Christmas recap

Today is the 12th day of Christmas, which means that I am officially not too late to post about everything that we did for Advent and Christmas. At least that's the excuse I'm allowing myself for taking so long to get everything put together.

We had a busy month of seeing family, cooking, and activities! As a review, here's what I thought we would do this Advent:

• Cut down/choose our Christmas tree  check! Posted about here
• Decorate the tree check! Posted about here
• Decorate coffee mugs using porcelain pens Kind of a bust. My Porcelaine pen dried out so I tried a Sharpie like Pinterest recommends... and it wiped off in part in the dishwasher. Michaels doesn't carry those pens anymore, so I'm trying Martha Stewart paints. We'll see.
• Watch a Christmas movie together in Mommy & Daddy's bed check! John and LE watched lots of old Christmas shows together before bedtime
• Make snow angels a big bust; post coming
• Go sledding also a bust; post coming
• Make snowman  check! Posted about here.
• Make mint scented playdough check! Did that just today
• Make cornstarch ornaments (like salt dough but comes out bright white) check! post coming
• Decorate Christmas cookies with church check! got cancelled due to our blizzard. Decorated with friends and at home instead
• Drive around to look at Christmas lights check! Lots of informal times with just LE, H, and me. LE loved it. But... when we went out intentionally as a family of 4, Hannah screamed the first time and LE decided she saw enough the second time.
• Make s'mores in our fire pit Not even close
• Decorate gingerbread houses or ice cream cone Christmas trees check! we did gingerbread men, trees, and snowflakes instead (posts coming)
• Shop for a kid on the angel tree check! It wasn't an angel tree, but it was for a little 2 1/2 year old homeless girl who we heard needed clothes
• Make footprint Christmas trees and reindeer faces check! Though I already packed them away without taking a picture of. Woops! Maybe I'll show you when we unpack them next year. ;) 
• (Truth in the Tinsel has daily crafts that correspond with the reading, too) We only sort of did this and played with the nativity set a lot instead.

So, all in all, we did a pretty good job, I think. I'll go into detail over the next few days sharing some of the highlights.

Hope you all had a great Christmas!