12 days of Christmas

I sewed up these mittens in 2004 and use them for our family tradition for the 12 days of Christmas every year:

I like the idea that the wise men brought 3 gifts for baby Jesus, so 3 of these mittens say 'open a gift' and that is the extent of presents in our family besides our stockings. Yup, so basically we open gifts all month long - the boys love it ;) But then by Christmas Eve & Christmas we can focus on the real meaning of celebrating. Other ideas we do is giving service, buy a new board/card game and play it, go out to dinner, see a movie, make a gingerbread house, etc. - we open one mitten on every odd day in December, that way we have 2 days to do the listed event. And it is so fun that Brady & Keaton don't peek at what's in the next mitten, they just wait for that day - I've never had to hide stuff from them or worry about them looking for gifts before they're wrapped - how awesome is that? =)
Buy a few gift cards every month before December and get on a rewards program - we earned over $200 to cash in at the movies/restaurants and retail stores. We saved them up for Christmas time.