Christmas Countdown & Link Up!

I've been working for almost two days straight organizing crafts, activities, and devotions for our Christmas Countdown.  This is the first year that we're doing a countdown that focuses more on the "Christ" in Christmas.

While discussing it with My Marine, we decided that we wanted to do something similar to our Gratitude Turkeys, where we would post something every day.  I read about the Jesse Tree on a lot of other sites and we decided to incorporate that into what I hope will be a new tradition for us.

So after searching other sites for what seemed like hours on end, I finally found a great resource that had exactly what I wanted - both a short devotional for little distracted minds and an ornament for the girls to color and hang on the tree.

(Disclaimer: Now, I must say that I apologize to whoever this document belongs to.  I really want to give credit, where credit is due, but no where on the document does it reference back to the site.  So if anyone out there knows who this document belongs to, please let me know so that I don't get arrested for plagarism!)

(UPDATE:  Thanks to Annette at Live, Learn, Love for letting me know that this document came from
Nicole at Tired, Need Sleep.  As a special thank you, Annette will be getting a little special something in the mail from me!)

I really love this!  So I printed out one copy of the verses and put them in our Nativity countdown calendar.  I also printed out two copies of the ornaments so that both of the girls can color their own.  If you're interested in your own copy, you can get it here at Nicole's site

Countdown calendar with the clay pot Nativity I made and the paper cup angel Danjela made in preschool last year

I also made a Christmas tree out of green poster board that's hanging on our wall.  I know, I know.  Trees are traditionally smaller at the top and larger at the bottom.  Go ahead and laugh at it - I'll wait.  My Marine wasn't here to cut it out - because if he was, each branch would be perfectly sized and symmetrical.  It would not be the lopsided mess that is currently hanging on the wall.


In addition to our daily devotions, we are planning some fun, family things to do as well. 

Things like:

1.   Paint Christmas ornaments
2.   Get and decorate our Christmas tree
3.   Zoo lights
4.   Make Christmas cards for pen-pal exchange
5.   Slumber party under the Christmas tree lights
6.   Bake Christmas cookies
7.   Hot chocolate and Christmas movie night
8.   Write Santa a letter and go visit Santa
9.   Hang new ornaments on tree
10. Rudolph movie, craft and cookie day

You can download a copy of our calendar here

So what are you doing for your Countdown? Link up and share!