I made an advent calendar.
Being the professional procrastinator that I am, I waited until 4:00 pm on December 1st to start.
It was 11 years in the making. I had hoped to start making family traditions and memories with an advent calendar that focused on things we would do together when our first son was born… 11 years ago. Mom fail #1
Anyhow, I managed to get it completed a little after midnight so even though it technically wasn’t done on the 1st, I easily remedied missing a day by making the first event, “ make an advent calendar.” Voila.
Instant family memories.
Of course, while I was trying to get it finished, I bribed my 6-year-old daughter with candy to watch my 2-year-old son, who sensed that mom’s busyness could work to his advantage and therefore also needed candy. Mom fail #2
The kids were coming in asking for dinner, needing a band-aid, asking me to see their drawing, or their new Lego creation.
My 11-year-old wanted to hang out with me.I told him to go play video games for as long as he wanted instead. Mom fail #3
“Ugggh, I’m trying to get this done! If I don’t finish this tonight and we miss a day, it’s not worth doing. Don’t you want to have fun family time? Well, we can’t have any memories unless I get this done. Can’t you just leave mommy alone for a little bit?” Mom fail #4
And so I sewed and patched and sewed some more. I wrote on little tags and tied them with ribbon. I let my kids eat cereal for dinner, at least I think it was cereal.
I thought up fun events we could do each day. That is, each day after mommy finished this.
- Make an advent Calendar ( ok, so that’s kind of cheating…)
- Go to the Christmas parade
- Make and decorate cookies
- Go to the Nutcracker with Kaia
- Have a fancy family dinner
- Make an ornament for the tree
- Make a homemade nativity set
- Write to our Compassion and World Vision kids
- Go sledding
- Find every pillow and blanket in the house and pile them onto the living room floor, snuggle in and watch It’s a Wonderful Life
- Have a sleepover under the Christmas tree
- Have a Lego building party
- Buy a gift for a child in need
- Watch Elf and drink cocoa
- Volunteer at the community center
- Make treats for our neighbors
- Build a snowman
- Make a fort
- Cut out paper snowflakes
- Have a game night with Blokus, Quirkle, and Just Dance ( which I will dominate)
- Make gingerbread houses
- Drive out to Eagle Crest and see the lights
- Have Jordan and Sarah and all the nieces over for dessert and gifts
- Go to grandma and grandpa’s for Christmas Eve dinner and gift exchange
- Christmas, Unto us a Savior is born! Let’s celebrate!
