December Traditions

For most families, December is a month that abounds in holiday traditions. Christmas trees and carols and presents make for much excitement. The Ant Bug has been looking forward to December for some time now, and she was thrilled when it was finally the day after Thanksgiving and we could pull out our decorations and trim the tree.

Last year we found a great activity in the December 2008 issue of The Friend magazine that was perfect for helping us keep the focus on Christ during the Christmas season.
Here are the directions:
Each day during December look up the scripture reference for that day. Read the stories of Jesus. Then color the set of scriptures for that day. Each day also lists a picture from the Gospel Art Picture Kit (GAK) that can accompany the story. You can access the GAK online here.

We like to display the chart as well as the accompanying GAK picture as a visual reminder throughout the month.

Click here for the activity and the scripture reading list.

Last year we also had fun reading Christmas books together.
Here are the basic directions:
Find 25 Christmas books (or as many as you can), wrap them up and put them under your tree. Then everyday until Christmas your children can choose one to unwrap and read together.

Our current shelf of books is pretty sparse when it comes to Christmas books, so most of our books come from the library (you can still wrap them up even if you have to take them back). This is what we will be reading this year:

Drummer Boy by Loren Long
The Tale of Three Trees by Angela Elwell Hunt
Olive the Other Reindeer by Vivian Walsh & J. Otto Seibold
Christmas Tree Farm by Ann Purmell
Christmas Mice by Bethany Roberts
How the Grinch Stole Christmas by Dr. Seuss
Bear Noel by Olivier Dunrea
The Polar Express by Chris Van Allsburg
McDuff's New Friend by Rosemary Wells and Susan Jeffers
The True Story of Christmas by Nell Navillus
How Santa Got His Job by Stephen Krensky
Christmas Day in the Morning by Pearl S. Buck
Mooseltoe by Margie Palatini
...and maybe a few more!

I first saw this idea on Make and Takes, and this year The Idea Room also shared their version of this activity.

As far as the rest of the month goes, I'm sure we'll be doing most of the same things I wrote about last year here.

What traditions do you have that make your December special?