Thursday, December 01, 2011

It's December!

The boys woke up bright and early this morning ready to start the countdown to Christmas.  We have two advent calendars (same ones from last year) and every morning from today until Christmas the boys get to take turns getting us one step closer to the arrival of the man in red on each calendar.

We are also continuing our tradition of unwrapping one Christmas book every day.


This year we put the wrapped books under the Christmas tree instead of on the buffet and the boys love that there are already "presents" for them, especially since they won't have to wait until the 25th to see what's inside each gift.

Which means, of course, that yes, our tree is up and decorated and ready for prime time.  Caleb and Isaac had such fun putting the ornaments on this year, it was wonderful just to sit back and watch them rediscover old favorite ornaments and delight in the ones newly acquired this year.  We buy them each an ornament every year and generally collect a few when we vacation.  They wanted to know the story behind every ornament and, thankfully, Kenny and I were able to supply the details, but we'll need to write all that down sooner or later because a few times it took us several minutes to remember where some of our collection came from.


 


We have been collecting children's Christmas books for years and have more than 25 titles so some didn't make the cut this time around, but will likely get read anyway.  We have a fairly broad mix of traditional and not so traditional, plus several that are specifically designed for little ones.  Some day I'm sure we'll phase out the Berenstain Bears and Spot, but for now, they are among our little guys' favorite characters, so they're staying in the rotation for the foreseeable future.  The books we are using this year are listed below in the order they'll be opened.

Santa Mouse, where are you? - Michael Brown
Santa's Favorite Story - Hisako Aoki
The Berenstain Bears Trim the Tree - Mike and Jan Berenstain
I'm Not Santa - Jonathan Allen
The Longest Christmas List Ever - Gregg and Evan Spiridellis
A Wish to be a Christmas Tree - Colleen Monroe
The Little Drummer Mouse - Mercer Mayer
A Pirate's Night Before Christmas - Philip Yates
A Very Shiny Christmas - Debbie Guy-Christiansen
Frosty the Snowman
Max's Christmas - Rosemary Wells
Snowmen at Christmas - Caralyn Buehner
Dear Santa - Rod Campbell
Home for Christmas - Jan Brett
Spot's First Christmas - Eric Hill
Four Friends at Christmas - Tomie dePaola
The Donkey's Christmas Song - Nancy Tafuri
Un dia una senora se trago una campana! - Lucille Colandro
Polar Express - Chris Van Allsburg
Santa Mouse - Michael Brown
Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer - Robert L. May
How the Grinch Stole Christmas - Dr. Seuss
The Christmas Alphabet - Robert Sabuda
The Night Before Christmas - Robert Sabuda
The 12 Days of Christmas - Robert Sabuda

Our last bit of decorating was our nativities.  We acquired a new one this year.  It's from Prague, hand-carved and painted.  The picture doesn't do it justice, but we love it.


Just a few more pesky finals and papers stand between me and fully enjoy the holiday season.  But, in the meantime, the Christmas music is blaring, there's plenty of hot chocolate for all, the Christmas shopping is done and holiday cheer abounds.  Happy December everyone!

3 comments:

Cassidy said...

Seriously? Decorated, wrapped books under the tree, shopping already done. You make the rest of us look bad, my friend. Nice work. We'll have to come to your house to get into the spirit because I'm not sure when I'll haul out our holiday stuff...

robin marie said...

As always I love your book tradition and I especially love that my two favorites are on your list (Mercer Mayer and tomie depaola)!

Adrianne said...

I copied you and thanks to Scholastic book deals, I was able to pick up a ton of Christmas books for super cheap so we've added that to our holiday traditions. Really, I just want to be like you so in the small things I try to mimic you as much s possible. :)

 

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