The month of December can be tough on parents. All the shopping and baking and
wrapping gifts can eventually become overwhelming. By the way, I HATE wrapping gifts! Now for the kids it is a pretty awesome and magical time. There are school parties, plays to rehearse, pretty lights on all of the houses, and of course the anticipation of ripping open those holiday presents. When my daughter was younger, as soon as December hit, she would ask me every single day…
“How many days until Christmas?”
So I came up with something to help her visualize how many days were left until the big day. I turned to my trusty computer and googled “free printable advent calendar”. There were a ton to choose from. Many are simply 2 pieces of paper glued together with little doors that you make by cutting 3 sides with an exacto knife. Underneath each door is usually a holiday activity. For example, bake cookies or sing a Christmas song. I knew that with our busy schedule trying to find time to bake cookies on a whim was not going to happen, so I tweaked it a little bit. The first year, I put a photo of some of her favorite people behind each door. So one day she would open it up to find a picture of Nana and the next day of her Cousin Lili.
The next year I changed things up again and instead of photos I added a little note behind each door. A simple little message like, “You are a great dancer!” or “You are my sunshine.”
When December 1st arrived this year, my daughter headed to the breakfast table and before
she could even say, “How many days….”, I directed her toward the front door where her new calendar was waiting. She opened box 1 and read her special message.
This year there is an added bonus. Now that my daughter is 6 we seem to be butting heads more and more often. So now, this has allowed us to start each day with a love note from me and a big hug from her. This has become one of our holiday traditions. It is something that I hope my daughters will remember and it helps me deal with the stress that the holidays can bring with that Dec 25th deadline!
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