This year, my son was too excited about the prospect of Christmas to have us wait any longer to get the house decorated. I'd prefer to wait until after Thanksgiving, but obviously the five-year-old rules the roost around here and so we are fully decorated. In fairness, I got to put the outside lights up on a relatively warm day which definitely beats doing it when I can't feel my hands because of cold numbness!
One of my son's favorite traditions is our LEGO winter village that I put up each year. Now that he's a bit older, we run our train around the Christmas tree but the rest of the village sits up on a large windowsill for him to play with. Of course, since we started in early November, I knew that he'd be tired of the stuff by the time Christmas rolled around if I simply stuck the full village out all at once.
With that in mind, this year I decided to try a daily (?) scavenger hunt for him where each day I put out something new and then hide a bunch of things around the village for him to find. I anticipate the scavenger hunts getting harder and harder as I continue to add stuff (after all, there will be more places to hide things) but I also imagine cycling things in and out to keep stuff fresh for the month and half leading up to Christmas day!
Here's a view of tonight's set-up (he gets to see the new scavenger hunt list each morning):
Through the first couple of days of the scavenger hunt, my son has been incredibly excited - and it's had the desired side effect of him truly using and enjoying each part of the display! Part of tonight's addition to the layout is that red truck and I fully expect that'll be one of his favorite parts of the display come tomorrow morning.
Love the scavenger hunt idea! Your son is one lucky boy. It's one thing to have a father who appreciates and loves Legos... but it's an entirely another level with the creativity and fun you add into it. Plus there are the "board game" nights. Very, very cool.
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