Day 24: Put Out Cookies and Milk for Santa

Happy Christmas Eve!

This is the end of our advent count-down and there is nothing left to do but put out cookies and milk for Santa (or cookies and cognac as we did in our house).

So get into your Christmas PJs and grab 'Twas the Night Before Christmas'.

Wishing you a very Merry Christmas!

Day 23: Wrap your Gifts

Lets be honest, you don't want to do this on Christmas Eve when you are finally off and all ready for the holiday. So do your wrapping on the 23rd (or Christmas Eve Eve as we always like to say).

I've got my traditional double wrapping duty. All my gifts.. and all my mothers gifts. Don't worry Dad, I'm all ready to go.

Day 22: Buy Yourself a Christmas Treat

I'm homeward bound today! Which means 3 hours to kill in Heathrow terminal 5. Which will likely mean a bit of browsing in duty-free. I love wandering the shops though I don't buy very much.

In honour of duty-free shopping, today's activity is buy yourself a small Christmas treat, whatever that means for you. Maybe it's something delicious to eat, or a sparkly nail polish for Christmas day. Enjoy!

Day 21: Candle Light Dinner

Today is the darkest night of the year. This calls for candles and lanterns!

If you are in Toronto and up for some fun, go join the parade down in Kensington market. When else do you get to parade through the dark holding lanterns. (Unless you are in Victoria and that pretty much describes every Christmas parade).

But if you feel like staying closer to home, have a candle light dinner! Even just having a regular dinner by candle light makes it special. (For all concerned parties, rest assured I will not be using real candles... Fire safety first!)

Day 20: Get Your Tree

This is a traditional chain activity. We always got our tree on the weekend before Christmas. We use to go cut one down from a tree farm. Every year all of us kids and my dad would try to find the biggest tree we could, and my mother would try for a smaller one. She has the upper hand now that we no longer have 9 foot ceilings (sigh).

I know that the time you buy your tree differs, and my family is usually on the later side. So if your tree is already up, make sure you take some time to sit in the room with the lights off and admire it.

Day 19: Set your Christmas Menu

My favourite thing about Christmas planning? Planning the food!

So its time to pull out the recipe books and Christmas magazines and start picking your choice of recipes. Kaila and I may have gone a wee bit overboard on pintrest this year with receipe pinning. Might need to cut back.

Here is what we are thinking for our meals.

Christmas Eve Dinner - cheese, bread, sliced meats (what we like to call a 'snack dinner'), I'm voting we also make pate and smoked trout spread because they are delicious! The final product will hopefully look something like this.

Christmas Breakfast- We're revisiting our breakfast salad

Christmas Dinner- We've got the turkey figured out, with grandma's world famous stuffing of course and the desert figured out but we are still mulling over the sides.I wanted roasted potatoes though!

Day 18: Go See the Lights

This has got to be one of my favourite activities and its so simple. Go out and see the lights.

When I was a kid we would all bundle into the car and drive into our small town to look at the houses. I remember one year where these giant inflatable snow-globes were apparently the thing to have on your front lawn and we laughed ourselves silly seeing how many we could find.

So take part in this simple, enjoyable evening by going for a walk or a drive to see people's lights.