It is the season for Advent adventures… fun times for sure. It is also the season when things can get a little crazy, and it becomes so easy to fall into the trap of “everyone else is having so much fun.” May I suggest that instead of adding to your calendar that you take a whole lot away and only do the things that are really important to you and your family.
Last year after a season of crazy busy-ness our Advent calendar revolved around stopping and being intentional about family and remembering the fun times we had had together all year… and we created a Natural Treasure Advent Tree, adding a little treasure to our drift wood tree each day. This year I was gifted with some beautiful vintage drawers that I am slightly dying of joy over… and as luck would have it there are twenty-four drawers. We will be posting a little treasure each day throughout advent on our instagram feed… Treasures that we have collected throughout the year on family adventures… that right now are scattered around the house, and popped on the window sill here and used as a paper weight there.
Otherwise we will be reading from our pile of Christmas books…
And our calendar will be filling up with fun things to do to mark the season… being more intentional about the fun times and including seasonal activities that mean so much to our family, the things that make Christmas Christmas for us. Nothing is set in stone, and everything is penciled in… but after years of family Christmases we like things to be the same, week after week, after week… building up to Christmas…
- Christmas Letter Writing: Create some especially beautiful cards, for some especially beautiful people and actually mail them.
- Christmas Baking: Cookies, and potential gifts… there will be fudge!!!
- A Day for Gift Making: Here’s a list of gifts we have made before.
- A Day for Packaging: Making gift wrap, and wrapping them long before Christmas Eve.
- Christmas Crafting: There are always new decorations to be made, always!!!
- Just Family Fun: An afternoon of games, and evening walk to the beach for Ice-Cream, as one does. It is summer after all.
- An Evening of Christmas Carols.
- And Repeat: The next week, until Christmas is upon us.
It is early days for us to be feeling terribly Christmassy… but one batch of Christmas cookies and the smell of Christmas spices and we will be right in the swing of it. Wishing you all an adventurous Advent full of fun times.