With the arrival of Advent this year, my boys are so excited to begin with our usual traditions and even introduce a couple of new ones. 

Our staple Advent activity has always been our Jesse Tree.  The kids LOVE, LOVE, LOVE this tradition of doing the daily reading and the anticipation of getting to the ornament that coordinates.  This year they will have to take turns doing the ornament each night.

Another wonderful thing that I incorporated last year is our Christmas Countdown Socks.  And boy, Nathan certainly remembered these when I busted them out this year!  The first surprise in their socks today was a clue about where to find our newest Advent tradition – Elf on the Shelf.

We read the book that came with our Elf and the kids are so excited to have this new tradition. Part of the fun is naming and registering your Elf so Nathan came up with the first name (Egbert) and Will came up with the middle name (Nelf).  I am sure they'll be bouncing out of bed every morning just to find out where the Elf is!  For those of you with small kids, this is a great tradition to start! I've heard so many cute stories from other moms who do this with their kids.

Then there's our refrigerator magnet tree that they were really into last year.  They fought over who was going to put that day's magnet on.  Great….hope this year is not a repeat!

 

This year I also picked up an Advent wreath of sorts and the candles for each week.  Nathan is particularly excited about this because they are doing it at school as well.

Speaking of school, Nathan came home with the cutest Advent countdown project I've ever seen!
Love the idea of moving the star on the yardstick closer to the manger each day.  So cute and such a treasure!

And lastly, the last of the Advent activities is an actual Advent Calendar by Playmobil. Thanks to them, I recently received this and the kids are going to love it!  It consists of 24 individual boxes with a different part of a winter forest scene.  Each day the kids will open up the corresponding box and reveal the new piece that goes to the play scene.  The set comes packaged with everything including the boxes and play scene pieces.  I can tell – this is going to be a lot of fun!

So what are some of your holiday or Advent traditions in anticipation of the big day? ♥

{Disclosure: Product provided by Playmobil}