A few years ago The Best Mother in Law in the World gave us a beautiful Christmas countdown house. It is absolutely adorable and will be a treasured decoration for years to come. Especially now that I decided to do a Christ centered countdown instead of a candy centered countdown. My kids won't be playing with it when my back is turned (or at least that is what I am hoping). Last year I tried the candy thing and after a few days of it being up, the kids broke off the Santa. Thank goodness for superglue! I'm hoping to avoid that kind of destruction in the future.
I have been thinking about this Christmas countdown for a few weeks and finally found a countdown that I liked well enough to use. I wanted an LDS theologic base and activities for my kids to do. Google introduced me to an old issue of The Friend from 2000 that had a great countdown. You read a few verses of scripture and then do the activity for that day. So instead of creating my own, I decided to use this one since it met all of my needs. I am not doing the nativity puzzle although that is a cute idea too.
I updated it with the current Prophet's name and included all of the scripture verses listed so we can read them directly off the paper. Then I printed out the list and cut into strips, rolled or folded them up and stuffed them into each day's box on the Christmas countdown house.
I think it will be a big hit and also be a great way to bring the Spirit and focus on Christ a little more frequently in our house. I am looking forward to tonight's first little door opening.
If you also want to do this with your family, I made a PDF that you can download here.
