24 days of Christmas: A Countdown!

Welcome, December! You make the snow outside a little more bearable. Christmas season is really underway now, and I am L O V I N G it! I said it at Halloween, and I'll say it again-- holidays just come alive again when you have kids. All last month I was looking forward with an eye single to Grant's first Christmas (Hopefully this didn't detract too much from being thankful which is customary during this time.)--"What should I do for our first family Christmas card? What should Grant wear in his first picture with Santa?" (Thankfulness definitely should have replaced that frivolity.) "What kind of fun and silly traditions do we want to start? What kind of meaningful/service-oriented traditions do we want to start?" etc. etc. I have been racking my brain and scouring the internet for ways to make this first Christmas extra special. In light of the season, I have decided to share my holiday spirit with everyone in the form of a holiday countdown! I will share at least one holiday idea, project, or experience that I'm using to make Christmas special every day from now until Christmas. Brace yourselves (all three of you who are reading this).

Day 24

What better way to start a countdown than with an ADVENT CALENDAR! Seriously, one of my very favorite things as a kid at Christmastime was my own advent calendar that I could count down the days with. I loved opening the little doors on the paper calendars and seeing a new picture each day. Anticipation is half the fun of anything, after all. I found this little gem on the Queen of Craft herself, Martha Stewart's website:

http://www.marthastewart.com/article/baby-sock-advent-calendar

It was love at first sight for me. You put a treat or small toy inside each sock to pull out each day till Christmas! The socks are hung with little clothespins on a ribbon, and the ribbon hangs from your mantel or staircase. What a cute, crafty, and classy spin on an old favorite! I bought most of my baby socks from Kid-to-Kid (and Grant sacrificed a couple plain white ones), I bought the small clothespins at the craft store, and I cut the little numbers out on my Cricut. Here is my final product:

Since Grant is still too little to enjoy treats or toys small enough to fit inside baby socks, most of the loot will be for Jared this year. I've come up with various cheesy puns to go with the treats.

24 more days!