memory planning

The kids and I have started looking forward to Christmas time--as we see November dwindling away on the calendar.  TO asked if we still had the Advent calendar that we had last year--a small tag board card-sized one.  Which got me to thinking about a calendar for this year.  Then I remembered how we used to use our Nativity set as a calendar of sorts.  When we were getting out the Christmas decorations at home, someone would wrap the Nativity pieces up into 25 little packages.  And each day we would open one package and set up the Nativity.  Some of the packages only had one figure in them, others had two or three animals.  But on Christmas day, we would open the final package--the one that had baby Jesus in it.

So, I went online looking for a kid friendly Advent calendar or Nativity set.  I wanted something that the kids could touch, feel, play with.  Something that wouldn't leave me cringing every time I left the room.  And after exploring on Amazon.com, I eventually ended up at fisher-price.com.  I found a cloth Advent calendar (seen here)--a pocket for each day and a cloth figure to add to the Nativity scene at the top of the calendar each day.

I also ran across a Little People Nativity set .  Now, I probably should state that when TO was around 2, I actually bought the Little People Nativity set, but after 2 moves, I'm not sure if we even have all the pieces or not.  So, I ordered the whole thing--it's actually made up of 3 sets--the Nativity, the 3 kings set and the inn set.  I'm not sure how or if I will be wrapping everything up into little packages or if it will be left out for them to play with during the month of December.

I admit to hesitating a moment or two when I thought about ordering it--with TO being 8, I worried that she might be a bit too old for Little People.  But I also figure I'll get a good 3-4 years of Christmases out of the Nativity sets before Omega would be ready for something a bit more fragile.  And in the mean time, I won't have to worry if he wanders off with one of the figures.  In the mean time, I'm pretty sure 'Thou shall not gnaw on the baby Jesus' is not one of the commandments.