Our home grown Christmas tree!

Merry Christmas everyone!

This year, instead of buying a full size Christmas tree and throwing it out later and add to the trash, I decided to be creative and minimize the carbon footprint of Christmas in our house. And while I was at it, I also decided the kids can learn a thing or two about what "naughty" and "nice" means... And voila, the Mission Christmas tree was created...

Right after Thanksgiving, I took a green poster board and cut out a Christmas tree structure. I made the trunk from brown construction paper. This "Base" tree was then attached to the side of the fridge! I also made an ornament from cardboard as a starting decoration and did some basic decoration on the tree.

I marked one side as Reya's side and the other as Rithik's side. Then I told the kids that they had a whole month to decorate the tree, BY BEING NICE!... Basically if they are nice, they will earn stickers, ornaments and stamps that they could use to decorate their side of the tree. The kids also out up their wish lists and letters to Santa there and they started working to earn "nice" decorations.

By the Christmas eve, the tree was fully decorated and I had 2 NICE and happy elves who were proud of their accomplishments...

Operation Christmas Tree was definitely a success and the kids and I are looking forward to another mission like this soon... Mission Valentines may be!!!