It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year

I really started thinking about Christmas for the first time last night (and promptly went overboard). Was up until almost 2 in the morning combing through my Pinterest to decide what crafts to do, what presents to give and how I wanted to do the Advent's calendar. We I decided to do an experiences calendar this year, and had a lot of fun deciding which activities to include. The hardest part was deciding which activities to do on those days when both G and I are working, I didn't want to overpromise or create more stress on those evenings when we're already scrambling to get everything done before bedtime. 

Here's what I ended up with: 

1. Decorate the Christmas tree

2. Go to the Christmas market in Schellenberg

3. Make a Christmas craft with mom

4. Write a letter to Santa

5. Choose a special treat

6. Visit St. Nikolaus in the forest

7. (This one's a surprise...I'll update later)

8. Go to the Christmas market in Feldkirch

9. Go to the Christmas market in Vaduz

10. Send Christmas cards

11. Unwrap a book to read

12. Choose a special treat

13. Make Christmas presents for family

14. Have a family Christmas movie night (Charlie Brown)

15. Go sledding (if no snow: Buy each other a present)

16. Unwrap a book to read and sleep at a hotel

17. Go on an airplane ride

18. Take a family Christmas picture

19: Decorate cookies

20: Make a gingerbread house

21: Make egg nog

22: Go on a drive to see Christmas lights

23. Unwrap a book to read

24. Leave cookies for Santa and wear new Puddinhead jammies

25. Open presents!

Still don't have much of an idea what to do for presents (other than that we'll stick to the 4 presents from the "something I want, something I need, something to wear & something to read" school of thought). But I did choose the 3 new Christmas books they'll get this year: The Sweet Smell of Christmas, Snowmen at Christmas and That's Not My Santa (Miles' favorite book right now is a similar one called That's Not My Dinosaur, so I'm banking on a winning theme).

Back-tracking a bit to the holiday it appears I've skipped...no, I haven't forgotten Thanksgiving. I just started incorporating the Thanksgiving story into Dylan's bedtime ritual. We'll do some Thanksgiving crafts tomorrow and Tuesday while their dad's in Paris for work and have the family over for dinner on Sunday. Dylan informed me that he wanted to paint his face like an Indian for Thanksgiving dinner...I figure, why not?

But I'm starting to get into the full swing of the holiday season. I love it even more now that I have kids. Can't wait until they get a little older so we can sleep underneath the Christmas tree for one of our Advent activities.