Advent Family Fun, Part 1

As I sit down to finish this post, the boys are busily hanging ornaments on the tree, Bill is filling our birdfeeders and I'm hanging garland wherever I can find a good spot. There are cards in a basket on the table, candles aglow in the windows, and Amazon boxes taking over our bedroom.

I'd say it's beginning to look a lot like ...

 

Now, a while back I mentioned my Advent calendar craft this year - a bulletin board adorned with ribbon and plain paper tags. As I explained in a previous post, on each day of Advent, the boys turn over a tag to read what little bit of holiday fun will be had on this day. 

And this, of course, leaves the planning up to me. The first trick is to keep it doable; no busy mother needs extra work for herself during the Advent season. The second trick is to brainstorm the ideas as far in advance as possible, and - or should I say, but - the third trick is to leave the assigning of activities to the last minute. Sounds kind of crazy but believe me, I found out the hard way you can't always make things happen according to (your) plan - particularly during the hectic holiday season.

For instance, the first year I made tags like this, I wrote all 24 tags out with an idea for each day. Invariably however, something would come up to make the planned activity an ill-fit for the day. A freak ice storm kept us housebound on a day we were meant to go the zoo. A wicked cold settled in and sapped us of energy - not a good time for a walk in the winter woods. 

So now what I do is I make myself a master list of activity ideas, and then I hang all my tags ... blank. Well, the front of each tag is numbered, but the backside is empty. About a week ahead I make a tentative plan for the next several days (this way I can pick up any needed supllies while I'm running errands), and each night before I go to bed I write out the tag for the next day, making sure we have the time, energy and weather to make it work best. 

In my next post I will share some of the ideas I have for Advent family fun this year. I can tell you what tomorrow's tag will read, though ... as it's Earlybird's birthday we will be having an afternoon movie time (Santa Buddies is his current favorite) complete with popcorn and cocoa, homemade pizzas for supper (his favorite) followed by cupcakes and candles of course!