New holiday traditions

I wanted to try out a few new holiday traditions. Some are working and I'd like to keep them...



We are putting up mini ornaments on a wooden tree Advent calendar (this is an old tradition). But now we're keeping the ornaments in a cute snowman countdown pockets. In exchange for each little ornament, the kids are putting in one dollar that will be donated at the end of the month towards feeding hungry babies through Samaritans Purse.



I also wrapped up our whole collection of Christmas and winter books. I checked out many books from the library to supplement our collection. Every night Cal picks out a new book surprise to open and read together. He has been very pleased with the books on most occasions. But one night he opened a book that had been on his bedside table and was quite put out. He said, "This was on my shelf. This isn't a present!" Ha ha!

I tried a new Christmas adventure. Baking a gingerbread...train (no not house, train). I mixed, rolled, cut, baked, arranged, set-up, iced. Decorating with Cal was the fun part. But setting the whole thing up ahead of time was a pain. I think the worst part was to make all this yummy cookie material and not be able to eat it! I think next year I'll just be baking more cookies! :)