The 12 Days of Christmas

Growing up my mom had made a cloth Advent calendar with Santa Clause and every morning of December there was a piece of candy for each of us kids.  At some point in my life the cardboard Advent calendars with cheap chocolate inside came into our lives.  I've always done the cardboard chocolate Advent calendars with my kids.  A few years ago I got nostalgic and asked my mom about the fabric Santa calendar and she gave it to me.  She felt guilty giving me something so old and worn but I loved it, as did the kids.  I think she felt really guilty so for Christmas that year she bought me and my sister and Advent village that is really adorable!

Last year I set up my cute Advent village and put a candy for each kid in each little door each morning.  My sister of course outdid me and filled hers with little papers saying what fun thing they were doing each day of December.  What an amazing mother.  So this year I thought about being as amazing as my sister, but gave in to laziness and just filled them with a piece of candy for each kid, including Tessa's friend on the days she came over.  But then I was reading one of my favorite blogs (Our Best Bites--you can click on the link to the right) about making a snowglobe.  Seriously the cutest idea I've seen for a long time.  I absolutely had to do it.  And she mentioned all the fun things she puts in her Advent calendar (once again a supermom with activities every day).  I decided I could maybe handle doing the 12 Days of Christmas fun.  So each of the 12 Days I wrote on a paper and stuck it under the tree.  I couldn't believe how excited Spencer was each morning to see what we were doing. 

If you're paying attention I'm writing this much after the fact.  Actually I just saw the ball drop on TV and I'm listening to the fireworks outside.  So I may not remember everything we did or what we did on each day but I'll mention the ones I remember:

Well I used the Nutcracker ballet, Utah Jazz scrimmage game, and Temple Square lights as three of my days.  I also used making cards and presents for their teachers and friends one day.  One day they helped me make homemade candy (Almond Roca and caramels).  One day I had them unwrap some Christmas coloring books I had bought at Macey's for 88 cents a piece and some boxes of new crayons.  Another day I wrapped up a Hallmark recordable Night Before Christmas book I bought at Walmart.  That night I had the whole family take part in recording ourselves reading the story (mainly Spencer and Tessa).  This one was a huge hit!  The kids have loved listening to the recording over and over.  Each time you turn the page it plays the recording for that page.  And I've locked the recording (needs a screwdriver to get to the lock/unlock area) so we can keep the recording and listen to it year after year and remember how dang cute my little one's voices are!  Oh, so I went out looking for stuff for the snowglobes and came across some wooden Nutcracker ornaments that were on clearance for 59 cents a piece and bought 4 of those.  The next day I had the kids paint their ornaments.  Of course we used Crayola washable, non-toxic paints (see Clara eating the paint in this picture):

And then of course there was the Snowglobe day.  I loved these at least as much as the kids.  You can see my cute Advent village with this picture.

The night of December 22nd I was making some Almond Roca to give to my neighbors for Christmas and to have at my house to eat on Christmas.  Then my mother called me to tell me my sweet little neice had passed away.  Dear, sweet Abigail was 5 1/2 years old.  She had quite a few physical difficulties that had kept her from living a so-called "typical" life.  But she had a family who loved her and she was happy almost every time I saw her.  I loved seeing her smile spread across her face when I would talk to her, kiss her, or stroke her nose.  Tessa loved making her laugh and kissing her.  Everyone who had the chance to interact with Abby loved her.  This was a hard night for me.  And I didn't think to leave a 12 Days of Christmas note under the tree for Friday.  On Friday I was still feeling pretty sad that I didn't have my Abby here any more.  I was feeling even worse for her parents and siblings.  By the evening I felt less self-pity.  I know Abby is with our Father in Heaven and she is so happy right now.  She experienced life with such a caring, loving family and group of friends and supporters.  And now she is running, dancing, talking, and singing with the angels in heaven.  I'll miss her as I'm sure so many others will, but I've been blessed to have been with her over the last 5 1/2 years.  In any case by the time dinner was done Friday night I felt bad for not doing anything fun that day so I let the kids watch both Prep and Landings that I had recorded and eat candy downstairs.

The next day was Christmas Eve so that 12 Days of Christmas was easy.  First the kids started the day off eating the cutest candy house that a sweet neighbor of ours brought over for the kids.  I gave the kids and Brodie haircuts and we cleaned up the house while Brodie was perfecting tamales.  In the afternoon a couple families in our neighborhood came over for a celebration.  Our neighbors across the street, who are really non-blood family to us, have a girl from Mexico staying with them.  They thought she may be a little homesick so they wanted to have a pinata for her.  However, their kids are grown so they asked if we wanted to join them along with another family in our ward who this girl is actually related to.  We volunteered to host the get together.  Our kids and the young kids in this other family had a blast with the older neighbor kids.  Thankfully the older kids were good sports as these younger ones tied them up, knocked them over, tackled them, jumped on them, and rode on their backs.

While chaos was going on Brodie and some other adults were rolling tamales to start steaming.  Then we broke open the pinata and the kids scrambled to gather up candy into their bags.

Then we ate the best tamales I've ever had with some amazing mole sauce and different salsas my awesome husband made.  Ya, you're all jealous that my husband can cook.

After some people left the kids opened their Christmas Eve present where Tessa got some princess pajamas and slippers, Spencer got Perry from Phineas and Ferb, and Clara got ballerina pajamas with rattling puppy dog slippers.

We then read the story of Christ's birth in the New Testament and then read the lift-the-flap Nativity book that we have for the kids.  Then the kids headed up to sleep in Clara's room.  Clara was in her crib and the bigger kids slept in their sleeping bags on the floor in her room.  Every Christmas Eve the kids get a sleepover upstairs so they won't wake up when Santa comes.  I checked on them at 8:30 and was shocked out of my pants that they were all sound asleep.  Thanks to the neighbors for wearing them out!