Getting Ready for Christmas - Part 2 of 2

Yesterday, I shared with you our plans for gifts and stocking (yay!).

I'm also excited to be planning a bunch of Christmas-related things to incorporate into our h/school efforts for December.  We'll continue with school most mornings until almost mid December, but from December 1st onwards, my goal is to switch focus in the afternoons towards more Christmasy stuff.

For those afternoons, I have planned:

• Crafts:  The usual kinds of kids' crafts (making snowflakes, angels, ornaments, etc etc) and various colouring pages that I've found online.

• Activities:  Putting up the tree (of course!); decorating a gingerbread house; doing a scavenger hunt (which I've named Operation Candy Cane but which will include a re-telling of the biblical Christmas story); baking cookies; watching movies (It's a Wonderful Life; Sound of Music); learning how to make popcorn strands for the tree, etc etc

• Reading:  We'll be reading the Christmas story from the Bible a number of times; I've ordered various books from the library (T'was the Night Before Christmas; The Nutcracker; Polar Express; The Twelve Days of Christmas; Madeine's Christmas; A Christmas Carol; How the Grinch Stole Christmas; Eloise at Christmas Time; etc etc); and have located a number of free audio books online that we'll listen to (The Girl who Missed Christmas; Swan Lake; Sir Gawain and the Green Knight - Parts 1 & 2; etc etc).

• Learning activities:  We'll be learning about Advent and doing daily Advent activities for the first time (using ideas from the Truth in the Tinsel e-book) and using the Advent Christmas tree and ornaments that my Mom is apparently almost finished painting for us (how nice is that!!); listening to lots of Christmas carols and trying to learn words to a few; memorizing two or three key Bible verses to go along with Christmas; learning the history of candy canes; reading about St. Nicholas and the origins of the Santa story; and so on. 

I'm excited about the month of December.  It's by far the most organized I've ever been when it comes to being deliberate about planning in the four areas I've noted above.  I'm still not quite finished all of the prep, but I'm getting there!  I can hardly wait!!