We’ve done 12 dates of Christmas for a few years now. We’d go to the city and we’d see shows. We’d go to parades and lights. We’d go… places! This year we really tried to keep our tradition up but with a super scaled down version. 1. Drive- thru light show. It’s not spectacular but it’s fun and the kids love the fact they can unbuckle as we drive through the light show. It was our kick-off to the season right after Thanksgiving.

2. Visit with Santa. Different but still special. He IS the best Santa, even from 6 ft away.

3. Christmas card photos. Ps- I went a whole different route.

4. Letters to Santa. Shea’s changed approximately 8 times so we’ll see how that ends up.

5. Christmas tree shopping. We wanted a little bit of a smaller tree this year to see how Summer would handle it. So far so good though we only used soft ornaments and they all start about 1/2 way up just in case.

6. Decorating the tree. The boys and I did this in record time. (Probably because we used 1/4 of the ornaments we usually do because of…Summer).

7. Baking. All the baking. We made holiday Rice Krispie treats, cookies, more cookies, and then some more…

8. Gingerbread houses. Normally we go to this cute place but this year; at home version. They came out so good though!! And Shea still managed to eat wayyyy more than he decorated with.

9. Magical Forest. This was so cool. They both tried real hard to get me to buy a colorful tree. If we didn’t already have ours, I might’ve gone for it. They were so cool.

10. Snow globe scavenger hunt. This was such a sweet thing for Greenport to come up with. Totally outside, no crowds, no people.. just two boys searching for all the snow globes that each store bid in its window. Waiting it out impatiently to see if we win the grand prize!

11. The life size gingerbread house. We’ve been working on it a little bit each night. We’re almost done. It’s turning into a dog house/fort/clubhouse and it’s pretty cute. They’ve made additions with the couch cushions, kid tables, blankets, and boxes. They like to see if our “big bad wolf” (Summer again) will make it in the get them. 🤣🤣

12. Snow! We had snowball fights, snow hide-and-seek, and sledding! The snow lasted a week almost exactly and right before it went away, it went into an ice stage. Normally that would stink but, we were home safe AND it meant that our sleds would slide around the yard like crazy. It was super fun. Someone even went right through the fence.

Bonus: Shea did two weeks of Christmas clothes. I did a horrible job there with the pics but he has the best wardrobe!! Also, we’ve done so many walks and Christmas story reading, and have been slowly checking off the Christmas movies. I’m not sure how we got so far behind there. We’ve only watched like 3 Christmas movies but there’s still time! Thank goodness for Christmas vacation. Our dates were different and smaller but they were more purposeful and sweet and we’re so lucky to be able to do them at all.

And now it’s Christmas Eve and we’re all so excited for tomorrow. Merry Christmas!!