Day 2 began at 4:30am this morning with fevers, so the day was less active than originally planned. The advent activity for the day is to watch our town’s small (very small) Santa Parade. The parade only has a few floats, but Santa and a firetruck make an appearance and the kids think it’s wonderful. We can hand-in our Santa letters during the parade, so the the kids got 2 blank template letters to Santa in their advent today. The pixy was writing his own letter to Santa this morning. The Santa advent for today also contained 2 blinking Rudolph noses from to wear during the parade.
To my delight, in her letter, my daughter declared she was only “mostly good” this year and would like a tie dye kit from Costco. My son was “very good” and would like a toy vacuum. I have no idea where he got that idea from. But, I definitely support him learning to vacuum.
The first of December started off big with our Christmas Chalet play scene. We got our ski chalet dollhouse last December and the kids loved playing with it up until Christmas. They’ve been asking when it will make an appearance again this year. I bring it out on the first day of the month so we can get lots of play with it before Christmas. The house itself was a thrifted $25 Marketplace find that I fixed up with a bit of paint and “wallpaper” (wrapping paper). A few things are new, but many parts of the set up are toys we already had and have been rotated out of play for a while, so they will seem new to the kids. The whole scene is propped up on our Nugget couch pieces, with some white fabric and snow blankets on top.
Both my kids love the tiny details and, thank goodness, they are finally at ages (3.5 and 5.5) when I don’t have to worry about them putting things in their mouths. This year, I added a bunch of tiny extras for them to discover and to compliment their tiny play scenes.
Of course, it’s not a ski chalet without a ski hill. My 5.5 year old daughter loves to ski and my 3.5 year old son will be starting this year (fingers crossed). We all love toys that allow re-enacting things from our real life. The basket “ski lift” (from Kraul) was a Christmas gift for my daughter last year. The kids have loved using it to carry their mice and other treasures up the hill. And when they get to the top, what could be more fun than a little Santa and Mrs. Claus village? My daughter already made the Michaels Santa’s Workshop this year and I thought it would be a fun addition to the North Pole.
When the mouse family needs a change from skiing, they can put on their skates and try out the skating rink. The rink is a DIY my daughter and I made last year of cardboard, paint, glitter and cotton balls.
And the gift for today? The Mom and Dad Winter Mice from Maileg, complete with their own skis. I think the kids have had as much fun playing with it as I had creating it.
And just to prove how much kids enjoyed this little scene, here’s a proof-of-play photo.
The highlight for my daughter has been using tiny loose parts in jars to “cook” in the kitchen. I had not anticipated the jars being opened and dumped out, but I took a deep breath and reminded myself that the mess is worth their delight. Happy first day of advent.
Pixy Update
The pixy arrived sitting on top of the kids store-bought advent calendars. With all the excitement this morning, they didn’t seem to notice the pixy much. I’m going to continue to play it low-key. I think it will make it more exciting for the kids when they realize he moves around.
I have a lot of fun with advent in December, which is probably why it’s a bit over the top. My husband smiles and shakes his head, but the kids love it and I do too. I don’t dare share my craziness with other mom’s I know, so I’m posting it here.
I like our advent to be a mixture of gifts and activities. I started this last year and although it’s more work to organize it before December 1st, I found that having the month planned out in advance helped me to relax and enjoy the Christmas festivities more. When will we make a gingerbread house? Are we going to look at Christmas Lights? When will we see Santa? I don’t need to worry about organizing, booking and making sure I don’t miss any of our Christmas traditions because it’s all planned. Of course, my kids also love a little gift, so this year I’ve included a few activity-related gifts with our advent and also got them pre-packaged advents with small gifts in them.
Our Santa Pixy Advent calendar is from MailegThe Build a Bracelet Jewelry Advent Calendar is from Great Pretenders (purchased from the small shop Sewing Seeds Play) and the Thomas the Train Minis Calendar is from Amazon
I’m also planning to soft launch some pixy antics in our home this year. It will be our version of Elf on the Shelf – the pixy may get up to some mischief, but there will be no reporting back to Santa on behaviour and no rules about touching the pixy. I thought the “no touching” Elf on the Shelf rule would be nearly impossible to enforce with my kids. Maileg also released the adorable Long Legged Pixy this year, so i thought it would be a good chance to try out some pixy fun. We will see how it goes. I don’t want to commit to anything that becomes too stressful or burdensome so I’m giving it a test run this year. The pixy will just show up one the first day of advent and move around each day. Can I keep up with the pixy? Stay tuned…
Oops, I almost forgot. I have one more advent related activity for the kids. A book advent. We have been collecting Christmas books for a few years and we finally have enough to try the book advent. There are only 2 to 3 new ones I collected throughout the year. The rest we already had. I wrapped them all individually in brown paper and scrap packing paper I found around the house and put them all in a crate at the top of our stairs. There are no numbers on the books. I thought the kids could pick out one each night as they head upstairs for bath. My kids tend to get fixated on one book and read it over and over. I know this is developmental and completely normal, but sometimes mom and dad want to read a different book. I thought the book advent would be a great way to encourage the kids to read all our Christmas books this year. It’s also a great set-it and forget-it activity for me.
So that’s it, our advent fun for this year: an activity advent, two store bought advents, pixy antics and a book advent. We are all in for a festive December.
