Decorating with snow

So as my wife so ecstatically put it earlier this evening, "It looks like Buddy the Elf has visited our house!"  For those of you that don't know who that is (and by now I will admit I am a bit surprised at your obliviousness), Buddy is the character that Will Ferrell played in the movie, Elf.


This evening, we opened door number four from our advent house (follow the link to read about it).  The slip of paper instructed us to decorate the doors of our home.  We pulled out ribbons, bows, wrapping paper, tape and scissors.  The safety kind that are made for the kids to use. To cut paper.  Responsibly.  Under adult supervision.  


Anyways, the kids then set out to decorate anything less than 4 feet high.  They had to come to me to get tape to hang things, so I was able to (constantly) guide them towards the door that we were currently decorating.  Moving swiftly from bag of bows and ribbon to dad for tape to each door throughout the house, the kids soon had each door sparkling  and rattling with ribbons and bows with Stephanie following behind to re-stick items that were falling off from being too hastily hung.  


Then came out the paper.  As a side note, we both admit that we have pack rat tendencies, and this holds true for wrapping paper.  We have a box filled with previously used paper, sometimes four or five times, that we will reuse as many times as we can for smaller and smaller gifts.  This is made possible by our meticulous opening of gifts to preserve the wrapping.  The kids just shred stuff.  They have more fun, hands down.  So, culling from this resource, I procured some remnants for the children to cut up or fold to their liking for decorating purposes.  They mostly stuck rectangle-esque pieces to the doors to represent presents.  I was able to fold some pieces for a more three dimensional representation.  


Then we pulled out some white paper and sat the kids down at the table to start creating our snow flakes.  The original intent was to make a few for each person, but I sort of brought over a large stack of paper (no short supply, see pack rat tendencies), so we just went at it until the paper ran out.  After a quick tutorial on how to fold and cut the paper, and seeing the results, the kids were off in a flurry of paper scraps and cutting sounds.  I had a hard time keeping up with them both in having paper ready and making my own snowflakes.  Meanwhile the sparkle in my wife's eye just got brighter and brighter the more flakes we cut.  I did not realize the decorating plans that she had in her mind, and that it was growing with each flake that we cut out. 


I will admit, I thought that this had the potential to be a 20 minute activity and that the kids would probably throw a few things on two doors and then get distracted.  What happened was almost 2 hours of paper shredding fun.  Yes, we made a big mess, but did we ever have fun doing it.


These are the Christmas memories I want to make.  Thanks kids!

Caroline working on their bedroom door. 

Ian hanging wrapping paper up.

Stephanie demonstrates how to fold the paper for snowflakes.

Eliza had fun playing with all of the scraps and watching.

The aftermath.  Peekaboo, Lydia.

The fruits of our labor.  They are strung all around the house.