Today I'm taking a break from the gift guiding {here are gift guides one & two} and sharing a little inspiration for advent that I created with my dear friends/photographers Pictilio!
There are twenty-five beautiful days in December leading to the celebration of Jesus' birth! Growing up, my grandparents got advent calendars for us every year, and my cousins and I strategically picked our favorites at Thanksgiving {my family is big on traditions, so I'm talking every year until we were practically in college!}
SO. You better believe we're carrying that tradition to our kiddos, with a little twist! Every day of December, we're making a conscious effort to come up with a little family activity we can do or chat about together, to really be remembering the reason for Christmas and not get consumed with distractions. I mean, we're definitely filling the boxes with treats about half of the days, but we're also going to have some fun ideas of how we can GIVE to others, and how we can remember this year. Here are some we'd like to do in our home:
1. Bring a meal to a family who could really use it. Maybe a friend with a newborn, a family in the middle of a move, or someone who is sick or in the hospital.
2. Draw a picture or write a letter to someone who has made you smile this year.
3. Bake cookies together and bring them to a neighbor or two.
4. Make a mini holiday video as a family, and do this one every year!! How amazing would it be to be able to watch a minute video celebrating Christmas traditions for every year as the kiddos grow? (videos are my new favorite thing since the day I tried using iMovie and realized it wasn't as hard as it looks!)
5. Read the Christmas story together with a fire in the fireplace.
6. Choose a gift to donate to families in dire need {there's a little video on the right to show kids how it all works!}
We're pretty excited about this. It's also SO simple to do the box idea, because they're basically already wrapped. You can find packages of boxes at any craft store. Ours are from Paper-Source. Just add a little sparkle with a ribbon, and you're good to go!
Also, Pictilio has more ideas for filling the boxes on their blog today!
Thank you so much to Pictilio for the beautiful photographs! xo