12 Days of Christmas

On the first day of Christmas my true love gave to me.....and we know how the rest of the song goes.  Each year, December 12 comes and goes and I always wish I would have done the 12 days of Christmas for my family.  Each year I mention it to Brent, but that's as far as it goes and I always wish I would have done this.  This year, I was facebooked by a friend and asked what I thought about doing the 12 days of Christmas.  Well, of course I want to do this, I have always wanted to do it.  So, we got together and made a plan as to what we were going to do.  The twist on this 12 days of Christmas is that we are not giving material gifts to our children, we are planning activities to do with them.  This too, I have wanted to do.  It seems like the Christmas season comes and goes and I wish I would have done this or that, but the season gets so busy that I do not set aside time to do the fun activities that are offered this time of year.  But this year was different, making this list has let us do some of the fun activities that are around.  Some activities have been done with our friends, some just as a family.
So... (sung to 12 Days of Christmas..lol) On our twelve days of Christmas we did activities...
Day 1 - make cookies (yeah, this activity did not go quite as expected.  Lets just say I ended up in tears, kids were required, yes I said REQUIRED, to write down 10 things about their siblings that they liked and then they picked a siblings name and had to do something nice for them the next day.  Yeah, this activity did not go quite like I imagined.  Cookies got made, but they never were frosted or decorated.
Day 2 - Parker had a Christmas Band concert and afterwards it was off to Arctic Circle for a shake.  After the shake, we drove through the light display at the park.
Day 3 - Make teacher gifts.
Day 4 - Christmas movie and pizza with friends.  The kids watched Elf while the moms made teacher gifts or worked on class gifts.
Day 5 - Candlelight Christmas at This is the Place Heritage Park.  This was a fun night.  Parker and Madi had fun dancing around the Christmas tree.  We watched a puppet play, that I personally thought was incredibly cute, made a few crafts - icicle ornaments, bird feeders, and reindeer food. We drank hot chocolate, rode the "train," sat on Father Christmas' lap, pet the goats and sheep in the live nativity, wrote letters to Father Christmas and then threw the letter in the fire.  This particular activity, the letter writing, was humorous, when you threw the letter in the fire the ashes were carried away magically to Father Christmas and that is how he received your letter.  When the letter was thrown in, if it caught on fire it meant that you were on his good list, but if it did not catch on fire you were on his bad list.  Parker's immediately caught on fire. Madi's took about 30 seconds to catch on fire.  Garrett's, his did not catch on fire.  It took minutes to get it to catch and that was  with some help from the lady keeping watch over the fire.  I wonder what Garrett has done that has put him on the naughty list.  HAHA.
Day 6 - Make treats for neighbor gifts.
Day 7 - Make gingerbread houses with the neighbors.  It ended up being decorate gingerbread cookies..(does it count if some are gingerbread Star Wars characters?) and make graham cracker "gingerbread" houses.  The kids enjoyed decorating the cookies with LOTS of candy and making house that was, well, not quite square.
Day 8 - FHE at a neighbors house.  This has been a tradition for our family for quite a few years now.  We sing Christmas carols..LOTS of Christmas carols, each family that comes has to do some sort talent - either musical, reading a story or poem, or telling jokes - then the Christmas story is told using the children in the various parts of the story.  Finally, it is time for snacks and visits with friends and neighbors.
Day 9 - The kids and I drove around to see Christmas lights and then it was off to get donuts.

The next few days have yet to happen, but here are the plans...

Day 10 - Game night and snacks with friends.
Day 11 - Temple Square and Hot Chocolate with friends (we figured we would wind it down on a more spiritual note to help us remember the reason for the season).
Day 12 - Christmas Eve will be time spent with our own extended families.

There you go, not the traditional give-a-present for the 12 days of Christmas, but it certainly has been a fun way to spend time with the family.  I know my kids have looked forward to each night and have asked what are we doing tonight and are we doing anything with anyone.

FYI...the cost of the gifts in the song the 12 Days of Christmas rose this year.  It increased by 9.2% from last year.  Just in case you wanted to know, the cost for the 12 Days is $23,439.38.  That is quite affordable don't you think?  And I am sure you have always wanted to have 12 Drummers Drumming ($2,552.55) in your house.