our annual tradition.
Every year my kids look forward to the day we plan for and put up our Christmas chain. It’s just paper but on each link is something we do everyday to count down until December 25th.
This year has been an unusual one. I managed to get sick on December 1st (or something like that…it feels like a haze) and I’m just comig out of it. And here we are 1/2 way through December already (anyone else have this happen…you’re already almost to Christmas and you’ve barely done anything? maybe it’s only me…).
I have some catching up to do.
Or maybe I’ll just change the tradition for this year…
Instead of counting down until Christmas we are going to count down until the New Year.
Cool things will happen on Christmas day, of course. I’m hoping, though, that some extra special things will happen after Christmas this year that don’t usually occur that week after the craziness and before school is back in session.
My theory in my head looks like, “wow, instead of sitting around feeling like we just keep eating we will do some reaching out to help others after the helping has slowed down.” That’s the way it sounds. We’ll see how it actually goes down…
On to the Christmas chain…Now referred to as the December chain (not because we don’t love Jesus and December but because we’re going to keep our chain going right past the 25th).
First thing to do:
Make a list of all of the things you’d like to do this Christmas season.
Does it have everything on it that’s meaningful and important to you and your family? (Sometimes we get busy letting the holidays run us rather than making a plan. I always want the giving and the getting to be interspersed with some meaningful activities)
Once I’ve made a list I pull out my calendar and look at my days. I know that some days can handle a bigger activity and other days have to be an activity that will take a grand total of 30 seconds. For those scheduling dilememas I need to plan so that I don’t start wishing I had never made this ridiculous chain. Each activity is more fun if it’s fairly easy to do each day or is calendared in a way that is do-able
The activities:
Go Christmas tree shopping
Put the lights on the tree
Go Christmas caroling
Sponsor a child and donate money, toys, write letters (we can do this for the holiday through our local radio station)
Make Christmas cards
Work at the soup kitchen
Make soup and deliver it to shut-ins, widows
Go to a Christmas movie matinee
Help at the homeless shelter
Sit by the Christmas tree and eat dinner and have hot chocolate
Make Christmas gifts for Grandparents
String popcorn and cranberry garlands
Make and deliver cookies to our neighbors
Bring a Christmas tree and dinner to a family that you know doesn’t have the means to have one
Sing carols at a nursing home
The How To:
Cut 1″ wide strips of paper that are about 10″ long.
On the inside of each strip write one (fairly simple) activity.
Make a circle of each strip of paper and tape or glue the ends together.
Add another strip to the link by putting the second paper through the circle of the first link.
Keep going until you have all of your countdown strips completed into a chain.
Hang your Christmas/December chain somewhere that is fun to see. We usually keep ours in the the kitchen.
Each day until Christmas the second the kids wake up they run downstairs to take a link off the chain and see what we will be doing before they sleep again.
I love how excited they are about it even as they get older. It’s a little surprise each morning.
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