Meet Jack.
He is our very new “watch elf” (no, not a “scout” elf, according to Knittymunchkin – because he’s “watching me!”).
His hobbies include:
Pilfering leftover Halloween candy at night when the humans are sleeping, napping under the Christmas tree and riding the T. rex. When he’s not riding the T. rex, he’s usually on the motorcycle, and once we caught him trying to cheat on his nightly trip to the North Pole by attempting to phone Santa instead (on a defunct cell phone). He’s keeping us VERY busy!
Advent is keeping me busy too. Several years ago now I knit Smitten for Knittymunchkin (unblogged of course, because that’s how I roll apparently). We didn’t have a lot of Christmas traditions when I was a kid, but a few times I was gifted an advent calendar by a neighbor or relative. I clearly remember the anticipation of opening each new window (never mind that chocolate was never involved, just a colored image on card stock) and the building excitement as I counted the days until Christmas. I wanted so much for my son to experience the magic that I had, and for us to build some of our own traditions. The first year I was not quite prepared and the last few mittens were actually unfinished at the start of December. My brilliant super knitty pal Troy, suggested I just hide them each day since I couldn’t have them all hanging on a string ready to go. Guess what? A new tradition was born. Now I hide them every day for Knittymunchkin in the month of December and I can say we have truly made an advent activity that is uniquely ours. I love it.
Though I am Pinterest late-comer, I have the site to thank for some of our cool new advent activities this year. When I started this tradition for my son, I told myself I didn’t want it to be all about receiving gifts or rotting our teeth out with candy. Lucky for me, others share the same feelings (and their ideas for navigating it) on Pinterest. For the first time this year I feel I’ve been fairly well prepared.
A few of the fun things we did this year:
- Wrote a letter to Santa. There’s lots of great templates to be found. I liked this one for this year. Uptown (formerly known as Knittymunchkin) was able to fill out some of his own answers and I filled in the more complicated phrases. He thinks I need a pink teddy bear because “you’re the best mommy in the world.” Awww…..
- Received a letter from Santa. O.k., not really an advent activity, but still a super exciting thing for a kid to receive. All the details are here and it totally works!
- We made Snowball Playdough. Simple, and a total hit! Find it here.
- Melted Crayon Ornaments. We turned those crayons (above) into ornaments (below) and gifted them to friends. Find it here. Just a couple notes….. Do NOT attempt this project if you only own a prehistoric hairdryer that is over 25 years old (like mine). You will be frustrated and probably burn your fingers attempting to melt those damn nubs of crayon. At least I was. All crayons are not melted alike. I noticed that off-brand crayons melted at a different rate from Crayola crayons and it was frustrating to not have all of them melting at once. But this could also be my crappy ass hairdryer coming into play. Also, I had A TON of trouble getting the unmelted nubs of crayon out of the bulbs after we had the inside decorated to our satisfaction. After many swear words and angry shaking of the ornaments (resulting in at least one casualty), I resorted to using the smallest possible bits of crayon & just melting them to extinction. You really don’t need much to coat the inside of each ornament. Much less than you would think. And it’s strangely satisfying to watch them melt into oblivion. Unless your fingers are on fire. I let Uptown pick the colors and I did the heating, so this might not be super appropriate for smaller kiddos, but he still seemed to enjoy it. I’m sensing a bit of a color theme here….. He didn’t branch out too much with his choices. Maybe next time.
Hope you have enjoyed the weeks leading up to Christmas (or your festivity of choice) with your own fantastic, unique traditions! I’d love to hear what you do with your families to prepare for the holidays :)
