The Accidental Advent

Isn't it often true that the harder you work on something, the less impressed your kids will be? And on the flip side, when you just throw something together, the kids will rave? Like when you slave over dinner 6 nights a week, and the one dinner they actually consume is the hot dogs and macaroni that you throw on the table on your lazy night?

I guess it falls in line with the old why buy a toy when they just want the box theory.

And so it happened with this year's advent. I meant to plan something really cute. I brainstormed and looked up ideas online, but December 1st snuck up on me and I had nothing prepared.

That morning while everyone was at school I decided to make something, but that morning I was really busy. I had to make food to drop off at the church for a missionary luncheon and then I had to run to the store because we had NO, and I mean not a single square, of toilet paper. As I was ready to checkout at the store, I saw a box of Grinch Christmas cards. I thought...I could just write an activity on one of those cards each day and put it in the mailbox and that could be our advent. Good enough.

I picked up Chloe and we went to the movies with Kennon and Kayleigh, which landed us at home about 10 minutes before the big kids got home. I quickly scribbled out the first card to explain how the process would work to the kids. Then I thought...but wait, you don't have an activity for today on there. There was no time to get anything ready so for their first task I told them they had to go to Hobby Lobby and get supplies and make a mailbox where I could deliver their letters. Then, completely as an afterthought, I signed the letter The Grinch.

They read the letter and went nuts. Alyssa started writing rhyming thank you letters to the Grinch and Alex drew pictures and had a list of questions for him like Do you know the Cat in the Hat? And what are you? A monster or a goon? Then we set off for Hobby Lobby to get stuff to make our mailbox.

I wanted to supervise and make sure the mailbox was cute, but by the time we got home I had to cook dinner so we could get to taekwondo on time so I told the kids to just cut up scrapbook paper and cover the mailbox and then I would modpodge the whole thing. I had never used modpodge and I think it looks fun so I wanted to try it. I think it came out super cute. That was Day 1.

Stuffed with letters and pictures from the kids.

Now the Grinch comes every day and he even writes his letters in rhyme now. The kids are absolutely loving it.

Day 2- Christmas jammies under their pillows. Okay, so the jammies are not super Christmasy but the girls were buy one get one for $2 at Gymboree so we got hot chocolate jammies, and Al's came from Carters for 60% off.

Day 3- The Grinch told the kids to start the day off at the Church Christmas party and then head over to the electric parade in Lake Geneva if the rain stayed away. It didn't, so no parade, but we did make it to the Ward party.

Alyssa opted out of Santa time because she recognized him as Ben and Sam and Vincent's dad. Chloe chickened out so at first we just had Alex visit with him.

Then Chloe wanted to try again when she saw that Alex got a rainbow candy cane, so Seth joined her on Santa's lap, literally. Santa is our neighbor so we all had a good laugh about it.

If you are wondering why Seth is clean shaven in that last picture, it is because when No Shave November ended he shaved an ugly mustache, with lambchop sideburns and a patch of hair under his lip. It was awful! Thankfully, the beard is back now.

Day 4- The kids woke up to a breakfast treat. Yes, you have probably seen these snowmen donuts all over Pinterest...loving Pinterest but they won't let me pin because I don't have a Facebook account.

After church they made their paper doll snowmen.

Day 5- Christmas FHE. My sister found this on Pinterest and forwarded it to me. Click here to see the original lesson plan. Basically you describe Jesus, only the kids think you are describing Santa. They were shocked when they realized all the things they know about Santa are true about Jesus. I did not follow the lesson plan exactly and when she uses Santa as a symbol for Jesus, I took another route. I talked about how Santa was the first thing to come to our mind and how we need to try to remember to put Jesus first at Christmas time. The lesson came at the perfect time because just the other day Alex said why is everyone so excited about Santa at Christmas and no one cares about Jesus. It's Jesus' birthday! We ended by taking out the Fisher Price Nativity and I printed Nativity Go Fish cards found here, and we played a few rounds. The whole lesson was a pretty big hit!

This is the only picture I took. After the kids heard the clues and guessed Santa, they opened a gift (instead of a door as described in the lesson plan) to see if they were right and it had these pictures of Jesus. Luckily my YW lesson manual had two pics of him in red and white back to back so I didn't have to print anything.

Day 6- Tuesdays are insane, especially when Seth is out of town, which he was. Think school, to piano lessons, to 10 minutes for dinner, to taekwondo (for 2 hours, because Al's invite gives him one month free in the leadership program), then 25 minutes to church to drop Alyssa off while Al is still in class, and 25 minutes back to taekwondo, just in time for Al's class to end and 25 back to church just in time for Activity Days to end, to finally getting kids in to bed at 9:30. Phew! So when I came across Grinch Pills on Google (Pinterest was down) I knew I had to do it. The ones I found were tic tacs in super cute handmade boxes but on a Tuesday there was no way that was happening, so I just threw green M&M's in tiny canisters and called it good. I have to admit that 3 times that day Alyssa came and hugged me and put one of her pills in my hand. I told you Tuesdays were stressful.

Day 7- Christmas Bingo! And Seth came home so he was even there to play along. The Ring Pops were prizes.

And that brings us to today, and I have no idea what the Grinch has in store for us today so I better go consult with him before Chloe gets out of school.