December Activities

Back in November, I decided I wanted us to have a Family Home Evening most evenings in December. So I printed a calendar and scheduled something for each night. Of course, life got super busy, and we didn't get to it all, but we got to do lots of fun things nonetheless.

I had originally planned to do each activity in the evenings when Ryan was home from work, but Collin has shortened up his naps considerably, so many of these were a good activity to keep us busy each afternoon before dinner - which every SAHM knows is the longest and hardest part of the day.

So, without further adieu, here are a few things we did:

Christmas Around the World
I emailed a few friends and invited them to our home for a Monday evening. Each family's mom or dad had served a mission overseas, so we ended up having three presentations about Christmas in another country. Ryan taught us about the unimportance of Christmas in Japan, and then we did a traditional New Year's activity of making mocchi. We also learned about Christmas in Germany and the Dominican Republic. I hope to make it a tradition each year to invite different families over and learned about many different countries.

Saint Nicholas Day
On December 6th, Collin helped me put carrots and apples in his and Brennan's shoes by the fireplace. A looked up Saint Nicholas on Wikipedia and read to him a couple of the stories that are told of his miracles. Then we pretended that his horses came to eat our treats overnight, and they got toy cars in their shoes the next morning.

Gingerbread Men
I checked out two books from the library and read them to Collin.
"Gingerbread Boy" by Karen Schmidt
"Gingerbread Baby" by Jan Brett
Then we made one giant gingerbread boy and many gingerbread babies. I used this delicious cookie recipe and this one for icing. It worked great.

While they baked, we took turns pretending we were the gingerbread man and the little boy. We hid under the end-tables in the living room, and then pretended to run out of the oven and around and around the house yelling "Run, run, run. You can't catch me. I'm the gingerbread man!"

It was fun to decorate them together too. Collin wanted the man to look like him, so we ended up with yellow curls and blue eyes. So cute.

Other Activities
We also spent an evening decorating our tree, and another delivering cookies to the neighbors and some other friends. Another night we made Christmas cards for family around the country. We made a paper chain to count down the days until we leave for our trip. We watched the Christmas Devotional online and had popcorn. We've driven around and looked at the Christmas decorations in the fancy neighborhoods, and we paid to drive through a light display in East Peoria. On a Saturday, Ryan took Collin shopping to purchase gifts for Brennan because "we buy presents for the people we love to show them how much we love them." We also have watched the "Frosty the Snowman" movie with pizza and popcorn on the evenings Dad hasn't been home. We've done the real Christmas story at least three times (each with differing props and nativities), and we've read a few Christmas classics like 'Twas the Night Before Christmas and the Polar Express.

Hopefully you see something fun you could do with your kids. There were lots more ideas online too; these were just the ones I thought we age-appropriate for my little ones. Enjoy, and have a Merry Christmas!