The advent and The elf--day 1

I am not a very consistent blogger (as you can see by my last post date being more than a year ago), but this Christmas season I am going to try to post our daily activities in the hope that all of the special moments of the season will not be forgotten in the hustle and bustle.
There is something almost magical about the 1st day of December.  I remember as a child feeling that "finally, Christmas is almost here!" just because the page on the calendar had been turned.  Our family has always used advent calendars to count down the days until Christmas, but this year I decided to get crafty and make a special one for my kiddos.

 Each day we get to scratch off one card and see what the day's event or activity will be.  Some are big--visiting the Missouri Botanical Gardens as a family, and some are small--watching How The Grinch Stole Christmas and snuggling under the covers.......but each is special.  Today was Addie's day to scratch off the event:

This took a bit of running on my part as I realized that finding Mrs. Stuart's laundry bluing was not going to be as easy as I thought it would be.  Schwegels to the rescue!  The bluing was found and bought late yesterday afternoon.  This morning after the big reveal the kids and I made cardstock Christmas trees and set them in little dishes with a mixture of water, ammonia, bluing, and salt.

The theory goes that by tomorrow morning we will see magical little crystals growing on our paper trees!

*Recipe for growing crystal trees: Mix 1 Tbs water, 1 Tbs bluing, 1 Tbs salt and 1/2 Tbs ammonia together in a jar with a tight fitting lid and shake until mixed.  Pour the solution into a dish and set your little cardstock or thin cardboard Christmas tree inside (we found that thin cardboard works much better and holds up longer!) Then just wait for the magic to happen : )

Also, each year our family gets a new book to enjoy throughout the Christmas season.  This year we got the "I Spy Christmas Book"

The most special event of our morning came when we let our dogs out for the morning.  Lo and behold some Christmas magic had appeared on our doorstep in the form of a wrapped Christmas package thank you Grandma ; )

The kids really could not figure out how it got there or what was going to be in it.  Inside was our very own Christmas elf!  We sat right down to read the story of how he came to join our family and christen him with "the perfect name"....they named him Gus!  Today he has taken up residence in our small fake tree in the living room...I wonder what he will see today and where he will be tomorrow?