Advent Activities--Days 1, 2 & 3

DAY ONE

Olivia came down the stairs Monday morning and commented on the "beautiful tree and circles" right away!  I tried to explain what we were going to be doing, but I did make her wait to do the activity until Michael got home.

Day 1 (or 24 when counting backwards) was "open one gift".

This is her yelling, "It's clothes!!"  It's actually pajamas.  I know that a lot of people do the pajama tradition, and we have been doing it the last 4 years as well.  But it sort of always bugged me that they would get the pajamas the night before Christmas.  Why start wearing them when the season is ending?  Of course, Olivia has worn her Christmas pajamas clear into the summer the last 2 years. That doesn't really bother me, but why not enjoy them during the season?

I know some people have their elf bring the pajamas to start the season.  Some people do it when they celebrate St. Nick's Day.  We don't do either of those.  So now that we will be doing the advent calendar, day 1 will always be to get their Christmas pajamas.

Olivia was literally getting ready to walk out the door to swimming lessons, so I didn't get a picture of them in their pajamas yet--but it will come!

It took her until almost 3 in the afternoon to notice all of the presents under the tree.  She is IN LOVE with this idea!!  So far, she likes it even more than the advent stuff.  I think she "gets" it better because it's tangible, and she loves books so to her it literally is like Christmas every morning!

DAY TWO

The book for day two was called The Gifts They Gave, which is a super cute book about what each animal in the stable gave to baby Jesus.  As she's opening it she yells, "Look! Animals!... and baby Jesus!... in a nest!" LOL!

The advent activity was to get out and play with the Little People Nativity and to talk about the Christmas story.  We actually have two sets of the nativity.  We got one as a gift a few years ago, and then about a month later we were over at Little Man's house and they gave us his more deluxe set.  I figured that as time goes on it will be nice for both kids to have one to play with, so I kept them both.

The first thing she did was set up baby Jesus, Joseph, and Mary into one of the stables. Then she became fascinated with the crates of food.

She also insisted that baby Jesus should have an older sister! ;)

When we talked about the gifts the wisemen brought, Michael said "Why couldn't they just be easy names like gold, silver, and bronze?"  That made me laugh and think about Jesus being an Olympian or something. :)  Also, Olivia is quite disturbed that one of the wisemen has long hair and looks like a girl.  I guess she likes the clean cut look, too.

Logan got his turn to play with them the next morning.

DAY THREE

Day three was play with window clings.  Meijer had them for $1.29 a sheet, so I picked up a few.

She kept jumping around and saying, "This is so much fun!" and "This is going to be a GREAT Christmas!"  *worth it*

We did a "build a nativity" set on the other door too, but my camera battery died.   (She once again insisted that Jesus needed a big sister.  She's a goof.)