Christmas is exactly 5 weeks away! Thanksgiving is extremely late this year (the latest the fourth Thursday of November can be), which means that there are only 3 December weekends before Christmas (well, unless you count Sunday December 1st, which in my mind is still part of Thanksgiving weekend). In our family, I know these weeks need to encompass several kid performances, and other activities brewing, like my husband’s office party, in addition to the usual fuss of buying presents for so many people. Likely the elf will make an appearance, there will be sibling presents, and people will go to our church’s annual screening of the Polar Express.
Those things are not going on the official List, though, because this year the List is specifically about things I find fun! Here’s what we will do.
See Luminature at the Philadelphia Zoo. I’ll take the two little boys on the night the big kids are going to see Wicked. These lights are pretty and, more importantly, only about 20 minutes from the house. This will kick off the holiday festivities for me!
Get Christmas lights professionally installed. This is already done— we have several trees wrapped with lights. It’s fun to see them come on as darkness falls. Also fun: the crew will come get them and take them down in January. Our house manager is putting up the official “fancy tree” this week — the artificial one with matching ornaments. I’m hoping for candles in the window soon.
Attend the Pentatonix concert. This was a last-minute addition to the list, but I got tickets and am bringing my oldest to go see their Christmas repertoire.
Host Thanksgiving. A few members of my extended family will be joining us. I also plan to run a turkey trot 5k that morning. My 15-year-old is signed up to run it, as is SHU (she is visiting her family, who live near me, for Thanksgiving)! They will both be running far faster than me. At least I can say hello at the start and the end. My sister-in-law who makes the fabulous rolls turns out to have other Thanksgiving plans this year so we’ll need to come up with a substitute.
Visit Longwood Gardens. My husband and I plan to do this as a date night to celebrate my birthday. I feel like the kids always rush me through the pretty decorations. So this time we are not bringing the kids! But we might go some other time with the kids. I bought the Longwood membership where you don’t have to make reservations, and A Longwood Christmas is almost completely sold out, so I feel like I have the hot ticket here…
Sing in many Christmas concerts. I’m singing a concert of carols with Choral Arts Philadelphia, and then also doing a service of lessons and carols with my church choir. I’ll sing in the Christmas Eve service with my church choir and then in the New Year’s Eve performance of Bach’s B-Minor mass with Choral Arts. Singing the B-Minor mass has been on my bucket list for years so I’m really excited about this.
Do a cookie baking extravaganza. My daughter and I are likely heading over to my mom’s house to do this. Fake butter will be involved! I think we might be able to make three types of cookies in an afternoon.
Have breakfast with Santa. I want to do this, and my daughter really wanted to do this, so we booked a breakfast for seven at an area department store. We have been instructed (by said daughter) to dress up this time.
Watch the Nutcracker. I think only the oldest kid wants to do this with me, but I always like the music and the dancing. I have not purchased tickets yet as finding a time is challenging (See: everything else on the schedule) but my husband and I are theoretically having a December calendar meeting tonight. Stay tuned.
See the Rockettes in NYC. We bought tickets to bring all seven of us this year! We’ll also go out to dinner in New York afterwards (reservation for 7 = made), and see the Rockefeller Center tree.
Watch kids in the Christmas pageant. Only 2 are performing this year, but that’s fine. I will miss this when no one wants to do it anymore!
Get matching family pajamas. We’ve ordered pajama sets from Pajamagram for the last 5 years, but the problem with doing that is we’ve kind of exhausted their inventory of pajamas we like. So this year my daughter chose a basic red and black pattern and we bought pairs from a few different vendors on Amazon. This is another tradition that I’m not sure will last forever. There is a lot of grumbling. But I think we can squeeze out another year or two.
Read Christmas stories with the 4-year-old. He’s been a bit of a beast at bedtime lately. But we do enjoy reading together. I’m heavily pushing the Christmas stories to him in between the Spiderman books that he wants me to read to him. I like Christmas Farm, Pick a Pine Tree, Cranberry Christmas, Apple Tree Christmas, Christmas Day in the Morning, 5 Sleeps Until Christmas, The Night Before the Night Before Christmas, How Santa Got His Job, The Christmas Wish, and others. The Grinch is fun to read maybe twice but he kind of likes to read that one a lot.
Do the Lego Christmas scene and some Christmas puzzles. I’ll make the North Pole Lego post office (this year’s scene) with the 15-year-old (who is indulging me) and the 13-year-old (who probably is too). I just finished the holiday carolers scene puzzle from White Mountain that a lovely BLP Live participant gave me. I’ll clear the dining room table for Thanksgiving and then even if December is short there will be time for a few more puzzles before the holidays.
Enjoy myself. If you are your family’s chief magic maker you know that this actually does need to go on the list as a reminder. (As the line from last year’s Christmas sonnet goes, “All magic is just labor, hidden well.”)
What’s on your holiday fun list?
Ah the irony of this post the day after the “lighten your mental load” post!
@omdg- maybe…but lightening my mental load on, say, meal planning lets me devote energy to planning in time to go to Christmas stuff I like. And sing in two choirs!
Laura, I think I’ve got a good start, and I’m tempted not to try to add much else, if anything. My holiday fun list will cover 11/24 (coming Sunday) though Jan 6. We are going to fit in a Sunday afternoon choral concert with friends, a Black Friday Holiday Stroll and Christmas tree lighting in a nearby village (with bonus points if I can find restaurant reservation availability for early dinner), a very local to us Sunday afternoon Winter Market with vendors, music, etc., our condo association Christmas dinner out, a couple of dinners out with friends and one just me and husband. Part of the family enjoys taking me out for my Christmas Eve birthday (though one part of us lives across the country, and we’re now doing whatever we do for my birthday on 12/23 anyway), other family holiday celebrations: Thanksgiving at my daughter’s house with some of our family and her husband’s family, and Christmas Day brunch and gift giving at my house. Then on 12/27 we’ll head toward St. Louis to see my husband’s son and family and then stop on the way back to spend NYE and NYD with his brother and wife, my brother and sister-in-law. Oh, and my husband and I are going away on November 30 for two nights, to a local resort for our 6th wedding anniversary. It helps to have all grown up kids now (well, in age anyway!) And I guess I forgot the indoor horticultural exhibit (think lots of poinsettias and lights) and maybe a twilight tour through a decorated mansion. Seems like a lot all of a sudden!
@Holly – phew, that does sound like a lot already! No need to add more. You’ll have a fabulous season.
Thanks, and I’m sure you will as well! It so helps to write this stuff out vs. just having the plans floating in my head.
Performing Bach B minor Mass was one of the highlights of my music degree so I’m excited for you. Inspired by your big projects, I’ve been trying to learn one of Bach’s sonatas and partitas for violin each year for the last few years. Bach just doesn’t get old for me.
@McKenzie – after a year of listening to Bach every day he hasn’t gotten old for me either! I’m not sure what I can do as a project next year that will equal up to this.