re-use it each year, and it was only about $7 for the pad of paper. Amanda made a beeline for the mailbox as soon as she woke up this morning and wanted to know right away what it was. Once we were dressed we made an event out of opening it up and finding the right envelope (good for number recognition!), then opening the envelope and finding our activity for the day. Most of them will be things we do together in the evenings, so it gives us all something to look forward to all day.

We will share photos of our adventures each day, so stay tuned! (We also have a set on Flickr just for this activity, so be sure to check it out!).

Here are some pictures of our mailbox:

Our Family Mailbox

Open Me!

1 comment:

LucisMomma said...

That is a really cute idea. Thanks for posting it! I like that it can be just about anything in the mailbox, so I don't have to be Martha Stewart or Rachel Ray to pull it off. Thanks again!

susan w