Days 10-21: A Brief Recap of our Christmas Countdown Activities

I admit it, I fell off the blogging bandwagon after Day 9 of our Christmas Countdown! For the most part, we still did our daily Christmas activities, but I found myself putting off blogging until the evening, and evening is my running time and time with my husband. So the blog took a back burner, and that's okay!

Here is a brief recap of some of the Christmas activities we did:

We made Christmas Crack and delivered goody bags to a few friends. I'm pretty sure we endeared ourselves a little more to them, or at least made them Christmas Crack addicts!

We practiced Christmas carols and planned to go caroling. It hasn't happened yet...

Despite the wise warning from my friend Hanna, we made hot chocolate with marshmallows and sprinkles and let the kids drink it while watching Elf. Miraculously we (and our furniture) survived!

We hosted the most awesome preschool Christmas party ever for 11 of our mommy friends and 16 children (counting mine). It was crazy, but oh so much fun! The kids decorated Christmas trees and wreaths made from Rice Krispie treats and green food coloring, and we had a delicious spread of food including Cranberry Lime Salsa Dip, Chex Party Mix, homemade chili (my MIL's awesome recipe), butter rolls, and an assortment of cookies that our guests brought. For party favors, I ordered adorable snowmen cake pops from my friend Kristen at J&R Cakes for the kids, and for the mommies I made these delicious Chocolate Peppermint Cakes in a Jar.

Hosting a party is a lot of work, and although I felt bad that most of our Christmas Countdown activities last week consisted of party prep (like shopping for supplies, making treats, and cleaning the house while listening to Christmas music, see how I "Christmased" that up hehe?) I think it was good for my kids to see how much went into our fun party, instead of taking it for granted.

We danced around to Christmas music. No, I wasn't short on time and ideas, why do you ask?

We taped up the paper and retied the ribbons on the gifts under the tree that Sweet Baby Ray has tried to unwrap. Okay, not a Christmas Countdown activity, but we have spent a significant amount of time on this, even though we know it's a lost cause.

Speaking of Sweet Baby Ray, I wanted to note that he took his first steps on his own yesterday. He was standing holding onto a wrapped large gift box (ironically containing a walking toy for him) and I was sitting a couple of feet away, and he randomly let go without any urging from me and walked stumbled the few steps over to me. He was very proud of himself and even game to repeat his trick when his dad got home later. So fun!

Tomorrow we will be visiting an elderly lady who loves kids and lives in a nursing home. We plan to bring her one of our favorites: Ritz Tagalongs. I won't be blogging more in depth on this to protect her privacy, but I am looking forward to spreading some Christmas cheer and hoping my kids cooperate.

In addition to the sacred favorites like Silent Night and Joy to the World, I've taught my kids some goofy children's Christmas classics. Hannah loves "I Want a Hippopotamus For Christmas" and requests it before every nap (we do silly songs before naptime and lullabies before bed every night). And Wednesday night, after tucking Nathan and Hannah in bed, we could hear them singing "I'm Gettin' Nuthin' For Christmas."

This is not a complete list, but it will have to do for now. Baby Ray needs some love!