The Evolution Of A Christmas Tradition

I have been doing this advent “calendar” with the kids for the last few years, and it is still one of their favorite holiday traditions.

Well, the older kids don’t care so much now, but Number 5, 6 and 7 still really love it.

We have a lot of Christmas picture books, so I wrap 24 of them up.

And then I put them in a basket.

Each day starting on December 1st we pull a book out of the basket, unwrap it, and read it.

It’s some calm quality time together, we are reading, and it’s an easy way to countdown to Christmas.

The kids get to take turns picking the book, and even though we know what all the books are, what we are going to read each night is still a surprise.

So I love doing this.

But did December sneak up on us, or what???

I woke up this morning and realized I hadn’t wrapped any of the books!

AGGGHHHHH!

When the kids came bounding downstairs telling me it was December 1st and then asking when we were going to pick the first book out of the basket I had to tell them that I hadn’t quite gotten to that yet.

And then they asked if they could do it.

Yes!!!

So the three of them each got eight books to wrap.

I showed them how to measure out the paper, and then they got to wrapping.

They might have used a little too much paper, but it’s okay.

They were learning and practicing how to wrap presents.

They were also practicing sharing.

And they were actually having fun!

They did all of this independently.

It would have taken me about an hour to do this, but the three of them got it done in about twenty minutes.

They didn’t wrap the books perfectly.

But I don’t care… and neither do they!

I was about to go on a search for the basket we used last year to hold the books, and the kids asked if they could find one instead.

To which I happily replied, OF COURSE.

They didn’t go the route I would have gone.

Instead, they asked my husband if he had any old boxes.

He did.

They asked if they could wrap the box.

As I long as I didn’t have to do it, I didn’t care.

They got right to work.

They really had to work together and communicate and cooperate, so this little project was killing like fourteen birds with one stone.

While they were finishing, I worked on some other stuff.

And they proudly showed me their finished product.

They even made a “lid” for the box.

They labeled it 25 Books of Christmas. (we really only have 24 books so the last one is read on Christmas Eve, but that’s okay.)

They love their advent calendar box, and so do I!

This is will be our new and improved tradition!

The kids are now in charge!!!

If you like this idea, you can start it, too, no matter what day it is.

You could start a couple days late — just use less books!

The kids won’t care if you don’t start on the first.

This is a great way to do something fun for your kids while taking some of the responsibility off of your shoulders.

Plus, my kids genuinely had a great time doing this together, and anything that encourages that is okay in my (Christmas) book!