Christmas Advent Activities

Paige put together an activity a day this month to help us celebrate Christmas. Matthew has particularly enjoyed going to the calendar each day, selecting that day's slip of paper, and anticipating a new adventure.

Burlingame (between SF and Palo Alto) closed down their downtown for an evening and had a Christmas parade and festival. While we missed the parade, we did manage to take a ride on the Christmas train and in the back of a wagon pulled by a team of Clydesdales. The night was a hit and was deemed complete when Santa passed us riding in the sidecar of an old motorcycle as we returned to our car.

Paige put together a great evening of gingerbread house decorating for a few families. She made a small house for each child to decorate as they pleased, plus a larger house for each family. As evidenced by Brent's t-shirt, I use the term "decorate" quite lightly. For the record, the children are (l to r): Henry (Matthew's best friend), Matthew, Brent, Josh (friend from Boston/HBS), Rachel Jepsen.

It is worth noting that Paige and Katie held off on decorating their "family" gingerbread houses until all the children were gone or in bed, and then spent the next hour and a half designing two very impressive gingerbread houses. Bret and I are still waiting (2 weeks later) for permission from the gingerbread architects to begin dismantling/eating their creations.

These are from a sub-for-santa that we did with a few other families. The most interesting thing here is Matthew's contribution to the fruit basket. After talking so much about the importance and joy of giving gifts, not just receiving, here is hard evidence that it may have just worked, at least for a little while. We'll see how Christmas days plays out.

While parents were busy wrapping and children were busy playing, Matthew went and found his favorite lacrosse ball (old, grass-stained, etc) and tried to put it into the fruit basket. His efforts were kindly turned away, but he persisted, and after going back and forth a couple of times we finally caught on. He wanted to give the family something he loves, rather than just clothes and food we had bought that day and meant nothing to him. So he gave the lacrosse ball a position of prominence, fitting for the meaning behind it.