Christmas Traditions

This year, I thought I would try to make the festivities more about McCoy and less about me.  I tried to incorporate several things I either saw on Pinterest, got from my mom, or just thought up on my own.  But I overdid it, and the poor little fellow was just overwhelmed.

Countdown to Christmas included:

• a chocolate advent calendar-- of which we still have about six boxes left to open, 
• a Christian advent ornament calendar-- this was a set that I bought before McCoy was even born.  You read each little book about the story of Jesus and then you hang it up on the tree.  I had a little tiny tree that I put by the nativity set and McCoy sat through a total of about six books.  They were too hard to understand for a 3-yr old.  We have about 6 more books left to open.  Except for the Christmas Eve book-- it had baby Jesus on the front cover so of course McCoy wanted to open that book.
• Bernard.  Well, that was a fun one.  It made getting McCoy out of bed great every morning so that he could go find Bernard.  That was fun.
• Book Advent-- I saw this on Pinterest.  And although I had most of the books already, McCoy really sat through only about half of them.  I will be wrapping these up again next year, should I decide to keep it.

So, overwhelming McCoy with a count down to Christmas? I think so.  What's really sad is that I'm not really even sure he knew what Christmas was about (gifts or Jesus).  I kept saying "Oh you have to be good, or Santa won't bring you anything!"  But he didn't care.  He would reply to me, "I don't like Santa".  He didn't really understand the excitement of Christmas until it was actually here.  Next year will probably be better.

What advent should I keep and which should I do away with?  I also want to do a Jesse Tree like my friend Suzie did.  And I think I'll have to keep Bernard.  That was just too much fun.

I hope everyone had a great Christmas.