Sunday, December 16, 2012

Waiting for Christmas

The twins are old enough this year to start to understand Christmas, both its religious and its secular aspects. And they are very excited. We’ve been able, miraculously, to fit in a good number of special activities this year to help us get into the spirit (hard to do with the temperatures hovering in the 50s most of the time — my parsley is growing in the garden again).

This year, I decided that I wanted to make an activity-based Advent calendar for our family, rather than just having the “open the doors and eat a chocolate” calendar. (Don’t worry, we have that one too.) Our activities have ranged from buying a gift for a child who wouldn’t otherwise get any presents (Day 1) to listening to Christmas music at dinner or going for a neighborhood light walk after dinner. 

It’s a fun way to start the day: The kids get up and everyone runs to the fireplace, where our “calendar” hangs. Then Ethan reads what we’re going to do that night. We’re behind on a few (sorry, I didn’t realize they only turn the Zoo Lights on Friday through Sunday — we’ll either get caught up tonight or next Friday), but we’re doing pretty good at keeping up, really. 

We kicked off the season by taking the Santa Train up to Lincoln Square for dinner. It was crazy crowded (as it always is, since they run it at rush hour), but the kids had a blast. Veronica has been telling us that she wants to do it again. We also wrote letters to Santa (a first for us this year) and decorated gingerbread houses, which was really a lot of fun.

So pop over to the Photos 2 page. I’ve uploaded a bunch of pictures for you to see.

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