Advent Chain

Though this Christmas is technically Arlo's second Christmas, in many ways it feels like our very first with him.  Last December was a flurry of baby preparation and birth planning. Visions of our soon-to-come sugar plum danced in our heads, and, well, Christmas paled in comparison. And when he arrived not quite a week before Christmas day, everything about him usurped everything else. New parenthood had Nick and I punch-drunk on new baby love and sleep deprivation. (Not much has changed in that department, really.) Last Christmas is a total blur to me, but I distinctly remember feeling exquisitely blessed. Just look at this sleepy, motley crew:

I feel a rekindling of holiday excitement this year, almost a child-like sort of joy about it all, and I know it has everything to do with Arlo. I feel a bubbly sort of eagerness about creating new holiday traditions with Arlo, about helping to craft really potent and lovely holiday memories for our family. I stumbled across the idea for a Christmas activity advent chain on a parenting blog I read, and I immediately loved the idea. I especially love that it's activity-focused and more about doing something together as a family. I've seen other advent activity calendars made into beautiful wreaths or trees, things that you would pull out year after year with your children, but I decided to keep this one simple because Arlo is still so little.

It's made from strips of scrapbook paper, some number stickers (to mark the days), and a little ribbon to display it. You simply pull off the link that corresponds with the date, and written on the inside of the link is a holiday activity to complete for the day. The chain becomes shorter and shorter as Christmas approaches.

The chain's beginning:

 And its end:

 Most of the advent chains I've seen are hung vertically, but if I were to hang ours that way Arlo would enthusiastically rip the whole thing down. I hung ours across our hearth.  

Most of the activities are pretty simple and inexpensive/free, like today's activity: Check out a Christmas book from the library. I've included many activities surrounding giving to others, like Collect items to donate to Goodwill, and Donate canned goods to the food bank, and Make a package to send to troops serving overseas. And others involve going somewhere, like taking a tour of the neighborhood's Christmas lights, watching the Christmas parade, and attending a free holiday concert at the university. I set all of the activities up on my Google calendar as well, so that I'm not surprised and scurrying off to the store when I pull something like Decorate gingerbread cookies off the chain.

It cost last than $5 to make and it was a snap to put together once I came up with 25 activities. I have visions of a more elaborate advent activity calendar for the future, but this one works perfectly for now. I'm sure I will be posting some of our Christmas advent activities here, so stay tuned.