12 days of Christmas

  A Bennetch Christmas Tradition. 12 days of Christmas ribbon

 Years ago when our children were very young and had no sense of time they would get up every morning hoping it was Christmas.  They were so excited and would follow up with the next question such as......" Will it be Christmas tomorrow?"   

 So being a very poor pastor's wife we would make a paper chain with the exact number of links till it would be  Christmas. We would hang it by the table and every day we would cut off one link.  That way they could see how many sleeps till Christmas day.

As they grew older we would write an activity on each link to do for that day.  There were activities such as baking cookies, make Christmas cards, watch a Christmas movie, have a snowball fight, or sing a silly Christmas song.

As the children grew older each one wanted to make his or her own Christmas chain and write their own activity. Of course, they never wanted to do the same thing at the same time so that idea was quickly abandoned.

The next improvement was each child would tell me what colors they wanted their chain to be.  I would cut the strips and number them so one child got to be the leader in an activity, another got to be the one to pick out the book we would read together and the third child got a special message ( either a compliment or a  timed challenge with a reward ).  As you can easily see this led to hurt feelings with 3 preschoolers so this was quickly abandoned for our present-day solution.  

  

Now, Mom wraps candy with a  special note inside for each kid and glues it on a ribbon.   It used to be 25 notes times 3.  Each note had to be heartfelt, funny, or what I admired about them. And yes, they would compare them with each other to see who mom loved best.   

Our kids are grown now with kids of their own. I still make them ribbons every year as well as for each grandchild. The tradition is now the 12 days of Christmas. 

I also decorate and make some ribbons for extended family and friends.  Of course the older I get the more friends I've made.  So if you receive an Advent ribbon from me know that you are holding a special piece of my heart.