The Twenty-Four Days Before Christmas - Day 1

Today we read The Twenty-four Days Before Christmas just like we do every single Christmas. It is one of our favorites. Even I enjoy it and look forward to pulling it out. It is about the Austin family and their three children. The Austin family does one special thing every day of December to prepare for Christmas. They are also preparing for the birth of a new baby that happens to be due around December 25. This is very upsetting to the middle child, Vicky, who is worried that their mother will not be home for Christmas. 

This year we decided to try to do one special thing every single day before Christmas just like in the book. The kids are pretty excited about this. I told them it would sometimes be something very small just like in the book -- where it could be bringing out the advent calendar or hanging a wreath. So, we are going to see how it goes. I plan to post each day about what we did which will be a challenge for me as I am not good at posting frequently. But, we decided this might be fun. I can see myself in a couple of weeks wishing I had never agreed to this. 

So, today, on Day 1, we bought our gingerbread houses that we always decorate after seeing Santa. 

Andrew decided he wanted to try making a chocolate house -- he has to melt the chocolate and put it in the molds and then put it together. Sounds like trouble to me, but that is what he wanted and then Sarah decided she wanted the same thing. He will have to help Sarah with the molds as she will definitely have problems getting this house done.

Bella thinks she is making a house, but I had planned for her to decorate gingerbread boys. I bought a box with four large boys already made. Now I feel a little bad and might have to go back and buy another house. She showed no interest in the gingerbread boys I got especially for her.

We had a nice day planning all the things we will do and now I am tired just thinking that I said we would do this. But, I did say that many of the things would be very small -- put up a few cottages or make a Christmas card or even take cookies to a neighbor. I want this to be fun but not ridiculous and exhausting. I want to basically spend time doing something together no matter how small and I can always just resort to saying we read a Christmas book because we do that every single day anyway!