Counting Down the Days

by Lauri Griffin | More from this Blogger

When my oldest son was in preschool we were all looking forward to flying back east to visit our extended family. He couldn't hold the idea of twenty-one days in his head, and didn't understand that we weren't actually flying on Christmas, but a few days earlier. I tried to show him on the calendar, but his three year old mind couldn't quite get the concept of that many days, and what those calendar squares meant.I came up with the idea of a cross between a to-do list and an advent calendar. I got out extra envelopes from leftover Christmas cards. I numbered them with the days until we left-21, 20.....3, 2, 1. I put a little picture of a church in the corner for the days he would be going to preschool. I put a party hat sticker on one for a friends birthday party. I drew a picture of Santa on one, for the day we would go see Santa. Inside the envelopes I tucked a small candy or a Christmas sticker or a coupon for making cookies or going to a parade or watching a Christmas movie. Each morning he ran to the hallway and took the day's envelope down.

My son loved the envelope-calendar. My husband and I enjoyed not hearing "When are going to fly on the airplane? How many more days?" four hundred times a day. We also commented to each other that seeing those envelopes disappear from the wall helped us have a concrete idea of how many days we had left to shop and pack.

As with so many activities I plan for my children, I think I probably got the most of it in the long run. Having those activities written down and planned for insured that they happened, that the time to do those special things didn't get lost in the busyness of the season.

Christmas is How Many Days Away? Making Christmas Traditions

Learn more about Lauri Griffin

Lauri lives in Colorado with her husband and three sons. Amidst all the laundry and packing of lunches, she tries to keep parenting fun.

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