Christmas Time

Christmas time was a wonderful time at our house this year. I was a little afraid because the kids had all of December off of school because we changed to B track this year. When the kids are off track they tend to be fighting a lot and don't play together too well, so I was worried that this would ruin Christmas. To prepare for this time off, I spent a lot of time shopping, looking on pinterest and crafting to get ready for it. Well, all my plans and preparations turned out to be a great success! I was so happy and best of all, the kids were happy too! It even made it less stressful because I had prepared so much ahead of time. As I look back I think there were 3 things that really helped make it a good time.

1. We had a return visit from our elf on the shelf and the kids were so excited they would wake up early every morning to find him. Plus he was a good watcher to make sure the kids were good for Santa. Here are some pictures of some different things they found him doing each morning.

 Coloring a picture in the kids coloring book

 Watching TV & eating marshmallows

 Hanging out with all of Karen's Barbies

 Snowball (marshmallow) fight with a snowman and penguin decoration

 Reading in 3rd Nephi about the birth of Jesus

 Sitting in our new ornament wreath

 Showing how much he loves Karen & Michael

Fishing for goldfish crackers

2. We had an advent calendar to count down the days, which helped the kids have another thing to look forward to. I found some ideas on pinterest and made our own advent calendar. Each day had a small treat in it and an activity that we would do that day. We had some fun activities like cutting out snowflakes, making a snowman, making gingerbread nativity scenes, reading The Night Before Christmas and the nativity story, etc. We also did some service activities like hiding dollar bills at the Dollar Tree store, taking flowers to the hospital, giving a surprise gift to someone, and other stuff. We had a lot of fun and I think it helped the kids learn a little something about giving. Here's a picture of the advent calendar and  a couple  of the crafts we did.

Made from a 24 count muffin tin for $5.00. Totally worth it and reusable too.

 "gingerbread" nativity scenes (lots of sheep)

 snowflake patterns courtesy of pinterest

 there was no snow this year so we had to make snowmen this way

3.  The kids had things to do and look forward to so they didn't get as bored and they didn't fight as much and they played better together. 

Over all, the Christmas break off track was wonderful and I'm looking forward to having it again next year.