Tag: advent

Family Activities

5 Easy & Inexpensive Advent Gift Ideas

/

Hey loves!

I’m still reveling in all the advent prep and I am tickled about all the upcoming fun. If you’ve never done before or you have to shake things up thanks to 2020, I’m sharing some easy and inexpensive gifts for advent!Just a note, I tend to theme gifts aound what we are doing that day. FOr example, if we are decorating gingerbread cookies I would gift new cookie cutters and a gingerbread book. You are free to do as you please of course, I just wabted to offer the theme suggestion for ease of planning.

  1. Experiences: That’s right! Tickets to a drive-in show, socially distant play date or family fun day. Honestly, anything to break up the monotony and have some “surprise” fun together is always just what the doctor ordered. 
  2. Pajamas: I mean, does this even need an explanation??? For starters, everyone loves pajamas. Kids in a pajamas are adorbs and pajamas go with any movie, any popcorn, any dessert and any breakfast. They are a multi-functional staple that’s sure to have comfort and smiles abounding. 
  3. Ornament craft supplies: I see you over there cringing at the thought of glitter and to that I say, solidarity. Join me and break out the paint and embellishments to have crafted ornaments by tiny hands, sans glitter. Seriously though, we do an ornament craft every year and I love the memories even though my heart breaks seeing how fast they grow. 
  4. Holiday gear: Light up necklaces, Santa hats, elf shoes and reindeer headbands… all for $1 each and all used well during the holidays. Don’t ask me why these things also come with instant joy and wonder but for the price and ease, I’m just going to take it and run. 
  5. Books: Listen, a book can take you anywhere and teach you anything. Books create experiences and provide exposure. Books teach empathy. Can you tell I maybe love books? As we are in a pandemic, our entertainment budget is composed of, you guessed it, books! Stay tuned for ideas from Lakeisha and I from Maya’s book nook. You can also hop over to my IG and see the ones I purchased for my guys. 

Wait- I didn’t say snacks because, well, they are a must for sanity in my house but a “special snack” can go a long way.

Ok, that’s all for now. I’m stoked for the next few things I’ll be sharing with you. 

Love you. Mean it. 

Family Activities

Advent Celebration Activity Pack

/

Let’s get ready for Advent Fun! This low-prep, ability-friendly and ethnically diverse pack walks families through the birth of Jesus with daily Bible verses and offers customizable activities for the entire family all through the Advent season. 

Purchase Advent Celebration Pack

What’s Included?

In 2 color schemes, blue and grey and red and green, each Advent Activity Pack contains the following in a digital download:

-30 Advent Activity Cards

-Blank Advent Activity Cards 

-24 Advent Bible Verse Cards that detail the birth of Jesus

-Pre-Filled Advent Planner

-Blank Advent Planner

Purchase Now!

Note: This download is for personal use. It cannot be sold, published, or hosted on other websites. If you want to share this product, please feel free to share this link shop with others. Thanks!

Graphics for this project were purchased from flaticon.com

crafting

Our DIY Advent Calendar

/

Hey Loves!

If you have been here for a while then you know I am planner. I try and get things done early for holidays and celebrations and so I can actually enjoy them. This DIY Advent Calendar is no exception. I had the pleasure of doing a loop with some fabulous ladies on IG so I got to work fast.

The first step was research. The advent calendars of year’s past have been underwhelming and unsustainable. Thus, they weren’t fully utilized for one year. Last year, I knew I wanted something I could use for year’s to come. I grabbed these burlap favor bags with some wooden numbered clips. I finished it off with the She Reads Truth Verse ornaments. I strung it on twine and hung from the mantle. It worked but it was so busy. It fell a few times, it was hard to access with the stockings hanging and you couldn’t really notice everything.

Fast forward to this year. I knew the bags, clips and ornaments were staying. I knew I wanted my kids more involved and I wanted a very full, rich and intentional advent season in spite of this pandemic. I mean, I am not asking for too much right?

Ok, back to research…

So,  I aptly started where all good research starts: Instagram. Sorry to report nothing came up that I knew was for us. Next up, Pinterest. After LOTS of scrolling and several rabbit holes, I came across one tutorial that inspired me and that is saying a ton.

With said inspiration, I placed a pick up order from my local hardware store for beadboard and poplar boards. Random, I know, but stay with me.

I picked it up and sanded then stained the popular boards “weathered gray”. Once they dried, I used E600 and prayers to God to adhere them to the beadboard creating a top and bottom frame.

Then, I grabbed some thin rope, more E600, hot glue and louder prayers and attached the rope in 3 rows. LET COMPLETELY DRY. For the impatient like me, leave the house or find another task. While drying, I used clothes pins to keep the rope in place.

After it dried, I attached the bags, clips and ornaments, sat back and marveled. I am very pleased. This was in fact, as advertised, quick, easy and inexpensive.

Now to the fun! The advent activities! I used the Advent Celebration Activity Pack to plan our activities, get supplies, have all our verses and have a happy, fun and intentional advent!

Stay tuned for easy advent gift ideas!

Love you. Mean it. 

tips

New Traditions!

/

Hey Loves!

One of my wife friends and I were talking and we both agreed that it can be difficult for families to ‘let-go’ and allow married couples to form and continue their own traditions for the holidays. When I was growing up, we always traveled for the holidays. When I was in undergrad, all of our family came to my dad’s house and that turned into hosting and running errands.

Now that my husband and I are on our own, have a home and successfully hosting both families for Thanksgiving, our families are kind-of starting the ‘let-go’ process and we can explore things that work and that we want to share with our kids (whenever they get here… *taps foot impatiently*)

With that, we are trying Advent this year and I am so excited! I am always looking for ways to incorporate focusing on and learning about the word of God into every Holiday as well as our daily lives so it seemed right up our alley.

We (meaning me) researched all types of ideas for daily activities. This was harder than I thought because so many of the ideas were for children or married couples with children. Pickings were slim for the young, married and child-less. So, we brainstormed and successfully came up with 24 that we both enjoy. I then found quite a few free printable Advent Calendars and a list of bible verses to read each day (plus a Christmas banner) via Pintrest.

Here are our ideas. If you have any, I would love to hear them!

Like, comment and share!

1. Hang Christmas lights outside
2. Assemble tree and let settle
3. Decorate tree with lights and ornaments
4. Hang Christmas stockings and place other Christmas decor
5. Attend a holiday party
6. Do a random act of kindness for someone
7. Attend a holiday festival and discuss what you learned from this weeks bible readings
8. See a local Christmas production
9. Write each other a letter about what Christmas means with them and put it in their stocking
10. Go for a run in our Jingle Bell Run t-shirts
11. Prepare and send Christmas e-cards
12. Wife picks a Christmas movie to watch
13. Make Christmas Cookies and treats together
14. Discuss what we have learned from this week’s bible readings
15. Go see the Christmas Lights at Dorothy B. Oven park (a park local to us but I am sure there is one near you!)
16. Deliver Christmas cookies and treats!
17. The hubs picks a Christmas movie
18. Go to the gym wearing red or green
19. Watch a holiday special on TV
20. Wrap each other’s presents
21. Discuss what we have learned from this week’s bible readings
22. Share a Christmas devotional with each other (We are both avid users of the Youversion bible app bible plans and we plan on doing one for Christmas)
23. Go look at Christmas lights in our neighborhood
24. Read the story of Jesus’ birth.