A New Kind Of Tradition

Some may think I'm addicted to Pinterest.  In my defense, I feel I can say with certainty that I'm not the only one.  Everyone, nearly everyone I know, falls into the same category.  There's just so much to do.  So much to see.  So much to plan.  So much to pin.  Aww...the insanity.

I will admit that I've actually cooked/baked/created/invented/copied/produced only about an eighth of the amazing things I've found and pinned.  It was a summer goal.  Oops.  We got some in, but just not nearly enough.

One thing that I pinned a while back was something that I've thought out every day.  I didn't want to forget, so I constantly reminded myself about it.  December finally rolled around and I remembered.  I was pretty proud of myself.

Some genius, far smarter than I am, kind of mom thought up this idea and I fell in love. 

The idea is to purchase 24 books for your child. Sure, that's a lot of books, sure that could be a lot of money...but...umm....seriously...who can balk at buying books for your kid? (I realize this could be the teacher in me talking.)  Instead of having some sort of Advent Calendar (I'm sure you could do both...we're starting small!), the process is to wrap up all 24 books (I may look into paying someone to do this next year!) and put them in a basket.  Each evening, before bed, your child gets to choose a "present" from the basket and open it up.  The book they open then becomes the bedtime story for that night. Even Reilly can count through how many books we have left to open, which is how many days we have left until Santa comes.

 UMMM.....HELLO!  Genius!

I'm not gonna lie.  I had my doubts as to whether this would work with a three year old.  However, I am in love.  LOVE I tell you.  This has seriously changed the bedtime routine at our house.  We've always tried to be the good parents who read to Rei before he goes to bed.  However, if you've met my always-on-the-go-never-stop-moving-until-he-falls-into-a-deep-sleep kid...you can imagine just how fun it was to try to convince him to sit still long enough to get in a couple pages, let alone a book.

About 20 minutes before bedtime, everything gets shut off but the Christmas tree in our house.  Phones, television, electronics, computers...everything.  All three of us sit down on the couch next to the tree and share the new book that Reilly has opened.  It is seriously amazing.  Not only does Reilly leave the other gifts under the tree alone, (he knows his are in the basket), we have a constant way to count how many days until Santa comes, we get 24 new books in our library and we spend quality, uninterrupted family time each night.

LOVE

As a matter of fact, I loved the idea so much, we bought a set for the amazing Ms. Betsy...so now Reilly gets to share our new tradition with his friends, and we're helping build her library, too.