A Courthouse Christmas

Every year I try to do something different for our Christmas Advent. This year we decided to do a random Act of  Christmas Kindness for each day of advent. I got the idea from TSJ Photography blog. However, I just realised that this post is just going to have to wait until Christmas Day. I would hate to spoil the fun for anybody that might be a recipient of our Random Acts of Christmas Kindness.  We live in a pretty tiny town and word spreads quickly. So although I am typing some of this post on a blizzardy December 2nd, it will just have to sit in Draft form until Christmas Day.

Here is a list of some of the Random Acts of Christmas Kindness that we did this year

Tape candy canes to random post office boxes and to ATM machines. We did this when ever it was too cold to do anything else.
Shovel somebodies sidewalk (we did this today, a very blizzardy day...twice...for the same neighbours, not sure if they will even notice a difference in the morning)

 Dec 5 -  Oh my Kymberly is so sweet. I've been pinned to the chair in the living room by two sick kids today. Both Ella and James have been sick and needing mom to hold them. Kathryn and Tansley had a church activity to go to this evening so all that was left was Kymberly and she was concerned about what we were going to do for our random act of kindness. I suggested that maybe we would just have to do double the next day. But she said that she could go out and shovel somebodies sidewalk. I told her it was kind of dark and cold, but that did not deter her. She got all bundled up and went out to shovel the neighbours sidewalk. She wasn't gone long, but she said that she had gone across the street and worked on the sidewalk. I told her she was awesome and that she had done a good job. It wasn't much, but it was what my darling 6 year old could offer, and that is good enough. Brings tears to a momma's eyes.

Kathryn dropped off a set of paper plates, cups, napkins and plastic cutlery with a note that said "Our Christmas wish to you is less dishes to do!" to the librarian one day after school. We dropped off the same gift to one of the post office ladies after she had commented to me that she was getting tired of the craziness of the Christmas rush.
Leave a treat on doorsteps around town we did this one many times, it was probably the kids favorite.
We went to Legacy Lodge where my Grandma Paxman is living and read Christmas stories to her. We had planned to invite others to come join us, but there wasn't anyone else around in the dining area to invite.
We left wrapping paper and Tape on vehicles with a note that read "You've been shopping since November, Barely sleeping, hardly stopping. Now it's late, you're in a scrape out of paper out of tape. Hope this wrap helps save the day! Have a Happy Holiday!"
On Christmas Eve we handed out roses at the Wal-mart in Lethbridge to random folks as we finished off a little bit of Christmas shopping.

We had so much fun with this Christmas Advent. It will be something we do again.

For Christmas Eve we went into Lethbridge to hang out with our Court Family. The Boys played street hockey complete with the singing of the National Anthem

We then ate lots of food and opened a few presents.

Each family had made a video to present. This was our video attempt,

 Complete chaos. Joseph refused to cooperate and the Angel became a little cranky. Other than that it went perfectly.

 Christmas day was spent at home. The kids slept in until 8am. It's funny. Every other day of the year I have kids waking up early, but with out fail, every Christmas they sleep in. I love them.

We opened gifts and then enjoyed our traditional Christmas breakfast of pancakes, bacon, sausages, eggs, eggnog, chocolate milk, orange juice, fruit and whip cream. The rest of the day was spent lazying about enjoying our new treasures. Oh, yes and a crazy google hangout call with all of my family including my baby brother serving a mission in Florida and my parents serving a mission in Ireland. Our computer is slow and stupid, so it was all kind of choppy on our end, but we were able to get the gist of it. Happy Day, we ordered a new computer for our Family Christmas gift!!  All in all, a perfect Christmas.