Christmas Program and more Christmas festivities

We had our church Christmas program on 12/14.  The kids sang and our middle girl was a wise "man."  I had a small non-speaking part as Mary and Big Boy as Jesus as a child (when the wise men brought gifts).  I think it turned out to be a really nice program.  Here are the two songs the children sang.

I've been trying to have us do more things than normal as a family this holiday season to help make memories with the kids.  Before the Christmas season I did a bunch of research to find different things to do.  I was hoping to have something Christmasy to do every day leading up to Christmas, but that was a bit too ambitious.  :-) We have made a few different batches of gingerbread cookies though and we are going to decorate our gingerbread village today.  We went to see a big holiday light display last week, went to Hubby's Christmas party at work, and went to an event which took us through the lives of two children in different countries (Kenya and the Philippines). We walked through what would have been like the places they lived to give us a good idea of what life in some other countries is like.  Hubby has taken each of the girls out on dates recently so that the girls could buy gifts for each other.  We checked out a bunch of Christmas books from the library (mostly non-secular) and have enjoyed reading them during our read-aloud time for school.

Last night we did the elf yourself dances and the kids loved watching themselves.  This was their favorite dance: http://www.elfyourself.com/?mId=63626404.2

Tonight my mom is coming over and we are going to let the girls open their presents from each other.  Tomorrow is the big Christmas dinner at our place.  I'm hoping everyone who planned to come will be able to make it.  Looking forward to a wonderful day celebrating the birth of our Saviour!  Merry Christmas everyone!!! 

Big Girl did art class just for the month of December.  The first week they did the snowman paintings and the second week they decorated the nightshirts they are proudly wearing.