24 Days of Christmas

Each day the kids open a present to see what the activity of the day was!

Day 1: Put up the Christmas tree- and I made this felt tree for them to redecorate any time they wanted!

Day 2: Write letters to Santa.  Serra asked for a princess bike with a carriage for her baby to ride in, red sparkly shoes that don't hurt her feet, and a piece of candy.  Alex asked for cars, drums, and candy.

Day 3: We went to a "festival of trees" and boutique at the University Mall with their cousin, Scott.  This was their favorite tree.

  

Day 4: We went to a Christmas puppet show at the local library.  My kids have never really sat long enough to enjoy a story time or puppet show, but this time seemed to work- maybe we'll go more often this next year now!

Day 5: We colored some Christmas pages and put on Christmas tattoos with some neighbor friends!

Day 6: We made some ornaments out of buttons to look like a wreath- Serra gave some to her teachers for a Christmas gift this year.

Day 7: We made hand-print ornaments to be able to remember how small they used to be years later.

Day 8: Gingerbread house day!  First we went to Lowe's free kid's clinic where they made some wooden gingerbread houses- with a hinged roof so they can put stuff in it!

 Then we made a gingerbread house out of foam from a kit I bought last year.

 Lastly, they made a cookie gingerbread house with Daddy!

Day 9: Christmas trivia game and Christmas puzzles- Serra definitely takes after her dad and loves to build puzzles.

Day 10: Free carriage rides at Provo Riverwoods... 

 AND 7-Eleven hot cocoa!

Day 11: We grew a crystal tree and snowman with our friends, Hailey and Kinzey.  It takes a couple of hours for the crystals to show and the kids kept asking, "can we see them yet?"

Day 12: We went to Thanksgiving Point to see some of Santa's reindeer and watch someone sculpt ice in-person.  The man doing it when we showed up was sculpting a polar bear!

Day 13: We made snowflakes- these are our paper ones.  And yes, Alex and Serra really cut the ones they are holding!

 We also made a snowflake with a tortilla, baked it and sprinkled it with powdered sugar and silver sprinkles!

Day 14: The kids made snowglobes out of baby food jars- Serra's has a Christmas tree and Alex's is a snowman.

Day 15: We went to Thanksgiving Point to see the holiday lights.  We also visited Santa at a neighbor's house and drove by a couple of homes in the area that put their lights to a radio station for quite a show!

 This is what their expressions were for most of the lighting show... too enthralled to even show excitement!

Day 16: We were waiting for it to snow so that we could have our SNOW DAY!  We built a snowman with a snowman kit Ian's aunt, Denise, gave us last year for Christmas.

 And we went sledding for the first time- the kids LOVED it!

Day 17: Some neighbors were hosting caroling at their house and even though it was raining, we showed up to sing!

Day 18: We went to IKEA, one of the kids' favorite stores because they get a free meal on Tuesdays and Serra gets to play in their playland while Alex wanders the store with me to see what he can find!

Day 19: We have a neighborhood co-op where we take turns watching each others' kids for free.  Today was my assigned shift, so we decided to have a Christmas party!  We played games- below are the winners for pinning the carrot on the snowman.

 And we made artwork with our FEET!

Day 20: We invited our friends, Benjamin and Anna, over to make some cards and brought them with some goodies we made to the local Fire and Police departments.  We forgot to get a picture at the Fire department, but the kids posed with a policeman!

Day 21: We kept our annual tradition this year of going to Ian's aunt Denise's house to bake goodies!  Serra made some sugar cookies that you stack to make a Christmas "tree".

Day 22: We all went to the Dollar Tree and got to pick out 1 thing for each person in the family.  When we got home, we each had 3 gifts to open.  It was interesting to see what the kids picked and how well they know the kinds of things we like!

Day 23: We had a Christmas slumber party with my cousin's kids, Cecily and Andrew, and so we made some pizza for dinner...

 And "snowball" pancakes for breakfast [Aebelskivers]!

Day 24: We opened up our new Christmas PJs- the kids both LOVE theirs!

 And right before bed, Daddy read The Night Before Christmas poem.

It was a LOT of work to come up with ideas, coordinate it with our schedule and make sure we completed each activity.  But it was SO worth it- the kids loved it and so did I!  It created a lot of great memories, too. I don't think we'll do it again for a while, but we'll definitely keep up several of the activities for traditions- we just won't do 24 activities!