Maybe this IS the year

Every year when we get close to Christmas I say the same exact thing. “This is the year the kids will really start to get it and it will be SO FUN!” And every year I get a little bit more right, but it turns out I am still, generally, WRONG.

The kids still do not really get it. I mean, Asher understands that Christmas is a Very Big Deal, and has some general recollections of last year (standout memories for him include lighting candles at the Christmas Eve church service and that we told him not to let Lucy play with the pop-up train book Santa brought him, because she would rip it) (OMG we have to rehash the entire pop-up book scenario every time he spots it, which you would THINK would be difficult since he stores it in the VERY BACK of his closet where she can't possibly get her grubby little mitts on it but NO, we talk about it AT LEAST ONCE A WEEK) but Asher is not an excitable child. I sense sometimes that he is actually FEIGNING interest when I start talking up Festive Holiday Cheer and even (gasp!) presents.

I am not sure if this is an age thing or a personality thing, but my gut tells me it's more of a personality thing. Asher does not anticipate things. He goes with the flow and lives pretty much in the moment. I know, right? HE'S FOUR. (And a lot like his father.) But truthfully, I have to really work to get him to drum up some enthusiasm for an event that's more than four hours in the future. We talked about our beach vacation for MONTHS and MONTHS and MONTHS and you'd think he'd have gotten good and keyed up about it but it didn't exactly work that way. In fact, about two weeks prior to departure, I ended up making him a Countdown Calendar so he could visualize how long we had to wait. It sort of worked, I guess... frankly, he looked forward to putting a sticker on every night more than he looked forward to VACATION, and all the fun stuff I told him we would get to DO on vacation, like eat ice cream EVERY NIGHT and go to the AQUARIUM and STAY UP LATE but I guess I understand that, right? HE'S FOUR.

Meanwhile, I showed Lucy a video on YouTube of little kids meeting characters from Toy Story and I thought she might actually explode when I told her we couldn't go to Disney World RIGHT THEN to hug a giant, oversized Jessie. She GOT IT, dude. She saw something she really wanted and she got amped up about it immediately. And then she cried heartily when we explained why it wasn't going to happen.

Asher wants to go to Disney World, too, but he is nervous about it. He would never TELL you that, or admit to it if you asked, but new experiences (no matter how badly he wants to do them) are worrisome for him, as a general rule. So when we ask him about it, he tells us that he wants to go, just... well, Mama, maybe when I'm ten. Six more years, then. Asher thinks he'll be emotionally ready to handle Disney World in SIX MORE YEARS. (He did once admit to me that he was a little scared to take an airplane. I asked him why, and he said he was afraid the airplane would go too fast and he would fall out of his seat. See what I mean? Lucy just wants to experience it; Asher is worried that we will make him take an unsafe mode of transportation to get there.)

All this to tell you that in order to encourage some enthusiasm for December 25, I am gathering my creative skills and also my patience and embarking on the One Fun Christmas-Themed Activity a Day Advent Calendar thingamajig we did last year (to mixed results). Last year I was all excited about it and then my excitement GREATLY WANED when it turned out that it was really difficult to find enough things that both kids could participate in or maintain an attention span for together. (Last year Asher was newly three and Lucy was on the cusp of turning one.) This year I have toned down my expectations: we have lots of new Christmas books we've never read (Activity: Read a new Christmas book together!), the kids seem really into Christmas music (Activity: Listen to Christmas Carols while coloring!) and I have a whole jar of craft supplies my mom gave me (Activity: Glue some fuzzy balls and three sequins on a sheet of paper and call it a gift!).

Other activities on my list include: Decorating our Christmas tree. Going to a holiday concert. Shopping for Christmas gifts for cousins. Baking cookies. Picking a toy to donate. Making a Christmas card for someone special. Driving around and looking at Christmas lights. Riding the Santa Train. Watching a Christmas movie in our pjs. Taking a horse-drawn carriage ride. Attending the preschool Christmas pageant (OH THERE WILL SURELY BE A POST DEDICATED TO THIS).

But those all seem like... BIG things, you know? I would love to hear your ideas for some little things we can do around the house or that only take up a few minutes of time but still seeming... special. Are you planning on doing anything like this with your kids this year? Care to share some of your activities with the rest of us? Or maybe your favorite Christmas movies or books that you love sharing (or are looking forward to sharing for the first time) with your kids? I'm also thinking about blogging each of the activities we do together for the entire month. I think it would be fun to look back on.

Maybe someday I can show a whole month of posts to Asher, to prove that I love him, even if I make him go to Disney World five whole years before he's ready. I will, however, insist that he wears his seatbelt on the plane, to prevent any unfortunate falling-out-of-his-seat situations. BECAUSE I'M A GOOD MOTHER.

Comments

[hannah]

We do a lot of countdowns- in fact, I am very, very proud of our "Countdown to Thanksgiving" since I drew a turkey and numbered each feather and my son colors one in each day. They work I think because he loves numbers.

This year I'm wrapping up all the Christmas books we have and putting them in one big box. Then starting however many days before Christmas I have books for, the boys can pick one book to open and read. I hope that's fun for them, anyway.

[Amy --- Just A Titch]

Every year, my mom hauled out this book called A Devotion A Day Until Christmas. Each night, we read a little story and prayer about Christmas together. It was a great way to get focused on the meaning of the season and spend time together as a family. She bought (and still buys us) Advent Calendars and we guess what shape the chocolate will be in. We also made paper chains and tore one off each day. Even now, being 27 and my brother being 22, we still read a devotion or two when we're home. It's one of the best memories of my childhood.

[Elizabeth]

Can you keep some of the christmas decorations packed and then include that as some of the things? Like "put out the nativity scene" or "hang the christmas wreath" type stuff?
We plant paperwhites, that's fun, but also kind of a "big thing". We always lit a candle on the advent wreath every Sunday, so that could be four days worth of stuff. And we also moved the three kings (in our nativity) closer every day, so that could be another thing to do every day or so...
I also like the idea of having little hunts...like one of your activity days would be "go look behind the couch" where there would another note that would say "go look in the fridge" or whatever, with a small prize at the end of a bunch of clues.
Maybe put a bubble wand in one of the days and "blow bubbles in the tub" could be one of the things?
What about "make popcorn and hot chocolate" and watch Charlie Browns christmas? Or some other christmas show?
I would put "recycle batteries" in my advent calendar, but you know, that my specific to my child. :)

[Elizabeth]

Oh, and is it definitely going to snow sometime in December there? Because if so then FOR SURE do maple sugar on snow.
Sorry for taking over your comments. :)

[Tina]

We do a Christmas Chain with activities to count down. I have "Drink a cup of hot chocolate with a candy cane in it" as one (and by "hot" I mean "tepid"), Take a candy cane off the tree and eat it (both of those appear more then once, they LOVE them), Help mommy mail Christmas cards! (Yeah, getting desperate to get things filled out at that point). Honestly in the past, when the kids couldn't read, I would have a list and just change them based on how the day was going or what I could handle or what needed to be done--like the Christmas cards...I'm not that organized that I know a month in advance which day I'm ready to mail the cards. Now that my oldest can read and is in school each day, its going to be harder to find the smaller activities for school days and save the bigger ones for the weekend or when break happens. I also put "Read a Christmas story by the light of the Christmas tree" several times on the chain, not just once. Sometimes I let them pick, other times I pick.

[Sara]

I've recently seen the Elf on the Shelf idea and love it. Moving a little elf around the house every day and letting the kids find it (at least that's how I understand it - I could be off).

[Danell]

You know, I spend plenty of time marveling at the differences between my two kids...and how similar in description they are to what you write about Lucy and Asher. Sometimes I think it must be the girl vs. boy thing, but then other people that their boy/girl is the opposite or whatever.
Anyway, just wanted to say that most of the time, anything you write about Asher or Lucy, I'm reading and thinking "yes, mine is Just Like That!".
OTOH, I'm possibly a little more drawn to my son because my personality type is more towards his...more shy, more hesitant. And while I love my daughter more than life itself, her, um, exuberant personality is definitely more taxing to me.
I LOVE reading your stuff because it feels like we have the SAME kids, but this is how it feels on the OTHER side. (ok, did that make sense, or do I sound like a total squirrel nut?)
P.S. I think I'm still holding a grudge about the 14 solid months of sleep deprivation.

Oh, wait...Christmas activities....umm...hmmm...I can't think of anything not covered already. We really like the driving around looking at Christmas lights, though.

[Kerry]

Wow, I love some of these ideas! I love Hannah's suggestion to gift wrap Christmas books and open/read one each day. I also love Elizabeth's idea to add a Christmas decoration somewhere in the house each day! So fun, and really adds anticipation. One day (maybe Christmas eve) you can go outside and leave "magic reindeer bait" (dry oatmeal) on the lawn. Hmm, maybe that will just end up attracting "magic squirrels" though.

[Newaverage]

We do an activity a day and I unashamedly pick which one for each day based on my busyness level. Our six year old had just come to expect it. :) One of her favorites is a breakfast for dinner night. Also a flashlight evening after talking about the Light of the World. I tried paper snowflakes a few times...it only resulted in tears until about age 5.5. But they were fun to color. Same with the cut out paper doll chains. We drive around to see lights one evening. And smear a pinecone with peanut butter for the birds one day. Random is good.

[Superfantastic]

I don't anticipate things either. I blame the ADD. I know I'm happy that I'm going to San Antonio tomorrow, but I can't say I'm excited about it yet. I will be once I get on the plane. The same thing happened when I went to Europe, everybody asking me how excited I was ahead of time (I lied, mostly and said I really was) and then I got to the airport and had to do laps around the terminal because I was so excited that I couldn't sit still. But up until then, I'd been focused on wrapping things up at work, getting packed and whatever needed to be done right then. Packing and anticipating at the same time apparently represent multitasking for me and multitasking is not among my skill set.

This is why kids with ADD can't be effectively punished with threats of future consequences. If it's not happening right now, it doesn't mean much.

[MrsWalkup]

what about making ornaments? You could cut out paper snowmen and have them glue cotton balls to it. Then attach a string so they can hang it on the tree.
You could also get wooden ornaments (from a craft store) and they could color them with markers.

[Pearl]

I know that it's Christmas when my cousin and I (we're both 30) sit down together to shove cloves into oranges. We've done this on three continents, at varying times of year (if we're in the same place, we're blimming well having Christmas, even if it is August). Cloves. Oranges. Christmas. Bam.

[nonsoccermom]

I'm constantly amazed at how much your kids sound like mine. My son (8) was exactly like Asher at that age, and is still far more cautious and wary than his almost-3-year-old sister.

For the record, we took Alex to Disney when he was 4 (and believe it or not, he had the EXACT SAME RESERVATION about flying) and not only did he survive, he had a great time. Of course, now he just constantly asks when we're going back, but you know.

[Ambry]

Dry oats & glitter, boom - reindeer food. I remember making that as a kid & sprinkling it on the lawn on x-mas eve. Of course there's always making cookies & writing Christmas lists / letters to Santa. My mom made us salt dough every year that we'd cut into holiday shapes & then paint after she baked them. & they're still holding up 20 years later :]

[Life of a Doctor's Wife]

I have some very vague - and very warm - recollections of doing projects that involved using food as decoration. Like smearing pine cones with peanut butter (?) and birdseed and hanging them outside on a tree. (I don't know what your Tree Situation is, though.) Am not sure why we did that - to feed birds? Deer? Who knows - but I remember how fun it was. Pine cones are fun for indoor decorations, too.

We'd also string popcorn garlands for the tree, but I'm guessing that involved a needle (operated by my mom) and mainly a lot of us eating the popcorn.

Oh! My mom would also sometimes buy a mini tree that we could decorate ourselves. And we loved setting up the nativity.

Am hoping this is at least moderately helpful instead of just being a big ol' nostalgic brain dump.

[Karen]

We actually decided a long time ago (when the first one was born) to spread the excitement throughout the season. We celebrate St Nicholas Day--the kids get three presents, and the day before they write a letter to Jesus, and leave it in their shoes for St Nicholas to deliver to Jesus.

We don't decorate for Christmas until, well, Christmas. That's when we get our live tree (which later will get planted in the yard) and decorate it Christmas Eve. We have the nativity up, but Baby Jesus doesn't show up until Christmas Day. We do stockings, not big presents, on Christmas.

Then we anticipate Epiphany. Epiphany is traditionally celebrated as the day Jesus was recognized as King by the Wise Men--the days between Christmas and Epiphany, I place the Wise Men in various places around the house, as they're traveling to see Jesus, and if the kids spot them, they get a piece of candy.

Epiphany is three presents each, because Jesus received three presents. We open them not all at once, but one in the morning, one at lunchtime, one in the evening. This avoids the big old present glut and crash at the end of the day!

Anyway, we find that not building up to one huge day that can be a letdown helps a lot. By spreading the fun around a bit, it's not a huge buildup to one day and then the "is this all there is?" feeling on December 26th.

[Kayla]

I love the ornament making idea. Also, make a ginger bread house. They sell kits that have everything you need for about $10. Plus the last couple of years they had a train kit, I know Asher would love that one. I've done the ginger bread house thing with lots of kids and they all love it, regarless of their age.

[Willow]

for my sons first christmas, he was just less than 9 months old so he didnt get much of anything more than eat and poop.
the next year, though, he totally got santa and cookies and presents and the tree and all that goes into christmas! that year (and the next) we lived away from family so there was the added excitement of picking up people from the airport, traveling and a HUGE box full of sparkly wrapped goodies care of his grandma.
we bake cookies and write a letter to santa and make the wish list and do the tree and carols and light looking....
this year, it seems smaller though - i actually had to force the child (now 9) to make his christmas wish list - by telling him some things to add to it!
i guess that is good - he already has so much its hard to think of new things he wants - but i am a little sad.....
how do i keep christmas exciting when he has already been amped up for 9 of them?!?

[HereWeGoAJen]

There is a little kids book by Madeleine L'Engle called the Twenty Four Days Before Christmas, where the Austin family does something Christmasy every day. Most of them are pretty simple. I bet you could get it from the library and steal some of their ideas.

[Jill]

We always got new pj's for Christmas Eve. My friend's family, each child got to pick their favorite cereal to eat on Christmas morning. It was always fun if it was our "job" to turn on the Christmas lights...you can make gingerbread houses out of graham crackers, um...yeah. There's some ideas. :)

[Jennifer]

We have a few traditions that could be included in a countdown. We buy each kiddo a pair of Christmas pj's and socks every year. The kids help wrap Christmas presents (mostly to mask my terrible wrapping skills). We make hot chocolate w/ marshmallows while listening to Christmas music. We go see the year's Christmas movie at the theater. Last year it was A Christmas Carol...looking forward to seeing what this year's will be. We do a family Christmas photo (not necessarily fun, but tradition nonetheless). We go to the Gaylord Texan to check out the decorations, see Santa, and have cookies in the coffee shop. Maybe your area has a luxury hotel/resort that offers the same thing for free? Just a few ideas for ya!

[A]

Hang the stockings. Open holiday cards that have come in the mail that day and hang them somewhere. Ooh, or mail fun cards to the kids that arrive every couple days or so! For turning on the tree lights, have you seen those cool ornaments that replaces one of the bulbs and allow you to turn the lights on and off by touching the ornament? Make paper chain garlands from construction paper.

[Meg]

Finally de-lurking to tell you how much I enjoy your blog and HOW SIMILAR my son's suspicious-of-new-experiences personality is to Asher's. When you mentioned "when I'm ten", I laughed out loud since that is Danny's response to suggestions I make. (Such as "try new foods, like mac n cheese, or peanut butter. "Maybe when I'm ten.") It used to be, "when I'm four", until he realized that's right around the corner. Ten seems more plausible to him.

As for Christmas, well, Danny has already informed me that he doesn't want Santa to come to our house (big man sneaking into our house while I'm sleeping? No, thank you, he says.) He is excited for Christmas, just not the Santa aspect. Last year I picked up an Advent book about a little bear's journey to Bethlehem on Christmas Eve. The trick is you only read a page a day. He looked forward to it each night. You could always hold back some ornaments from tree-decorating and put a new one on each morning. Also: make-your-own ornaments is always a fun project.

Good luck and keep up the good work with the blog! You keep me laughing (which is problematic when I read it on my phone during the children's bedtime process. Ah, well!)

[adele]

I love your enthusiasm for Christmas - my kids would love you! Honour (4) gets excited for holidays/birthdays/Christmas easily a year in advance and talks about them all nearly every day. *Be careful what you wish for!* ;-)

Sounds like Asher is a contemplative little boy - that personality type in adults tends to be resistant to change, cautious but also intellectually brilliant and tend to excel at the things that grasp their imagination. They'll persist at something until they can do it perfectly.

In other words; he'll go far in life, but you might want to leave him in a corner with a book/trainset while you and Lucy jump up and down in glitter and cupcakes! :-)

I don't think anything you do will fundamentally change his personality - so perhaps don't drive yourself crazy trying to 'make' him excited!

You are fun! Have fun this season! xx

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