As "just" a mom, I have a front row seat to my children's growth and learning, daily little miracles, and the funny things that happen in a marriage. I feel so very blessed to be "just" a mom.
Wednesday, January 14, 2026
Our 2025 Christmas Countdown!
Leading up to Christmas each year, the kids and I do a countdown with children's books and activities. Every morning, the kids unwrap a children's Christmas book and we do a (usually) corresponding activity. We had a lot of fun with it this year.
November 28 - Holly Days
We start the day after Thanksgiving each year with Holly Days. I've already journaled about Holly Days in my Thanksgiving post, but the local event was a fun way to kick off our countdown to Christmas.
November 29 - Make Countdown Chain
I love to make the countdown chains before December and then each night as they go to bed throughout the month, they can take a chain off. I love chains as a visual way to help kids (especially the younger ones) see how far away Christmas is (we've done this with Halloween for Rylee when she was younger too).
November 30 - Draw Service Names
With how crazy this year was, I didn't do the greatest job of getting pictures of each day. But, that's okay! We have a little manger that my father-in-law helped me make a few years ago and some felt we cut into strips of "hay" (the felt is so much easier to clean up if kids ever dump it all out than real hay would be). Each Sunday, we draw names and do secret acts of service for our person throughout the week. It's one of Ashtyn's favorite traditions, she spearheads it every year. This was the first day we drew names and started the acts of service.
December 1 - Decorate Kids' Tree
The kids have a mini tree for their room that they love to decorate. We sometimes have a few little storebought decorations for them to put on there, but mostly, they make their own crafting. This year, I was helping my sister-in-law clean her apartment all day, so the kids pretty much did the decorations on their own and they came up with some cute ones. I'm wishing I had pictures of them!
December 2 - Write Letters to Santa
I like to get this one in early, so there are no last minute surprises in their letter to Santa (that's happened before just a week before Christmas). We had fun with this simple tradition.
December 3 - Candy Cane Hunt
The day of the candy cane hunt, we had their cousin Kolson over for the afternoon, so we did the hunt with him as well. Parker read the book to him (I always read The Legend of the Candy Cane to the kids and had read it that morning).
I always have fun hiding the candy canes and for how simple it is for me, the kids absolutely love this activity. They look forward to it every year.
December 4 - Decorate the Tree
December 5 - Ninja Elves
A favorite tradition of mine is, instead of exchanging gifts with Ben's family, we take the money we would have spent on gifts and find a local family in need to gift that money to. The kids then get to be "ninja elves" and doorbell ditch the gift to the family we've chosen. I always read A Christmas Dress for Ellen (my top favorite Christmas book) aloud to the kids and I always bawl while I read it. I love the story of generousity and Christmas miracles, told by Thomas S. Monson. I explain what we're doing and the family we've chosen. The kids have the opportunity to give from their own money if they'd like, but they also understand that they've already contributed by not exchanging gifts with cousins. I love to see kids' generous spirits and the way they love to give at Christmas time. They also love the ninja aspect of it. We didn't end up dropping off the gift this day, but we got it ready and found a day later on that worked for the rest of Ben's family.
December 6 - Make Ornaments as a Family
December 6, we made ornaments as a family. We make a new ornament each year to add to our tree. This year, we bought round wooden beads and made snowmen out of them. We also found some plastic bulbs that we had made ornaments out of years ago (when Ashtyn and Parker were little) and I let the kids decorate those with our permanent markers as well. It was a lot of fun and the ornaments turned out cute.
December 7 - Make Gingerbread Houses
Then it was time for decorating gingerbread houses! We love to invite people over to decorate with us--this year, we had 14 kids decorating. We have a whole system, where we make individual gingerbread houses for the kids using graham crackers and my great-grandmother's icing (which turns into cement when it dries). This year, we had a bit of a crisis becuase I finally remembered to buy name brand graham crackers (every year I forget and get off brand and we worry about having enough because of broken crackers in the box) and they didn't work! When Ben tried to cut the shape of the roof, the crackers would break. He's very patient and soft with cutting, it was a joke. We ended up getting Kroger brand crackers and they worked much better.
After the houses are put together, we give the kids candy and frosting and let the kids at it. I love how much they love decorating and we love having people over to join.
December 8 - Grinch Day
Our grinch day was a lot of fun! We read the book, watch the cartoon and animated movies, do crafts and coloring pages, a science experiment, and treats.
One of the crafts we did was making this giant Grinch and we hung it up by our countdown chains. I think it turned out cute!
December 9 - Polar Express Party
The Polar Express party is always fun--we have treats and white hot chocolate and watch the movie in our pajamas with cousins. This year, we had a bit of a crisis as Leah got sick (she threw up and got a fever) during the party, but we got through it and all the kids had fun.
December 10 - Visit Santa at the Ward Party
Parker was sick with a fever and Leah was still not doing the greatest, so Ben stayed home with them and I took the other kids to the ward party. The ward did a great job and we all had a fun time. Parker rested and watched Leverage with Ben, and I assured her I would find another time to take her to see Santa.
Leah was ready to see Santa in her little Christmas outfit!
We went about a week later to the event Vernal city put on. They always do such a cute job. They had coloring and crafts for the kids to do while they were waiting, donut holes and apple juice, and before Santa came, they did a magic show. I've seen this magician in Vernal before and I love him, he does such a great job and is so good with kids. My kids were dying of laughter during the show. Oliver got to be one of his helpers and got "turned into a rabbit".
Parker was so happy! She loves to visit Santa and she loved everything about the city event.
Leah is squarely in her "stranger danger" phase, where she lets about three people hold her right now. I was prepared to hand her over, take a quick picture of her screaming on Santa's lap, and take her right back. Instead, she just sat there looking at me.
Then she looked at Santa and I thought, "Here we go." But no, she was nice and content with Santa, and I love the pictures I got.
It was a lot of fun to visit Santa (both times).
December 11 - Make Gingerbread Cookies
I love making gingerbread cookies with the kids each year. We always use my great grandmother's recipe. The kids took turns with the cookie cutters, and you could tell with the some of the cookies 😂
They had a lot of fun, especially with the eye sprinkles I got 😂
This is Oliver trying to get a picture of his gingerbread man "running away."
December 12 - Make cards for mailman, police, firefighters
The day after making gingerbread men, we like to make cards for the mailman and the local police and firefighters. Then we give them a baggie of the gingerbread men with the card. I was going to take pictures of their cards, which turned out cute, but I forgot.
December 13 - Christmas concert with treats after
I took a picture of Rylee and Ashtyn after their theater class concert and now I can't find it in my pictures. I don't know what happened to it, if I accidentally deleted it without backing it up or if it's just lost somewhere. I stole it off Instagram for now, so there are extra words.
They both did a great job. Both of them had solo parts (Rylee's was a duet, she corrects me every time) and did amazing with those. Jon came out to see them, which they loved, and Ben's mom and a few of their cousins were able to come as well. After the concert, we stopped at Wendy's to get frosties.
Leah had been doing so much better, but Saturday she started to struggle again. Mostly, she was just acting tired--she slept in, took a 2.5 hour morning nap, and then was acting tired (and the concert was, of course, right when her second nap would happen). Ben ended up putting her down early and staying home with her and she slept the entire time we were gone (another 2.5 hour nap), and we still put her down early for bed that night. I guess her body really needed the sleep. It was hard for me at first for Ben to stay home and miss the concert, but the kids were fine with it as long as I took a video of their solos and when Leah slept so long, I knew it was the right thing to do.
December 14 - Birthday party for Jesus
During our birthday party for Jesus, we write down "gifts" we want to give him this year--something we will change to be more like Him or some way we will serve Him. We have our past years' gifts saved, so we can look back at those. We always have a treat and sing Happy Birthday to Him as well.
We finish off the night by watching The Christ Child, my favorite video of the nativity.
The treat this year was ice cream cones, which the kids loved.
December 15 - Make Cookies for Neighbors
I love my Christmas cookie-making day! The kids color and watch movies (though they are also old enough that they come in and help me as well) throughout the day. I was holding Leah for a lot of the morning, since she took a short nap, but then she took a long afternoon nap, which helped.
The finished product! I made M&M cookies, chocolate chip cookies, peanut butter kiss cookies, and snickerdoodles. It always takes a long time (I was up until almost 11 finishing and I started early, with a short break to take the kids to see Santa in the evening). Next year, I have some ideas that will help--I am planning on doing the M&M and chocolate chip cookies still, but I won't add food coloring to the M&M. Instead, I'll do green soft sugar cookies. The thing that takes the longest are the peanut butter cookies (which are also hard to cool off, because I start to run out of space since I can't stack them until they are cool) and the snickerdoodles, since they both have special ways of baking them, and no one in our family particularly likes the kiss cookies as much anyway. I promised Ashtyn she could make (a smaller batch of) snickerdoodles another time during Christmas next year, since they are her favorites to make and eat.
After I make them, I bag them and add a little card. We ended up with about 75 bags this year and it ended up being about the perfect amount to give out to neighbors and friends.
December 16 - Deliver cookies to neighbors
The day after I make cookies, the kids come and help me deliver them! We each tackle different houses to help it go faster and the kids have a lot of fun with it. This year, Parker's jaw was hurting (a few different people with the sickness we had complained of it too at different times, including Ashtyn). She stayed home and watched Leah for a few minutes until Ben was done working. I was going to take Leah with us, but this ended up being way easier for me and Parker liked it more as well.
December 17 - Caroling (and drop off ninja elves)
This was a busy day! Their cousins came over for a late night (and hosted a wedding for our Elf on the Shelves) and while everyone was there, we went caroling to a couple of houses (we limited it to two because the wind was so cold). Ben wasn't feeling the greatest, so he ended up staying home. We went to our next door neighbors and sang a couple of songs. Then we tried the family across the street, but they weren't home. Instead, we walked down to an empty-nester couple a few houses down. They took a minute to answer, so we thought they weren't going to be home either, but then they got to the door and loved us singing to them! I'm so glad we ended up caroling at their house.
We also dropped off the ninja elves present while everyone was there--we had to try three times. The first time they weren't home and with money, we don't like to leave it on the doorstep. The second time, they were in their driveway when we drove by! The third time, we managed to drop it off successfully. The kids loved it.
December 18 - Make gifts for extended family
The next day, I was ready for a lowkey activity. We started their gifts for extended family that they like to make. I help them type a story on the computer. We print it off and they illustrate it, and then I can copy it for everyone they want to give a gift to.
December 19 - Make sibling gifts
The next day, we started on sibling gifts. Parker had Oliver and wanted to make him this "robotic" hand out of cardboard. It turned out to be a very difficult present to make, but we did it and Oliver loved it.
Ashtyn made a Rumi mask for Rylee and it was a bit of a proces, but she did it mostly independently.
Oliver made little dragon bookmarks out of paper for Ashtyn.
And Rylee made some Among Us toys out of clothespin.
What my room looked like after being Santa's workshop all day--the kids took turns coming in to work so all their gifts could be kept surprises.
December 20 - Look at Christmas Lights
We had rescheduled Christmas lights a few times waiting for Ben to get over his sickness and were finally ready! I like to do some sort of treat when we look at lights. This year we were going to be short on time, so I packed up these little goodie baags for the kids, which they loved.
The first thing we did was go to a few different dancing lights houses (we found the addresses beforehand) because those are the kids' favorites. Then we stopped at a couple of Ben and my friends' houses to drop off goodies. Our last stop was to see Ben's Grandma Netta and visit with her for a few minutes. The kids had a lot of fun, Leah did really well, and we were able to do everything I had planned.
December 21 - Make Christmas Cookies from Around the World
Again, I forgot to take a picture! We have a book about cookies that people from around the world leave Santa that is so cute and every year when we read it, we pick one of the cookies to try--this year, the kids wanted to make Brigadeiros, from Brazil. Ours turned out really soft (I'm wondering if I needed to boil them longer) but really yummy. Despite melting together a bit, they didn't last long with the kids eating them.
December 22 - Snow Day
We had very little snow before Christmas this year (and actually still have had hardly any), which was a big disappointment to the kids. For our snow day, we made paper snowflakes and hung them up on the kids' ceiling. They love hanging up snowflakes in their room and we keep the snowflakes up all of January for them.
December 23 - Make cookies for Santa
December 23rd is always our cookie making day for Santa (because I don't want to be doing it on Christmas Eve). I use Ben's mother's sugar cookie recipe and the kids take turns helping me roll them out. Then we let the kids pick a plate of cookies, give them frosting and sprinkles, and let them at it. I decorate the leftover cookies. This year, Leah woke up early from a nap right as they were decorating, so I didn't get many pictures, but we invited cousins over, so we had 12 kids decorating. It was crazy, but fun.
The kids each decorated a special cookie for Santa, which I didn't get pictures of all of them, but this one was Parker's.
I wrote about our Christmas Eve in my other blog post about Christmas, so I won't go into too much detail here, but we had a really nice Christmas Eve together doing all our Christmas Eve traditions and reading our last book, The Night Before Christmas, before bed together.
We had such a wonderful Christmas season together, despite all the sickness we kept getting. I love seeing how much my kids look forward to different traditions and making these memories with them.
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