Christmas at our house begins on the day of Thanksgiving. The night before Thanksgiving, the kids clean up all their toys from the living room to make room for Santa and his Elves to bring the christmas tree up from the basement that night. The kids leave out some mandarin oranges and walnuts, to give Santa and his elves energy and water to clench his thirst. As milk is only good with cookies and carbonated beverages may cause him to have an upset stomach. The kids go to bed in their Christmas pajamas that night to let Santa know they are ready for Christmas.
While the kids are nestled all warm and cozy in their bed. Santa and his elves bring out the Christmas tree and leave the Christmas ornaments and decorations next to the patio door. Their eyes are wide open with wonder and excitement when they get up on Thanksgiving morning. They start decorating the tree while I am in the kitchen cooking our Thanksgiving dinner. So it’s kind of a win, win. They get to have fun and decorate and sing Christmas Carols. While I get a kid free kitchen to cook our thanksgiving meal.
Then, we make out a Christmas countdown calendar filled with activities for the month.
Cause with my kids, they think that the next day, every day after Thanksgiving should be Christmas. Thursday nights are designated for hot chocolate nights. Every Friday night in Dcember is Christmas movie nights with popcorn, and candy and cheese. Then, we fill in the rest of the month with Christmas cookie baking, Christmas crafts, handprint painting of Christmas trees and reindeers, Christmas coloring pages, a night to do family Christmas pictures, a night to go look at Christmas lights. So when you do the breakdown, you’re doing all these fun activities with your kids and the cost is bare minimum, but the memories are worth a fortune for both you and the kids. So here’s the breakdown.
Hot chocolate nights:
You get some Swiss Miss hot chocolate
Milk
Whipped topping
Sprinkles
Marshmallows
Total cost: $8.64 because you probably already have the milk.
For 4 nights you’re looking at spending about $1.23. But if your 3 yr old is like mine you have to control the sprinkles. Or you’ll need a bottle of sprinkles for each night when a dab will do ya.
Movie Night
If you already have the movie or subscription to netflix.You’re not out anything for the movie.
Popcorn
Sliced cheese
Assorted candy
$18.68 total. For 4 movie nights. $4.67 a night.
Coloring Pages:
You can find a lot of Websites that have christmas coloring pages to print out for free. So if you already have a bunch of broken crayons laying around your total cost is $0.
Christmas craft painting
Paper plates for the paint
You can buy some kids’ craft paint at Walmart
You can find a lot of ideas on pinterest for things that you can make that are related christmas like a handprint christmas reindeer, or handprint christmas tree or a handprint grinch. I saw a cute idea where you used the kid’s foot for the sleigh.And then a couple upside down handprints for the reindeer, pulling the sleigh.
Total= $9.46
Christmas cookie baking
You can buy you some pre cut snowman or christmas tree cookies at walmart or any grocery store that the kids can pull off and pop out a pan and you can put in the oven. You’re looking at spending less than five bucks.
We always have our annual christmas sugar cookie baking in December too.
This one actually costs a little bit more, but you can buy sugar cookie dough. Roll it out. Let the kids help you use cookie cutters to cut out different Christmas things. Use some powdered sugar and Add a little bit of milk to a bowl. Add a little bit of food coloring into different bowls to make your different colors for your icing. And if you already have the powdered sugar and the food coloring and the cookie cutters, you’re only gonna have to buy the cookie dough.
And go look at Christmas lights.
I live in a small town and every town surrounding my town, Always have parks that put up Christmas lights and have a Christmas show. And most of these events are free. They do take donations. So go enjoy the lights. Your kids will be in awe of all the different colors and patterns of the light shows and donate what you can. And if you have a little bit extra, buy them some hot chocolate. So that they can look at the christmas lights and drink their hot chocolate and just make the whole experience magical.
You can make Christmas magical without spending a fortune. You can take your own christmas pictures at home in front of your own decorations and your own christmas tree. This makes for a more meaningful christmas and memory. And you’ll be able to see how you decorated your tree through the years.
Addie And Me Treasures 
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