We are in the middle of the holidays approaching Christmas much too fast. Christmas is a time that you ask any homeschool family how they handle homeschooling and the holidays in December and you will get a different answer. I know some homeschool families that take the entire month of December off and others that change their curriculum to more of a Christ centered theme to emphasize the meaning of Christmas. Our family has different traditions that we like to do every year and some traditions that change every year because of my love of having variety in our lives.
This year for the Wright Family household it looks a little different because I had to have foot surgery. We have had to scale back a lot of things that we normally do but the family is enjoying relaxing at home and finding fun things to do that don’t require leaving the home as much. We have many traditions that the kids have enjoyed over the years and I thought I would share some of them and give you a little picture of what Christmas is like in our home. We take the month of November off so we still homeschool in December but on a more flexible schedule to allow for holiday fun.
Advent Calendar
We have always done some type of advent calendar. If you google types of advent calendars, there are a million ideas on how to implement them in your home. This is a tradition that gets changed every year because its fun to do it different. One of my favorite advents is a book that my mother-in-law got us one Christmas when the kids were younger. Its called the “Advent Book” by Jack Stockman. It has beautiful illustrations that look like works of art and it tells the Christmas story straight from scripture. Each day you read a new page and there is door on the page for the kids to open. Behind the door is another part of the Christmas story. The way the book works is that you are reading from the beginning of the book each day up to the new day that you open another part of the Christmas story, so that by the time it gets to Christmas day, your kids have memorized the entire Christmas story. I find its a wonderful way to help the kids be reminded of the true meaning of Christmas. This is an advent that we end up doing every year but add another type of advent calendar for fun. We usually do this book as a bedtime devotional in the month of December.
Another fun advent countdown that we do is to put little burlap bags hung on a ribbon with numbers that the kids get to open one of the bags each day. You can make the little bags and there are a ton of creative ways to do it that you can find easily on pinterest. I am missing that creative gene and to me it seemed like a lot of work to try and do it myself, so I bought them on etsy. I don’t have a picture of mine but I wanted to post a picture so you can get an idea of what I am talking about.
Each bag is filled with a piece of candy and a fun thing that we get to do that day for the holidays. It might seem overwhelming to think of 25 different fun things to do with your kids but its not when you think of all the holiday stuff you might already do or how it can be as simple as read a Christmas story or watch a Christmas movie. The kids have helped me sometimes put a list of fun things that they want in the advent calendar. You can be as creative as you want to be. I know of a family that put acts of kindness in each of the bags, so that each day the kids did random acts of kindness. I thought that was an awesome idea.
Snowman Soup
Snowman Soup is a fun tradition that is a simple activity that the kids love. Its usually put as an activity in the advent calendar. Snowman Soup is just hot cocoa with marshmallow and a candy cane. There is a poem that goes along with it that you can find online. We usually play family games or watch a Christmas movie as we enjoy snowman soup. I have even seen it given as a gift. Its a fun possibility for a party favors or neighbors.
Christmas Lights
I love Christmas lights and doing fun activities that involve looking at Christmas lights. This may sound silly, but one of the most fun Christmas lights traditions that our family does is we all get in the car and try to find the best neighborhoods with Christmas lights. Its also tradition to bring a package of candy canes to enjoy while we look. We have found that the best neighborhoods are the ones that have contests for Christmas with the lights.
Another favorite Christmas lights place is Warm Beach “Lights of Christmas” if you live in western Washington. They do a great job of displaying millions of Christmas lights. Besides the beauty of the lights, my favorite spot to stop is the homemade donuts that they make every year. They are amazing and worth the long line you have to wait in.
Gingerbread House Contest
Now we don’t always make it a contest. In fact when the kids were younger we just usually bought a big gingerbread house that we could make as a family. As the kids have gotten older, we have made it into a contest where they each have their own gingerbread house that they are making. One year, I was feeling adventurous and I made a train cake, not gingerbread, that we decorated and then we watched Polar Express. That was a lot of work and I probably will never do it again but it was a fun family memory for the kids. It looks a little different every year but the kids have fun and we usually end the event with watching a favorite Christmas movie. If you live in the Seattle area, there is an amazing gingerbread contest that is free to tour at the Marriott hotel. The gingerbread housed that they create a amazing and elaborate. Its a fun tradition for some families to go to Seattle and tour the gingerbread displays. I believe you even get to vote on which is your favorite.
(By the way, this is not a picture of our gingerbread house we made, this gingerbread house looks amazing but in our house they looked a little more shall we say “kid friendly”. In fact some of them you might have to label as gingerbread house to know what it is. Haha!)
These are just a few of our family traditions. I love the freedom of homeschooling because it allows families to take off all of December if they want to or focus their curriculum on the birth of Christ and the meaning of Christmas. Celebrating the birth of Jesus is an amazing and wonderful thing to do as a family. Jesus was born so that He could die for you and me. He loves us so much that he was willing to give his life so that we might be saved. A friend of mine wrote a song about the meaning of Christmas called the “Reason for the Season”. The lyrics talk about how we are in need of a Savior and we are in need of the Lamb. How Jesus was the perfect gift for us and how we are the reason for the season. I loved that line in the song that said “we are the reason for the season”. I hadn’t thought of how the entire reason Jesus was born on earth was for us. Remember God loves you and that you are the reason for the season.
Merry Christmas!
Living the Adventure 