Christmas Calendar...It's not too late!

My kids are finally old enough this year to really "get" a countdown calendar and get excited about Christmas approaching.

Justin and I discussed it and decided that for us, adding an item each day will work best (I don't want to put that we will look at lights on the 15 if it is raining that day!  OR  What if we've had a long day?...add "drink hot chocolate together" and you've got an event!)...each evening when Justin gets home we will open the calendar and see what we are doing that night as a family (sometime during the day JB and I will have discussed it and I will have added that night's activity to the calendar). 

I made the calendar from items in my craft room, so it was free.  Most of the items that will go on there are things we will be doing anyway, but like I've mentioned before...Kids LOVE anything that has a special name and that you have dolled up to be extra special!

I think it will be fun to keep the calendar from each year and it will make our December "deliberate".  One of our goals is to really emphasize "Choose to Love" each night and include items of "giving" like:

Invite a neighbor over to watch Elf.
Make cookies for your teachers.
Go shopping and buy a gift for someone else.
Help wrap gifts for others.

Again, things we are doing anyway, but by emphasizing, we can really make December extra special!

Also, after we watched the Curious George Christmas episode I made these up for their doors.  Like Curious George, each morning they can circle the day they are on, and mark off the day before to see how many days till Christmas.  It will cut down on the "How many days?!" questions and they can practice their counting!