Capture Life – 11.25.13 | Elle's Studio Blog

Capture Life – A Countdown to Christmas

I’m not one to typically glaze over Thanksgiving and I don’t want to do that; but I also want to give you guys a jump start on a little something to do this weekend between shopping and pulling out the Christmas decorations.
The 25 days of Christmas is something we started last year and my kids have already been asking what we will be doing each day this December.

Each morning beginning on December 1st, the kids get to check the Countdown board to see what activity we will be doing that evening. The projects are all very simple and as inexpensive as possible. I want to keep the focus on doing something together as a family rather than simply getting a gift each day.

Last years list consisted of: Making Paper Snowflakes, Baking cookies and taking them to a neighbor, enjoying hot cocoa & marshmallows after school, making pipe cleaner candy canes, enjoying a chocolate treat, reading a Christmas story, having a family game night, watching a Christmas movie and eating popcorn, making salt dough ornaments, going sledding, writing letters to Santa, making melting bead ornaments, eating pancakes for supper, making snow flake tortillas, decorating our gingerbread house, making Christmas tags for gifts, making homemade hot cocoa and packaging teacher gifts, making cookies for Santa, driving around and looking at Christmas lights, making popsicle stick snowflakes, wrapping daddy’s Christmas presents, taking a family picture in front of the Christmas tree, making reindeer food, leaving cookies and milk for Santa, and finally opening presents and enjoying cinnamon rolls on Christmas morning!

Now, the most important part :: capturing those moments!

Most of our activities were done in the evening after it was dark out which left us with no natural light to use for all those photos. One trick I love to use is to pop on my external flash and point it straight up which bounces beautifully off of the kitchen ceiling without giving those harsh shadows.

This years calendar was created using the entire Noel collection along with the amazing new Wood Veneers. The Countdown pattern paper paired with my circle punch was the perfect way to countdown the days! The activities will be written on the back for the kids to reveal each day.