Advent Activities

Once I hung up the Advent Calendar that we use each year, Sophia couldn't wait to go through each day and see what we'd do. In fact, she is such the planner, telling me when we should do each activity based on the day of the week and if we'd have enough time for it.

 

One of the activities was to eat candy canes, make an ornaments and make a Holiday treat. We did all 3 in a matter of a day.....she was trying to do as many as she could, as fast as she could.
For the Holiday treat, we decorated gingerbread men cookies.  

 

 

Decorating is hard work. Maybe we should have invested in hair nets?

It was kinda messy but fun. I think next time, we'll make our own cookies. This was a kit with pre-made cookies. Sophia said the cookies tasted like booty. :)

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas

On Thursday, Santa flew into River Trails via helicopter. We lined all the kids up in our parking lot. Here's Sophia waiting.

She was pretty excited.

Although her interest began to wan.

I felt lucky to be there to capture all of this with my camera (and to enjoy it with her).

Where is he?

She must be imagining her Christmas list here...

Wait! There he is!

Here she is with her 6th grade reading buddy.

He's getting closer.

It was cute to watch the 6th graders with their buddies.

Get ready! If you blink, you'll miss him!

There's Rudolph!

And Frosty!

I think she loved the entire experience. Although, she did tell me that she didn't think he was the real Santa. She said he just didn't look like the real one. I think maybe she was comparing him to the Rogers-O'Brien Christmas brunch Santa. That's the only one she's really known.

 

Later that day, I got to pop into her class party (we'd traded conference times with other grade levels). I arrived just as they finished eating the cookies that they'd decorated.

They did a book exchange for gifts. To find out who they exchanged with, they did this walking activity. When the music stopped, you landed on a Christmas clip art square on the floor. Mrs. Hoss drew a square from the bag and whoever was on that square got to pick.

Needless to say, it took a while.

Once everyone had a book, they opened their gift.

I could tell Sophia wasn't feeling 100% at this point. Too much sugar, too much excitement, too much waiting?

Eventually, Sophia traded books with someone (they could do that).

I think she was more excited about her candy cane than her book.

All in all, it was a fun/crazy/long day. If I'd only known, the next day would be even longer.....