Our ADVENTures: The Planning Stage: Part 2
November 15, 2021
By Jen Stanbro
You’ve figured out how many days you’ll do ADVENTure activities. You’ve decided what your morning routine will look like with the ‘daily regulars.’ Now it’s time to choose your special activities and designate which days you plan to do them on.
STEP 3: Create a Master List for your special activities. This list changes from year to year and grows with the kids. For several years, our family delighted in going through Amanda White’s awesome Advent experience, “Truth in the Tinsel!” It’s such a sweet time! The format really helps children to hide the Christmas story in their hearts. If you have children pre-k – 2nd grade, I highly recommend checking it out!!
Over the years, I’ve accumulated lots of Christmas activity ideas, and each year I add some and prune some depending on my kid’s reactions to them. Below is a picture of my first pass at our 2021 Master List.
This year, I decided to get fancy and type it up, organizing into categories to make it easier to choose activities, edit and plan in coming years.
Foody Activities
Hot Chocolate Bar
Christmas Cone-ifer
Candy Cane Science
Santa Popcorn w/Application
Bake 1 of the BIG 6
Bake a Cake for Jesus
Decorate Gingerbread Houses
Make Cinnamon Ornaments
Decorate the Tree w/Candy Canes
Make Popcorn Balls + Movie
Sneak a Treat to Dad
Bake Christmas Cookies & Share w/Neighbors/Public Servants
Crafty Activities
Make Paper Chains & Paper Snowflakes to Decorate Rooms
Lantern/Luminaries
Make Prayer Trees
Hand/Footprint Angels
Hug Through the Mail
Decorate Gingerbread Houses
Cinnamon Ornaments
Experience Activities
Build a Christmas Fort + Read Christmas Book + Play Games
Christmas Puzzle w/Cider + Popcorn
Watch What’s in the Bible Christmas
12 Days of Christmas Meanings
Play Christmas Name That Tune
Unplugged Christmas BINGO + Game Night
Make Room for New Stuff (Donate)
Camp Out Under the Christmas Tree + Movie
Christmas Gifts w/Strings Attached
Gifts for Leaders/Coaches/Teachers
Assemble & Mail Christmas Cards
Decorate the Tree w/Candy Canes
Popcorn Balls + Movie
Sneak a Treat to Dad
Leave the House Activities
Tour Gingerbread House Displays
Tour Local Christmas Light Displays
Pay for Someone Else’s Something in a Drive-Through Line
STEP 4: Once I have this list up-to-date, I look at my calendar and choose which activities will work best each day, given our schedule. If an activity is simple and relates to another activity, I’ll combine them and put them on the same day. You can see from the picture, once I select an activity, I check it off to keep track. Pretty simple stuff. Since we’re only working with three weeks of Advent this year, we won’t get to everything on the list. Here’s what my current December list looks like:
Kindly ignore my unfortunate attempts at making it look pretty (I work with what I got)! Anyways, this is what it looks like for us. Some days, we’ll have friends come over to join our festivities and that always boosts the JOY-meter!
Here again, I think it’s a good idea to remember to hold plans loosely. I rarely do every activity on the exact day I planned, cuz life. But this sketch of the month proves incredibly effective for helping us accomplish most or all of these activities by Christmas! These plans are for fun memory-making and sweet soul-building, which happen best when mom and/or dad are relaxed, with smiles and laughs at the ready. Considering the details and mapping them out beforehand makes ‘relaxed’ and ‘fun’ possible. In fact, it makes them veritable guarantees!
Wishing you a December filled with JOYFUL times of connection with your family!