25 Days 'til Christmas!

I cannot believe that it is December and Christmas again.  This year has absolutely, totally, positively flown by.  My wings are tired.  Which is the reason why we are starting out 25 Days 'Til Christmas Activities a week late :).  But we really got into it this Christmas... and did a marathon of activities this weekend to get us in the mood for the holidays.  We started with out Countdown to Christmas Calendar - this year we made our own and I think it looks pretty great.

Activity Number 1:  Make out own countdown calendar.

All of those Christmas trees were decorated by us and the star on the top has the number that counts down to Christmas Day.  25 trees - it was a big project but worked out really well.  Underneath each tree is a piece of paper that reveals the Christmas activity for that day. 

For our next activity we went to a Gainesville Christmas Festival.  Our local hospital, North Florida Regional, has a pond that they decorate with a gazillion Christmas lights every year and they make an event of turning on the lights for the first time.  They have live music, dancing, free food and picture ops.  The kids really enjoyed it.  We got to see Rudolph, Frosty and Santa (from afar). 

Activity Number 2:  Visit a Holiday Festival.  This one has lots of lights to see and take pictures with.  Here the kids joined lighted carolers for a fun picture.

For the next two countdown activities we made snowman pizzas (#3) and watched the movie Polar Express (#4).  For the Snowman pizzas we all squish our own dough and add own toppings. And The Polar Express only surfaces at our house once a year and it really is exciting for all of us.  I always cry at the end :).

Activity #3:  Snowman Pizzas-  Do they always look like snowmen?  No, but they are really fun to make. 

Picking out the Christmas Tree has become a part of our yearly activities (#5).  Up until last year we always put up a fake tree thinking that it was better for the environment and us.  But I recently read that plastic trees can be bad for people with allergies if they get too old because of the chemicals used to preserve them (we had out plastic tree for 8 years).  So, this year was our second year going out to find a real tree to bring home.  Picking the tree is part of the adventure then getting the tree in out mini-minivan is where it really gets interesting, but we did again.  And we sure got a cute tree. 

Brrrr... these trees make me cold.

Is this our tree??

Stay Tuned for the next 20 activities until Christmas....