One of our favorite family Christmas traditions here is to pick an unsuspecting family and do a “twelve days of Christmas” for them. Every day (or night) for 12 days we deliver silly gifts to them, trying to stay out of sight so they won’t know who we are until the last day. Sometimes the family finds out who we are, like the time we asked one of the kids’ friends to just deliver it and not say who it’s from, and I guess she just walked over there, knocked, and said, “this is from the Ericksons.” NO!!! That’s NOT how you do it.
Any-who.
This year I’ve got a lot of the days all planned out, and I’ll share with your our favorites.
1-A partridge and some pears (Megan drew a picture of a partridge and we gave them a can of pears)
2- Two turtles and a dove (Two bags of Turtles and a Dove bar)
3-Three French fries (I mailed them a Wendy’s gift card, which they can use on fries or anything else. I mailed it yesterday, and it’s supposed to get there tomorrow. I hope I timed it right)
4-For calling birds (we have some little plastic whistles shaped like birds. I have also given calling cards and said “for calling birds or other friends.”)
5-Five golden fish (5 snack sized packages of goldfish crackers)
6-I don’t know yet what we’ll do for 6 geese a laying. any idea? Maybe a dozen eggs or something egg related.
7-Seven Swanson dinners is one of my favorites. (I also got some little plastic swans that hold candy. If I cheap out, I’ll fill the little swans with candy.)
8-Probably a gallon of milk or eggnog with a note that says, it took all 8 maids to get this for you.
9-Nine ladies? Hmmm. I don’t know what we’re doing for that one yet. In the past I’ve made paper dolls, all connected. Any ideas? Maybe a movie with people dancing–Oh, High School Musical 2 would be fun, wouldn’t it?
10-10 Frogs a leaping. I have 10 little squirty frogs.
11-Pipers Piping. Again, I’m not sure what this one will be. A package of pipe cleaners, maybe.
12-This is the day we reveal ourselves, and we take a plate of cookies and go and ring the doorbell, and hum “we wish you a merry Christmas”. Then we are Hummers Humming. There aren’t 12 of us, but sometimes we use puppets to increase our numbers.
Speaking of the 12 days of Christmas, the Tabernacle Choir is doing the most elaborate and unique version of the 12 days I have ever seen! We had our first concert last night, and after a 2 hour rehearsal we were all happy to just get started. It went beautifully, I must say. The King’s Singers are fantastic, the set is beautiful, the costumes are absolutely amazing (especially those 6 geese!) and the bells of course are there to do our little part to help the concert sparkle. Natalie and Ryan went last night and they really enjoyed it. Natalie’s favorite song was the 12 days of Christmas, as I’m sure it was for most of the kids. After it’s over I’ll have to post some pictures.
So, if you have any great ideas for days 6, 9 or 11, be sure to let me know.
We totally do this too! And #9 is ALWAYS the worst! I always thought it would be fun to get a VCR copy of the Brady Bunch (there’s 9 of ’em!) and do “Nine Bradys Dancing”. But, that’s hard to do and takes a lot of preparation so I normally just buy 9 packets of Kool-Aid, tape them to a posterboard, draw them into stick figures and make little marks around them to make it look like “9 Aids-A-Dancing”. I know – it’s kinda weak, but like I said, this is always the hardest one! If you’re not sure about #8, we always do “8 Ways-A-Milky” and give them 8 Milky Way bars. And for #6 we always do “6 Greasy Lays” and put 6 potato chips on a plate. #11 is my favorite because we do “11 Diapers Griping” – we buy the Preemie diapers, tape them to a poster board and draw complaints coming out of their “mouths”. I could keep on going, but at least that might give you some ideas for your iffy days! Have fun!
we attended the concert tonight. it was fabulous! i looked for you–seeing your picture on your blog i was able to try to spot you. i loved the bells. when i was growing up in boulder, colorado our music teacher had handbells. i will always remember the white gloves and the honor it was when we were chosen to play one of the bells. thanks for the memory! once again, it was wonderful tonight!