Carver Family Christmas: Activity Book

Monday, November 10, 2008

Activity Book

I found a cute activity book I need to send to Ava and Mia for the month of December I didn't want to forget about:

http://members.EnchantedLearning.com/books/holiday/winter/gingerbreadhouse/

So cute! Now I'll need to find something for the rest of the kids....

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Our Traditions Old And New

* Watch "The Christmas Story" after family Thanksgiving dinner (Tues before Thanksgiving, no extended family)
* Watch "The Polar Express" on trim-the-tree night
* Read scriptures and light advent candles nightly in December
* Get pictures taken with Santa
* Drive to Pyramid Hill Sculpture Park for their lights display
* Go downtown Cincinnati for "Carver Family Christmas Downtown Day"
* Take Jackie to see "The Nutcracker" ballet
* Watch "The Nativity" Christmas Eve
* Attend Christmas Eve service at church
* Add the Christmas Pickle ornament to the tree Christmas Eve, come up with a reward for the finder Christmas morning
* Daddy reads Luke 2 and we have a prayer before the kids open gifts
* Watch Disney's Christmas parade Christmas morning
* Watch "A Charlie Brown Christmas" Christmas night

What exactly do we do for our advent tradition?

There are many different ways to celebrate advent with candle lighting ceremonies and I have created my own which is an adaptation of a Catholic tradition. I use purple candles the first three weeks to symbolize the royalty of Christ, a pink candle the fourth week to symbolize joy at the coming of the Savior's birth and a fifth candle, a white Christ Candle to remind us that Jesus is the light of the world. The fifth candle gets lit on Christmas Eve. This year (2008) I intend on hunting down some exquisitely beautiful candle holders and decorating my piano (a focus in my living room corner) with only these candles, greenery and a manger scene. I'm going to buy 4 sets of these candle holders and give them to the kids as wedding gifts when they get married. I use new candles each year and the candles are lit each night only during our scripture reading time and on Christmas Eve stay lit during "The Nativity" movie. I'm going to create my own list of passages and thoughts to go with them and I'll add them to this blog when that is complete.

What is "Carver Family Christmas Downtown Day"?

Something entirely made up by me! Traditions are very important to close-knit families and anything you give a title to becomes a tradition the kids can look forward to. I love the city, and incidentally so does Steve Jr, and the businesses and museums downtown bring Christmas to life through train displays, carriage rides (the picture on the blog was from '07), special foods, gingerbread houses and wonderful decorations. Since we do go downtown every year and do it all I decided to give our tradition a name, and last year I even typed up booklets with all the activities available to do downtown!! The kids love this. CLICK HERE to see a current listing of events happening in and around the city - year round!

We Are A Charlie Brown Holiday Family

Traditions don't need to be elaborate to be meaningful and one thing we do is watch a Charlie Brown special on most major holidays of the year. We have A Charlie Brown Christmas, It's The Easter Beagle Charlie Brown, A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving, It's The Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown and Be My Valentine Charlie Brown. All the titles have 2 shows each and we do watch both. And this is always on the evening of the actual holiday day. So no matter whose house we go to wherever we go, we always end the day at home doing something special, just the five of us. Maybe this tradition will change when the kids outgrow these DVDs but you can bet I'll be finding something good to replace the tradition with!