14 Nov, 2009
The 25 days of Christmas challenge – 2009 edition
Posted by andrea tomkins in: Challenge me, challenge you
Well, here we are again!
Your challenge, should you decide to accept it, is to arrange 25 days of Christmas activities for your family and share the results on your blog (if you have one, if not, that’s okay) and/or in the Flickr group that was set up for this project last year.
How?
1) Make a Family Activity Advent Calendar. I wrote about this project for the November issue of Canadian Family Magazine. You can get the instructions and a copy of the template from there. (Check out the photo of some of the envelopes I made to give you an idea of the paper you can use.)
Non-crafty types, don’t fear! Making these is much easier than you think. If I can do this, you can do this!
2) Sit down with your agenda and flip forward to December. Figure out what holiday fun needs to get done and the best times to do it. For example, you probably need to get your Christmas tree, visit family, go to a party, decorate the house, bake cookies, wrap and deliver gifts for charity etc.
Keep these few tips in mind:
- Your activities are supposed to be fun and family-oriented.
- Consider leaving “shopping” off the list.
- Do the bigger tasks early in the month (I learned this the hard way).
- Mix it up with some cheap and kid-friendly fun activities: building a snowman, go stargazing, go sledding or skating, paint everyone’s toenails, go swimming, make paper snowflakes, make hot chocolate etc. (This 2007 post lists everything we did.)
- And here’s the challenge part … take a photo of your advent activities post them to the Family Activity Advent Calendar Flickr group. That way we can all see what we’re doing. And if I’m the only one doing it, well, you’ll get to see what I’m doing. :)
- edited to add: if you’re using Twitter to send your updates use the hashtag #25daysofchristmas (Thanks Shan!)
I know this sounds like a lot of work, but it is totally worth it. Not only do you get yourself organized for the month of December, but it puts the emphasis on family, rather than gifts.
Ok? So who’s up for the challenge?
