Advent Calendar: Day ?

Well, true to my form, I have fallen behind on my advent calendar posting. So far behind, in fact, that I don't think I could possibly recap every day. However, we have definitely been keeping up with it and we've been having a lot of fun with it.

A favorite advent calendar find was the little baby snowman in these nesting dolls. I have been looking far and wide for some inexpensive nesting dolls (often referred to as matryoshka dolls) and inexpensive ones are hard to find. I would still love to find some that are not specifically Christmas dolls, but these suffice. Rosemary (and kids in general) loves to stack and unstack these, line them up, count them, rearrange them, etc. They are really good for learning to sort, learning math skills, etc. Anyhow, we couldn't fit all of them in the advent calendar, so the smallest one went in and the rest were waiting under the Christmas tree.

Last year, somebody (either my mom or my step-mom, I'm so sorry I can't remember who) gave Rosemary a toy matchbox that opens up to snow people dancing, and plays the 12 days of Christmas. This year, Rosemary received it in her advent calendar. It's another favorite.

Her most favorite of all, however, is a tiny toy snow globe that is so small it fit into the pocket. It's plastic and nearly unbreakable (believe me, it's been tested many times) and Rosemary loves it so much, it is almost always in her hands.

I've been so glad that we're doing this. I truly feel like we have stopped to think and talk about Christmas and its meaning more than we ever have before.