Felt Gingerbread Village

Setting up our felt gingerbread village was one of our advent activities last week.  O had fun at first, but she lost interest quickly.  I, however, had a great time.  I really love this little village!  It's so much fun to set up and decorate the houses.  I'm hoping that O will have fun with it later and that E will love it next year (this year she just wants to put the pieces of felt in her mouth, so it's set up out of her reach).






Here's a link to the directions for making this village.  Unfortunately, the pictures are missing...sorry about that. 

Tiny Angel Ornaments

O and I made tiny angel ornaments from Non Dairy Diary today as our advent activity.  I actually printed these angels last year, but didn't have time to make them.  They turned out so cute, and O loves them.








O cut out the circles, and I cut the head and wing cuts out with an x-acto knife.  We worked together to fold the angels.  This was a fun, simple activity that went along nicely with one of our Christmas books.

One Christmas Book A Day

A couple of years ago, we started the tradition of having O open one Christmas book a day.  Last year, I think I wrapped the books in tissue paper, and I wrapped them in newspaper the year before that.  Neither of those ideas was ideal as I really can't stand to wrap gifts in paper even if I can recycle it...I'm just not good at it, and they always look terrible. 

Every year, after Christmas, I buy lots of Christmas fabric on sale with the intention of making bags for the books.  This year it actually happened!

I cut the fabric into long rectangles.  My mom folded it, pinned it, and sewed each side.  She then cut the ends with pinking shears...done!  Hooray!  She finished all 25 bags and seemed to enjoy it!  THanks, Mom, you are the best! 

So, we've put aside the advent calender that I made last year (E has been slowly destroying it, and I am terrified that she is going to swallow a magnet), and we are now using the bags.  Each bag has one book and either a craft activity or a notecard with an activity written on it.  I've tried to tie the activity in with the book, but that hasn't always been possible. 

Wrapping the books in the fabric bags is so easy...I put a book in the bag and tie the end with a ribbon or fold the fabric over and tie a ribbon over it to hold it in place, so that it actually looks like wrapping paper. 





As the girls' open their book of the day, I take the bag downstairs so that I can use it to wrap gifts to put under the tree.  I'm hoping that we won't have a single piece of wrapping paper under our tree this year!  (although I'm just using these bags for the girls and Elliott, since we'll use them for our books next year, too).





O has really enjoyed searching through the packages to find the right number each day.  My plan is to choose the books for next year and go ahead and wrap them in the bags with an activity when I pack them away in January.  It will be great be organized next year!

Nativity Felt Board Scene

There are lots of printable nativity scenes on the internet, but I think the one at Activity Village is the best!  The peoples faces are so sweet, and I love the colors.   We haven't used our felt board in a while, but I brought it out for this advent activity. 




I printed the nativity characters onto cardstock and glued a small piece of sandpaper to the back of each one.  I was pleasantly surprised by how well they stick to the felt board. 




Here's a close-up of a wiseman since BOTH of our girls are going to be wisemen at church next Sunday!



Take a minute to browse the Activity Village website...there is A LOT of good stuff there!

Painting a Nutcracker

One of O's recent advent activities was to paint an unfinished Nutcracker (bought from Michael's).  We read the Nutcracker book and played with paper Nutcracker figures to go along with this craft. 



O is a cherub in the Nutcracker Ballet next week, so this craft was especially meaningful for her.

Straws, Beads, and Pipe Cleaner Stars

O and a friend had so much fun making star Christmas ornaments using pipe cleaners, beads, and straws as our 4th advent activity.

First, they cut the straws into little bits. 
 

They then threaded the straw bits and beads onto 5 pipe cleaners.


After they finished putting the beads and straws on the pipe cleaners, I laid the pipe cleaners in a star shape and twisted them together.  Then the girls proudly hung them on the Christmas tree.


Thanks to Pink and Green Mama for this fun idea!

Planting Christmas Tree Seeds

Since Friday was Arbor Day, we decided to plant Christmas tree seeds as our daily advent activity.  Luckily, I'd bought a miniature pot with seeds and a soil disk from the dollar section of Target a couple of weeks ago, so this worked out perfectly for us.


First, O opened her advent activity container.  She loves opening the containers to find out the activity.



Then we put the soil disk in a bowl with lukewarm water.  She put the soil in the pot.


She then pressed 5 seeds into the pot.



O was very proud of planting her Christmas tree seeds.  This was a great simple  and fun activity!

Our Pom Pom Garland

O and I recently made a pom pom garland for our Christmas tree.  We used a blunt tipped needle, embroidery thread, and pom poms to make the garland.




O has been learning to embroider at school (and occasionally at home), so she is very interested in sewing now.  We had fun taking turns threading the pom poms onto the thread.  We are both very happy with our garland!




Here is the garland with some of my favorite ornaments.















Our tree is only 4 feet tall...it's a hand-me down, it's fake, its pre-lit with colored lights, and we love it!  Almost all of our ornaments are either handmade or bought while on vacation, so they have stories behind them. It was so much fun to decorate the tree, and tell O and E the stories behind the ornaments as we decorated.

I'm not sure if our pom pom garland is going to survive Miss E...she's determined to pull it off and eat it!  She calls the pom poms "ball, ball," and she's determined to get them.  She was also determined to help us make the garland, so I let her string a few pom poms on the thread...she does not like to be left out of any activity!






Our first advent activity was setting up our Nativity scene.  We never actually set it up...




I'm really looking forward to our daily advent activities.  I'm going to try to relate the activities to the specific Christmas books that we read each day, but I haven't gotten everything organized yet.

Here's a list of some of our planned activities (in no particular order):

set up nativity
hang stockings
make and drink hot chocolate
watch How the Grinch Stole Christmas
make beaded candy cane ornaments
make beaded stars and Christmas trees
make painted gifts for grandparents
cut paper snowflakes
make chocolate and sugar cookie playdough (to play with and to give as handmade gifts)
make and decorate sugar cookies
decorate a gingerbread cottage
go see the lights at the zoo
go see our beautiful ballerina (O) perform in the Nutcracker Ballet
donate toys to Toys for Tots

I have a list of almost 30 activities, but I don't have it with me.  After meeting on 38 kids at work today, my brain is tired and I can't remember any more of the activities...I'll add the rest of the activities when I have a chance.