I am doing my best not to decorate for Christmas before Thanksgiving {although I think am about to give up that fight} but I am trying to be as prepared as possible for the busy month ahead. There is so much fun to have during the Christmas season that I try to take care of as much planning as possible before December hits. One job I try to have done is my Christmas shopping. If you are just getting going on your shopping you can download my free printable shopping checklist here.
Another task is to have our Christmas countdown ready to go. For the third year in a row I am wrapping up 24 Christmas books for us to read. The kids get to open one a night until Christmas Eve, when they open the final book.
I totally understand that 24 Christmas books sounds like an overwhelming number. Keep in mind I have been adding to our stack for three years. Here are a couple tips for growing your collection:
- Purchase through kids book orders at school where you can usually find seasonal books for cheap.
- Look for books after Christmas is over when they will be on sale.
- Garage sales are also great places to find books for cheap {think 10 cents a book…}
- Another resource would be a local facebook garage sale page. If you list that you are looking for some you may be surprised what people will turn up.
- And most importantly: check books out from the library.
I am up to 17 Christmas books this year so the remaining books I picked up at the library and they will be unwrapped first so we can get them returned on time. Two of my favorite books for the season are The Legend of the Candy Cane and The Crippled Lamb. I do pick up books that talk about snowmen and Santa, but I try to find books that focus on the birth of Christ. And our favorite book is saved for Christmas Eve.
To prepare the books I wrapped them with gift wrap and labeled them with my countdown tags. {This paper came from Target. So cute and coordinates with the tages perfectly! Another awesome place for gift wrap is Hobby Lobby. Theirs is always the heaviest paper that will withstand more “loving” than other paper.}
After wrapping the books I label them with a tag for the day they should be opened. And guess what!? Thanks to Design With Life these adorable tags are available to you as a free download! Simply print and cut them out. I decided to hole punch the tags, tie a small piece of twine to the tags, and tape them onto the books. But you can definately just cut them out and tape them onto the books. And these tags coordinate with the adorable Christmas Shopping Lists.
The tags could also be used in other ways to countdown to Christmas.
You could string them onto a piece of twine and rip one off a day to help you count down the days.
You could create a calendar with them by letting the kids glue them onto a large piece of paper and then cross off a day each morning.
I have also heard of people using the Elf on the Shelf as the kindness Elf. What about putting a tag on the outside of an envelope and inside you have a kindness task for the day?
Now for the beautiful downloads. I ask that you take a minute to follow the Logbook and Design with Life before downloading. To follow simply click on the links below and follow. If you do not have a social media account for the link then don’t worry about following on that platform, but please follow where you can before downloading. {For example: if you do not have an Instagram or Twitter account then just follow on Facebook. To follow on Etsy you simply scroll down the page of her shop and on the left it will say add to favorites. You can only do this if you have an account for shopping with Etsy. Once again, don’t worry if you don’t shop on Etsy.}
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After you have followed the above accounts {or if you already follow then your job is done!} click here for the free Christmas countdown tags.
Do you have any other fun ideas for using these tags? I would love to hear how you plan to use them! Please comment below with any other great ideas!
Have a blessed day as you look forward to the season ahead,
Stephanie says
Such a great idea! I love it!
Stephanie
http://positivelystephanie.blogspot.com/