Counting down to the day that we celebrate Jesus' birthday has always been a special part of the holiday season for me. I know that people do it in so many different ways and Kit and I have been thinking of how we want to do it as a family tradition. Here is what we have come up with.
I made these little stockings a couple of years ago based on an idea I had seen in Martha Stewart's magazine. I used a small card board template and traced out the stockings on basic felt that I got for under 99 cents a yard. then I just sewed some ribbon that I had onto the stocking and then used my pinking shears to finish of the edges.
I had originally thought that we would use them for ornaments, but then our other ornaments filled our little tree, so we canned the idea. But I still had 25 of these little stockings.
So this year, we decided that we would make it part of an advent calendar.
I used an ice pick (who knew that my mom would have one...) to make the hole and then looped ornament hooks on them so that they would hang on a tree. We will put them on a table tree. I still haven't attached the numbers yet, but I haven't found a label that I love. I figure I have time, we are starting this next Christmas...
I figured that it was pretty versatile. We could put parts of the Christmas story in each one, or little candies or tiny treasures, but the idea that we like the most was putting Christmas specific activities that you can do as a family in each one. Things like looking at Christmas lights, having a hot chocolate party, calling grandparents and singing carols to them, baking for neighbors and stuff like that.
Ok, I know that you think that I am getting way ahead of myself if you think that I want Ryder to do these next year...
Our little man will be about 7-8 months old next Christmas, so I don't anticipate him doing much caroling, but we thought it would be fun to lay the ground work so that when he is old enough, this is just a normal part of his Christmas routine...
