Advent activities

• 1 December: lunch out with Grandma and Grandad. This was planned anyway but lovely food and large boy taught Grandad the animal, vegetable, mineral game.
• 2 December: small boy got to choose a charity for his Christmas donation instead of writing cards. Except he couldn’t decide and changed his mind anyway. So no treat and the threat of having to help a reception child write 30 Christmas cards hung over me.
• 3 December: eating tea in front of TV. I finished work a bit earlier than usual so we had a chilled tea of fish bites and cheesy crackers. They loved it and ate everything quickly, so a win for me too.
• 4 December: small boy’s nativity performance. That’s a treat right? He did a great job as a donkey with brilliant dancing. Large boy had seen it two days before so he wasn’t best pleased at being made to watch it again – with himself away for work, he didn’t had much choice though. Tip from the family behind us – bring a book for the older sibling to read.

• 5 December: screen time. I finish work a bit later on a Thursday and it’s the end of the week almost so they’re tired, let’s go for the easy option. The screen time went down well, they were less impressed by a tea involving cheese and onion potato cakes that I insisted they eat at table instead of in front of TV.
• 6 December: movie of their choice. Hectic day of early pick up from school to go to the dentist. So once we were home, after debate, argument and tears in the car, large boy chose “Santa Claws”. It was as dreadful as it sounds but fitted perfectly into the time we had before swimming.
• 7 December: was meant to be a trip to see Santa for us all. But large boy decided he’d rather play Switch so I took small boy straight from the birthday party he’d been to. He got super shy but spoke to Santa a bit and got a Jurassic World projector torch – which is good as a torch but the projector slides are crap.
• 8 December: another fail. Large boy and himself were supposed to pick up McDonald’s on the way home from rugby but himself was feeling poorly so called it off. Never mind, no one seemed too upset. Large boy’s birthday party and seemingly bottomless pizza for tea must have made up for it.
• 9 December: the Christmas tree is up! So much impatience, distraction and chaotic hanging. Still, we’re there and it’s time to start feeling festive. It somehow looks very wonky though, never mind.

• 10 December: preparing teachers’ gifts and cards. They weren’t thrilled with this but small boy wrote his name several times and large boy scribbled messages to his teachers while I prepared gin and chocolates.
• 11 December: screen time. Tired. All of us. Meh.
• 12 December: avoiding the mayhem of carols and Christmas fair (see Pre-Christmas school-related grumpiness for a rant) I opted for a movie, Polar Express. Its lovely and I wish I’d watched it with them, sadly work meetings rolled on and on.
• 13 December: Christmas themed indie disco! We love a boogie in this house. Today’s activity was putting on the Christmas tunes and dancing round the house in our PJs after breakfast this morning. Huge fun.
• 14 December: it was meant to be a movie but the boys protested we’d watched quite a lot lately. Their swimming lesson was cancelled and they were very excited when I suggested a trip to the leisure centre pool instead. Change of plan but a better treat in their eyes. Small boy swam really confidently and large boy taught himself how to backwards roll under water.
• 15 December: another change of plan. We were meant to go for a family walk, all rosy cheeked and idyllic. But my toes took an hour to defrost after rugby and himself had put a scalextric layout up. So that was the treat – racing cars round and round in wiggly loops.
• 16 December: we wrote Christmas cards for family. They didn’t think it was a treat. Tough luck, it’s all part of ths magic. Right?
• 17 December: T’was The Night Before Christmas for their bedtime story.
• 18 December: screen time, nice and easy for the second last day of term.
• 19 December: last day of term, tired boys, so TV dinner. Less successful than usual, small boy took almost an hour to eat a bowl of macaroni cheese. Exhaustion starting to set in.
• 20 December: party with the sports providers at school. Yeah yeah OK if you said “holiday club” that would be accurate too. They enjoyed it though and won prizes of sweets.
• 21 December: takeaway for dinner. The boys love a treat Chinese feast with sweet and sour chicken and rice and prawn crackers.
• 22 December: another Christmas movie. Bah humbug from the boys. We made mince pies too though.

• 23 December: road trip day to their cousins’ house for Christmas. They have been so excited and greeted their cousins with glee.
• 24 December: we took all the kids to soft play and met the boys’ cousins’ other two cousins. All six of them chased around for a couple of hours and had their tea. Then (double whammy cos Christmas eve) after bath time they opened their Christmas eve boxes – stockings, an activity book, and plates and bowls for Santa and the reindeer. The boys sampled the reindeer food (oats, raisins and marshmallows) and we all watched the snowman together.

And that’s it. A mini-diary of our advent activities, maybe some ideas of what to do or not to do (and a reminder to myself so I don’t have to make them up from scratch next year).