Advent Adventures (half-way there!)

Advent activity calendars  - they are all the rage.  Growing up, I knew nothing of Advent calendars.  Well, that's not true.  Every year or so we'd get the little cardboard things where you punched out a box each day to find a piece of fake-chocolate candy.  Haha.

Last year, Hudson was only 6 months old during the Christmas season therefore he was pretty oblivious.  This year, at 18 months, he's much more aware so I decided to make a little Advent activity calendar for us.  I'm resourceufl (read: cheap) so here's what I created:

Yep, it's about as cheap as you can get.  I found the cute little green envelope printouts here.  They are super easy to print, cut, and tape together.  I wish I had access to a laminator because I really should have laminated them so they'd last well until next year.  I stuck them to the fridge because honestly, I wasn't sure where else to put them.  Thankfully Hudson left them alone after the first day.

On to the activities!  Thanks to pinterest, there are so many options but since Hudson is only 18 months old, I kept it pretty simple.

- A few days of eating special Christmas candy (chocolate orange, marshmallow Santas, etc..)
- A few days of making homemade Christmas treats (decorating sugar cookies, cupcakes, etc...)
- Several days of unwrapping and reading Christmas books (thanks to my years as an elementary school teacher, I have quite the collection)
- Getting out Hudson's Fisher Price Nativity
- Decorating a gingerbread house
- Setting up Hudson's little tree with his ornaments on it
- Drinking hot (lukewarm for Hudson) cocoa
- Christmas art, courtesy of the after-Christmas clearance dollar spot at Target last year
- Buying and wrapping a gift for a child in need
- Christmas Sensory Play
- Christmas Pizza
- Christmas Eve Box

We're half-way through it now and it's fun.  Honestly, Hudson doesn't have a clue but that's OK - I'm making memories even if he doesn't remember.  As he ages, I plan to tweak the activities to be more Jesus-centered and service-focused but for now, it's all fun and games.

Enjoy the pictures of our Advent adventures thus far.

Playing with his nativity for the first time this Christmas season.

Sugar Cookies!

Watching Carrie Underwood pretend to be Julie Andrews in "The Sound of Music".
Hudson was glued to the TV, for about 3 minutes.

Stirring the hot cocoa!

No idea why this is sideways?
Enjoying lukewarm cocoa in his snowman sippy cup from his nursery workers last year!

Reading Dr. Seuss by his Christmas Tree

Opening and reading one of our many Christmas books. Sideways, again?

Gingerbread house time!

Don't let the picture fool you - he was not helping, he was
removing candy from the doorway to eat!

Do you have any daily Advent activities to help prepare your Christmas?  If so, share!