Favorite Things--Day 1

In an effort to celebrate this wonderful month, I decided I do my own kind of countdown to that special day. And this will also give me an opportunity to try a little more consistency on this blog that I truly love posting to (when I get disciplined about it). I was going to start on the first so I'm already a little behind. But I was under the weather yesterday so we'll just double post today. I am sure it won't be the first time it happens this month.

So my favorite for today...countdowns to Christmas (fitting, don't you think?). I do love counting down and the experience of Advent. My all time favorite memory of Christmas as a child was lighting the advent candles every evening, sitting in a candlelit room and reading that night's scripture as a family. I am sure we missed nights, but in my memory it happened every night after supper. I loved it and have desperately tried to create similar memories for my own kids. We have an advent wreath and try to daily remember what this crazy month is really about. We also have some additional ways we countdown. We have a calendar that the snowflake moves on everyday. Two of my kids' stocking hooks are countdowns. And one of my kids favorite traditions are the kisses. We string 25 Hershey kisses together and hang them with their stockings. Each night after supper, they trade a kiss on the cheek to their mom or dad for a kiss off their string of kisses. (Yes, there are 25 in each strand. They are each strung a little different though which is what creates the different lengths. This obviously is disturbing to a couple of the ordered children. I'm not sure how many times the kisses got counted yesterday.)