24 Days of Christmas

This year, since the kids were at such great ages (almost 4 and almost 2) to be able to really get into the spirit of Christmas and all the fun and excitement that surrounds the holiday, I wanted to do some fun things with them that will hopefully last as tradition for many years to come. As I've mentioned only a bajillion times before I LOVE holidays. I love the decorating, and the parties, and the colors, and the food, and the excitement that each one brings. They give us such great excuses to create and have fun I think. So....this year I did our own sort of advent calender for the 24 days before Christmas. I didn't have time to make my own, so we just used the cute little felt one we had hanging in our kitchen and I printed out and tucked away, in each number slot, the activity for that day.

Since this was the first year we did this it wasn't as organized as I hope it will be next year and we didn't do about 5 of the 24 activities, but overall it was a fun way to celebrate the month and I'm really looking forward to adding to it next year and in the years to come as the kids get older and the activities change! I didn't get a chance to take pictures for all of the things that we did, but I'll post the ones that I have to go along with the days.

24 Days of Christmas:

Dec. 1st Put star on the tree
*The tree is decorated sometime in the last week of November but we wait to put the star on until the 1st to kick off the holiday! (and of course they each had to have their own turn!)







Dec. 2nd First gift of Christmas
*This, our first gift of Christmas, is the gift we set aside for our Savior. We each write on a piece of paper the gift we would like to give to Jesus this Christmas and then place it inside a pretty red box I bought that has a pretty ribbon on it. It's the only gift that sits under our tree all month (mostly because the kids would get open any other present left under there) and was such a good reminder of why we're celebrating this time of year as they would see it and say, "Hey there's the present for Jesus!"

Dec. 3rd Write letters to Santa


Not sure what this goofy face is about ;)


Dec. 4th Christmas craft
*We made these fun snowman at Kylee's playgroup. The one on the left is Tyler's and the right is Kylee's


Dec. 5th Watch the First Presidency devotional

Dec. 6th Decorate gingerbread houses
*This year we had a Christmas party at our house for our primary class and one of the things we did was have a gingerbread house contest. We gave awards out for; Gingerbread House most likely to be haunted, Gingerbread House most likely to be in a fairytale; G.H. most likely to be made by Dr. Seuss, and G.H. most likely to collapse.

These were 4 of the kids that were able to come


We LOVE our primary class!


Dec. 7th Serve a neighbor (bring in trashcan, shovel driveway, take a treat, etc.)

Dec. 8th Snow day (go sledding, build snowman, snowball fight)

Dec. 9th Leave love notes for daddy around the house

Dec. 10th Christmas craft





Dec. 11th Donate a toy (toys for tots, operation Christmas, The giving tree, etc.)

Dec. 12th Drive around to see Christmas lights in different neighborhoods

Dec. 13th Christmas around the world
*We didn't do this one this year, but I think when the kids are a little older this one will be SO fun to do. I want to explore the different ways each culture celebrates Christmas-eat the food they eat, the way they eat it (on the floor, with chopsticks, have a BBQ, etc.)-talk about their name for Santa Clause, make some of their traditional decorations, wear their style of clothing, etc. I think each year we will do a different country.

Dec. 14th Go see the newest Christmas/kids movie at the theater.
*This year we took them to see Tangled. LOVED it; can't wait till it's at the $theater! We got to the theater super early to make sure we had good seats. So Kylee got my camera's full attention while daddy and Tyler were getting snacks.

Look at that toe point! Future ballerina?!


Gotta have popcorn...


...and lemonade and these kids are set!


Dec. 15th Go out to dinner and anonymously pay for another family's meal

Dec. 16th Baking Day
*Mindy and I spent one FULL day baking at my house. Typically I hate baking cause I'm absolutely no good at it, but jamming it all into one day with my best friend made it a blast!!! We had quite the spread!



Both of our pumpkin rolls-Mindy's sisters' recipe...


Caramels (my favorite! they were SO soft and melt-in-your-mouth delicious!), muddy buddies, and chocolate almond shortbread.


Milk and white chocolate covered pretzels with sprinkles and fudge-Mindy's recipe and it was TO DIE FOR!


We had no problem devouring half this pan!


The man who helped me dip over 100 pretzels! (I look terrible in this but just looking at this sweet boy's face makes my heart melt so I had to post it :))


Dec. 17th Deliver Christmas gift/treats to neighbors
*This year for neighbor gifts we made these cute snowman cupcakes! This picture is from the Family Fun website cause I totally forgot to take pictures of my own, but I have to say mine actually turned out pretty close to what these looked like! (I used red foot by the foot for the cheeks instead of smarties)



Dec. 18th Christmas craft

Dec. 19th Invite a new family or widow over for dinner

Dec. 20th Go see Santa
*Dec. 19th we had a SUPER surprise visit from Bobby's dad and stepmom, Mary, all the way from Missouri! We had been home from church for maybe 15 min and I was just standin' in my kitchen making bacon wrapped smokies when I see none other than my in-laws pulling up into my driveway. (that was one of those times when I was so thankful that I had taken the time to clean my house before church!) Surprise! So we had fun taking them to see Santa with us the next night!

Tyler was super excited and very eagerly told Santa he wanted a Gordon and Salty engine (from Thomas the Train).


We had rehearsed the "Santa visit" with Kylee a few times so she very politely waited for him to say his line, "What would you like for Christmas little girl?" and then she replied in a barely audible whisper, "A Babydoll and a sucker." We had to repeat it for Santa cause he couldn't quite hear her, but she was very brave and thought it was cool to sit on his lap just like her big brother did.


Even Papa got a turn!


Afterwords Grandpa and Mary treated us to Golden Corral. It's not often that get you get both kids looking at the camera and neither adult!


Papa giving Kylee smooches goodbye till we see them again!


When we got home the kids were dying to play with the BIG bubble wand grandma and papa had brought for the kids and since it was over 15 degrees outside we thought it'd be ok. :)




These 2 love to be outside no matter what the weather!




Dec. 21st Christmas movie with popcorn night at home
*Elf is our family's favorite Christmas movie so that was the choice this year!



Chocolate milk (neither of them are a fan of hot chocolate yet) in our Christmas mugs!


Kylee actually made it to the end of the movie but Tyler fell asleep just like this about 10 min. before it ended. (And can we just give a hallelujah for no more pacifier!-story to come)


Dec. 22nd Go to SLC to see the lights
*This was the first year we've taken the kids to do this and they both really enjoyed seeing SO many lights until it started to snow and then they were done! But I LOVED doing this so we'll definitely keep this on our list of things to do as long as we're living in UT!




You'll have to excuse the blinding light from Tyler's reflective gloves (didn't realize that's what the silver stripe across the side was when we bought them-but hey safety first right?).


The reflection pool


Catching snowfalkes






Love my sweet family!


Dec. 23rd Read Christmas stories by the tree with hot chocolate and cookies

Dec. 24th Open 1 present
*For Christmas Eve we've always had the tradition of opening one present of Christmas jammies. As the kids get older and aren't so "into" jammies I would like to have their one Christmas Eve present be a game that we open up and play while eating fun treats!









Earlier in the day we made cookies for santa (only slice and bake-or even more correctly brake-apart-n-bake, going on in this house :) )




Pouring Santa his milk


sampling the sprinkles from the cookies


All ready Santa!! (Kylee's been asleep the past 2 years when we've done this. Maybe next year baby girl!)



Dec. 25th Merry Christmas!!!!






Santa has been so polite the past couple years leaving nice thank you notes for the kids! Good thing Santa taught us how to spell "Rudolf" correctly! :)


Santa brought Kylee a Babydoll Nursery


Which she went right to work using


And he brought Tyler a new bike which he'll hopefully get to ride sometime soon!


And Santa did NOT disappoint with the requested sucker from Kylee!


She got lots of necklaces this year from Tyler and wore them the whole time we opened presents.


Christmas gifts from Great grandma and grandpa Olson...
Tyler is LOVING puzzles right now! We do them all day long so it's so good that he got a bunch for Christmas!




Best thing about Christmas? Playing with presents in jammies all day!




Such a great Christmas!! (little did they know, the kids had even more fun awaiting them in St. george! They are too spoiled! :) )


***I was really surprised about how much Tyler-and even Kylee-understood this year. Tyler would ask me to tell him the story of Jesus (His birth) all the time. At lunch, in the car, before bed, etc. By the end of December he knew the story by heart and would tell it to me. Even Kylee knew that the innkeeper said there was, "No room at the inn!" after which she would give a pouty lip and sniffle because she was sad for them. And she also liked to pipe in with, "And no bed for baby Jesus!!" when we talked about how He slept in a manger. Their most requested song during December was Away in a Manger and we still sing it to them almost every night. Kylee is also very adamant that her baby's name is in fact, baby Jesus. Before Christmas she had only 1 babydoll which was by her side 24/7 (and it shows-gross) so one day I asked her what her baby's name was to which she replied. "Baby Jesus!" I told her it couldn't be that name because there already was a baby Jesus and that she needed to pick a new name, but there wasn't a chance it the world I could convince her otherwise. ha ha! And good news...Christmas is exactly 11 moths away!***