Saturday 16 November 2013

Advent activities and introducing the concept of charity

What Christmas traditions have you started with your young family?

Last year we tried to do a seasonal activity every day during December and this year I have sewn 25 tiny stockings too. Each night, once Small is asleep, I will sneak back downstairs and place a small object or a clue in the correct stocking. I have tried to keep it flexible - if my energy levels are low it may be as simple as a packet of the mints Small loves but on a better day it could be Christmas biscuit cutters or new paintbrushes to lead us into an activity.

As well as our advent activity calendar we are carrying on another tradition we began last year. Last Christmas we had recently moved to a new part of the city so we decided that a nice way to introduce ourselves to the other families in the street would be to deliver a Christmas card to each house. Small and Big wrapped up warmly and posted the cards and we were really pleased when, over the next few days, cards came tumbling through our letterbox in return.

A new aspect that I hope will become a family tradition will be to visit a food bank. As a family we do not have a lot of money but we also know how much worse it can be - being made redundant or having benefits wrongly withdrawn is incredibly stressful at any time, but at Christmas it must be truly awful. We plan to take some food to donate, so that one less family will be worrying about feeding their family over Christmas. As well as the obvious reasons for donating, I hope it will help to show Small that Christmas is not all about him and that it does feel good to know you have helped someone, even just a little.

As always I would love to hear what you have planned :-)

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