S&S INC. + B.: Let the Christmas countdown begin...

Okay, so everyone knows what an advent calendar is, right??? Good. I was reading a *"Mommy blog" I follow just the other day that offered up the.most.creative alternative idea for a Christmas advent calendar... instead of actually using some sort of chart to count down the days until Christmas, she decided to collect 24 books about the holiday season. She wrapped each book up nicely as a gift, stacked them somewhere in the house where her children could see them, then each night, before bedtime, she'd let one of her children choose a book, unwrap it, then together as a family they would read the book and then however many books were left in the Christmas book pile, meant that's how many days were left until Christmas. The idea is totally genius!!! Love, LOVE, LOVE it!

I decided this advent calendar idea is going to become a new family tradition each year- especially since our family LOVES books!!! We already own a couple of Christmas books- one about winter- one about stars- one about Baby Jesus' birth and an "I SPY Christmas Things" book... the rest, I planned to find and rent from the library, but as luck would have it, Monday morning, after making the long drive down to Orem from our house (simply because the library there is SO much bigger and better than any of our local libraries), I unloaded the 4 younger boys out of the car- strapped the 2 babes into the double stroller and went to take the brake off of the stroller, using my sandal, and it broke!!! My sandal that is, NOT the stroller- that would be HORRIFIC! My sandal was completely irreparable- trust me, I tried desperately to fix it and NO, I didn't have an extra pair of shoes or sandals tucked away in my car, so since it was completely impossible to walk in my broken sandal, I chucked my sandals and quickly loaded all 4 kiddos back into my car, all while being barefoot in the parking lot! Eww!!! So much for trying to take a nice little trip to the library. Oh well- my kids were all already at their breaking points that morning and they all desperately needed naps- I like to think it was probably a blessing my sandal broke before we went into the library, because who knows what kind of library mayhem they could have created otherwise!!!

Ok... So I was still short quite a few books- as you might recall I needed 24, and I only owned 4- but low and behold- shortly after driving out of the parking lot of the Orem Library, I called my mother in law, completely frustrated, and she told me about a stash of Christmas books for children she'd kept in her basement over the years. She said I could take which ever ones I wanted, so long as I returned them later. I hurried over to her house, before heading home with the boys, and found a gold mine of Christmas books- everything from The Polar Express, to Nativity Books, the story about the 3 trees- some popular folklore book, another book called The Littlest Angel, etc., etc. Some of the books she owned were ones that haven't been printed since the 60's and 70's... classic Christmas tales- long forgotten. I collected 17 books from her stash- now I'm only short 3 more. I may pick up another Christmas book or two of my own, next time I go to the store. I spoke with my mom on the phone tonight and she said she'll stop by a Hallmark bookstore tomorrow night to look in their collection of holiday books that people can read and record their own voices... She said she'd try and find specifically "The Night Before Christmas" to read and record for our boys--- that way she could mail it to them, and they could open and read it on Christmas Eve, which b.t.w. happens to be my mothers birthday- that way they'll have a little piece of grandma and grandpa with them. The blogger who originally introduced this idea, only mentioned getting 24 books, but after talking to my sister Tricia about it, we both decided it would be appropriate to have 25. The last book, really isn't a book at all, but it would be wrapped, just like the other books- only instead of being wrapped in the same paper as the other books, this last "book" would be wrapped in gold wrapping paper. This last "book" would be saved for Christmas morning... it will be a copy of The Living Christ: The Testimony of the Apostles to read, as seen here. I plan to have our little family read it Christmas morning to bring to light the REAL reason for the season and remind us of our Savior. I can't think of anything else that describes our Savior, Jesus Christ, better than this testimony from our prophet and apostles.

Our boys have been anxious these past few days to start the count down by reading books--- they were nearly tickled with JOY this evening when we let them unwrap the first book just before family prayer.