Advent Day 11-15

Day 11: Activity = make reindeer craft cards to send to friends.  Jackie and some of her friends send each other Christmas cards.  It's cute and you know how kids love to get mail.  But it was hard to get her to focus on finishing them all in one day so this activity stretched over a week.

Day 12: Disneyland!!  I printed out a picture of a Disneyland ticket and put that in the stocking on the advent calendar.  But we had to leave so early in the morning that we had to wake her up to show her the advent.  Her first reaction was, there's nothing in there but paper!  She was disappointed that I didn't put a little chocolate santa or pez or something like that.  Yep.  You'll have to wait for another post for pictures and more on this one.

Day 13: Put up the Christmas Tree.... but really the only thing that actually got done was getting the tree out of the box and connecting the sections and realizing that the wiring for the lights has gone bad and that I would have to add strings of my own lights unless I want the middle section of the tree to be dark.  Hmmmm.  Jackie was okay with waiting another day to finish the tree.  And the Santa Pez dispenser was a satisfactory advent gift anyways.  (If you are wondering why we don't put the tree up earlier it is because the darn thing takes up so much space that it was hard to fit enough tables and chairs in the house for a large dinner party for Jackie's birthday.)

Day 14:  Go to Winterfest (a local event with man made snow, artificial ice skating rink, and other such things).  That didn't happen.  It was raining all afternoon.  We did finish decorating the tree though.  And Jackie got to play with two different friends that day, so Winterfest wasn't even on her mind.  Plus, she got the chocolate Santa so....

Here is the tree after completion.  As you can see there is an area that is not as brightly lit as the rest despite my efforts to add more lights.  And since Jackie was constantly sabotaging my efforts at perfection I cannot say that I am 100% satisfied with the ribbon placement.  But I really enjoy how much she enjoys opening the boxes of ornaments and looking at them all and talking about where they come from.  Chip off the old block.

Day 15: I gave her one of those little mystery toy packages by Hello Kitty.  You can see on the package that there will be a Hello Kitty inside, but you don't know which one.  They are little Lego figurines, or similar.  By this day she was able to reach the advent calendar stocking on her own so she gets her item out in the morning by herself.  Then, in the dark in mom and dad's bed, she wants me to open it or read it.  I'm half asleep.  Then she proceeded to lose the itty bitty cupcake accessory in our bed.  Still haven't found it.  Also, this day was Emilia's birthday party so we didn't need to schedule any other activities.

Can you tell that the advent calendar of activities and treats is starting to get exhausting and troublesome?  But Jackie is enjoying it and she doesn't get too stuck on the committed activity if something doesn't work out.  Mainly because all she really wants are toys and candy.  I'm still trying to keep up with activity ideas though because I think these are a better way to celebrate the holiday all month long; having experiences and teaching lessons that go behind chocolate Santas and candycanes and presents.