Counting the Days till Christmas Activities...

The holiday season is so full of magic and I enjoy adding as much extra excitement to the season for my boys as I can. I wanted to have something special for the boys to look forward to each day so I created this counting the days till Christmas.
The bags were beyond simple to do. Just plain white bags with red numbers stamped on them.
Once I had the bags I looked at our calendar and typed up things we were planning on doing to put in the proper date bag. For example we're making wreaths with some friends on the 8th so that card was put in the #8 bag. After I had everything that was on the calendar in a bag I filled in the rest with fun holiday things like decorating gingerbread houses, having hot cocoa with marshmallows, watching a holiday video, making cookies, painting an ornament, going sledding, etc. I only have bags 1-10 on the mantel right now. I like mine to be spread apart so I didn't put all of them out at once. It just looked too cluttered to me.
We did our first bag this evening which had a strip of paper that said hot cocoa with marshmallows. The boys were so excited to enjoy their hot cocoa after dinner and are already pumped about what the bag will say tomorrow. We're visiting Santa right after school so we'll let them check it in the morning. It's as fun as I had hoped it would be!

Here's what we have coming up if you need ideas for this week:
1: hot cocoa with marshmallows
2: Santa visit
3: Dinner & a Movie Outreach *our church is having a community outreach evening where we're serving soup, having a movie, and making crafts with the kids.
4: Decorating our Christmas tree (I can't believe it's not up yet!!! Poor thing has been sitting on our back porch for over a week!)
5: Advent Wreath Family Reflection #2