On the Ninth day of Christmas, my

children gave to me...

9 MORE DOORS TO OPEN

My mom always got me a chocolate advent calendar to count down the days until Christmas when I was a little girl and I loved it! I wanted my kids to love the suspense of the season as well, but we wanted to teach them, along with the fun, what exactly they are so impatiently waiting for . I found this little box last year after Christmas, at the local grocery store of all places, for a few $$ and grabbed it. I "tweaked" it a little as you can see. Where the "J" is now, there was another star that said "let it" and then the letters "S N O W" went in the other spots. Very cute, but again, we wanted to take the opportunity everyday to talk about how we are waiting for Jesus to be born. I got these letters at Michael's, painted and glittered them, and glued them into place. The boys love it! Every night after dinner, they take turns opening a door and getting out a piece of chocolate. I also found these sweet little nativity ornaments that we are hanging on a tiny little separate tree. These little ornaments show up every few days in a door. 8 Christmas outfits

7 verses memorized

6 snickers santas

5 days of searching

4 overloaded branches

3 men a hunting

2 fibbing salesmen

and

a missing baby Jesus