Stiles Family 25 Days of Christmas

One of the things about the Holidays that has taken a little getting used to on my part is the fact that the kids are essentially grown. The child-like magic is gone from the Holidays, and I have been really struggling with 'what to do with that.' Seems rather pointless sometimes to tell the kids to 'make a list for Santa' or that they'd 'better be good' (OH how I miss the days when that actually worked...)
So I have been a little verklempt about what exactly to do in the days and weeks leading up to Christmas Eve and Christmas Day...How do I engage them? How do I stay engaged myself? (we tried an advent calendar; the grown kid version was rather a bust) Once I get the decorations up, all it means for 3 whole weeks is that there is more to dust.
Well, I guess my husband has been feeling that too, but one of us decided to get off our butt and do something about it. Last year, he decided, quite all on his own, that he was going to start the tradition of the 25 days of Christmas, and he began going out Every. Single. Day. and picking up a little trinket for each of us (The 'non-shopper' in me is shuddering right now at the prospect of this) He told us at the time that he had some plan for this, and that there was going to be some sort of payoff at the end, but it never materialized...It was actually kind of funny, because the kids reminded him all year that he had left part of the project unfinished. (I think what happened is that he had some vague idea of something he wanted to do, but could never figure out a way to bring it to fruition.) The other drawback was that he purchased roughly 96 little trinkets -- no small expense, and a trying task for even highly accomplished shoppers, whose ranks my husband leads the way. By the end of the experience, he had worked himself into quite a frenzy.

*I just need to quickly mention here that despite my husband's quirks, once the holidays roll around, and despite what a stick-in-the-mud he can be, his countenance does an about-face, and had he a beard and a red suit, he would be indistinguishable from the original jolly old elf.

Despite the difficulties last year, yesterday morning there were 3 little gifts on the kitchen table, all labeled with a color-coded sticker; one for each of us. (See! even OCD people can have fun during the Holidays!) Mine was a little heart-shaped cookie cutter with a little yellow star on it, which I promptly used to make the sugar cookies in yesterday's post. The kids were pretty excited about the prospect of a month of trinkets, as is evidenced by this screen shot of my daughter's facebook page, but do you see what I mean about the magic and child-like innocence being gone?