Christmas Family Fun

We spent lots of family time at home doing Christmas activities/traditions this month.  We shared some sweet, sweet times together that I wanted to document for the boys when they grow up. 

We celebrated Advent by lighting our Advent wreath and doing a family devotional every Sunday night.

Last year, I wrapped up all of our Christmas books and we opened one to read each night in December.  The boys enjoyed it so much, that we did it again this year.  

These are some of the books that we opened.  We buy a few new books each year to add to our collection.  My all time favorite is The Crippled Lamb by Max Lucado.  My mom bought it for me when I was a teenager, and it is still one of my very favorite books.  I can NEVER get through it without my eyes tearing up and my voice quivering.  When we opened it this year, Clayton said, "Awww... this is the sweet book that makes you cry."  :)  It is a sweet little book that everyone should own, in my opinion.  The Tale of Three Trees is a tear jerker that I love, too.  I adore Max Lucado books.

One night, we let the big boys have a "sleepover" by the Christmas tree.  They are used to sharing a room, so they did really well.  They watched a Christmas movie and then went to bed well and slept all night.  We will definitely be doing that again next year - the boys loved it!  Baby Brother didn't make the cut, of course.  He got to watch the movie, but slept in his crib.  ;)

The boys pick out a Hallmark ornament each year.  This year, Clayton chose the Lion King ornament, Drew picked a snowman that sings Jingle Bells, and Owen chose the "Child's Age" ornament with a 1.  All good choices, I'd say!

 The boys decorated gingerbread houses one morning together.

 Owen was pretty sad when he didn't get to help with the icing.  :(

 I set him up in his high chair with his very own house, but he wasn't feeling the need to decorate it.  He just wanted to eat his.  Ha!

We made gingerbread play dough one day, too.  It smelled sooo good!  The boys had fun using our Christmas cookie cutters to cut it into fun shapes.

We made cinnamon ornaments, too.  That was a bit of a flop.  :-/  They curled up and were super brittle.  Most of them broke.  So sad...  Maybe I didn't get my dough thick enough?  At any rate, the boys thought it was fun and my house smelled AMAZING!  So, it wasn't a complete loss.

My kids are at such fun ages, and I really enjoyed coming up with fun things for us to do together this Christmas.  I hope that they will treasure their childhood Christmas memories as much as I do.