Creating Christmas Traditions: Advent Music Box & Ornaments

{Advent Calendar}

I don't really remember doing the Advent calendar countdown to Christmas when I was growing up.  We did the Advent candlelighting at church and that was special enough, but I wanted to start doing this for Sina just to make the holidays extra fun and to give her another reason to look forward to this time of the year for years to come.

Enter the German Advent calendar music box...we bought it at the Stuttgart Christmas market two weekends ago. Sina already received a chocolate Advent calendar from Malu's unit's Christmas party, so I didn't want to fill it up with more chocolate.  Instead, I loaded it bunches of boxes of raisins, which she enjoys.  As she gets older, I'll be getting more creative (i.e. small toys, little notes, maybe some cash), but for now, she looks forward to getting her little red raisin boxes every evening after school.  As soon as we get through the door, she walks over to her music box and pleads for me to make it play.  This thing cost us a pretty penny, but check this video out.

When the music plays, she mostly starts dancing.  And that look of anticipation...makes my heart melt.  I love this girl!  I'd say we're already getting a return on our investment!

After she got her raisins, she walked on over to her little chair, sat in front of her Christmas tree and snacked to her little heart's content.

Minutes later, I popped the Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer movie in and she just sat there looking as cute as ever, kicking her legs up in the air.

Priceless.

{Christmas Ornaments}

I'm starting a collection of ornaments, not just for our family tree, but for Sina. A friend of mine has collected ornaments for her three boys for years so that when they're on their own, they won't have to go buying new ones--or they can add to the many they'll already have. Each ornament will hold some sort of significance for all of us and I can't think of anything more special than that. I've been scouting the Christmas markets we've been to already for some cute ornaments. We've only been to two so far and look what we've got. Some have even been given to us by friends and family.

Starting from the top right:

I received a couple of cookie ornaments from my boss' wife.  Apparently, she found them at a Christmas market, so I immediately set out to find some myself.  Someone's gonna get one of these next year!  By the way, Frohe Weihnachten means Merry Christmas!

At the Strasbourg Christmas market, I snagged the one with the pretzel and the stork for Sina.  The word Alsace refers to the region of France that Strasbourg is located.

At the Stuttgart Christmas market, I grabbed some traditional German straw ornaments.  I got Malu the guitar shaped ornament there as well.

The Pohutukawa Angel ornament was sent to us by Malu's cousin in New Zealand.  The Pohutukawa tree flowers at Christmas.  The angel's skirt represents the flower of the Pohutukawa tree, which is bright red with yellow stamens.  Sounds kind of like our Christmas poinsettias, but these flowers are more feathery and even more beautiful.

The Finch Family got us the glass Santa ornament.  I love it!

I love the girl and guy frog ornaments from the Stuttgart Christmas market.  They have nothing to do with Germany (other than being made here), but they are so darn cute and they match our red and lime-green Christmas balls perfectly.

And one more from Strasbourg--a replica of the Strasbourg Cathedral and their infamous stork.  More to come on the Strasbourg Christmas market soon!

And this is just from the past two weekends.  If we keep this up, we'll definitely have to put up more than one Christmas tree in the house every year!

These are but a few Christmas traditions that we're starting for our little family. 

What are your family's Christmas traditions?