Advent Days 4-7: Snowmen Ice Cream, Grinch Floats, & a Christmas Parade

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

We're enjoying our Advent calendar activities and tonight will be one of our favorites.  For Day 7, we headed  downtown for our local Christmas Parade with friends and family.  We look forward to this tradition each year.

The last few days have been delicious and fun!  Our advent activities included making Snowmen Ice Cream and Grinch Floats for deserts and the local parade and dinner out with family.  The deserts are both easy but a lot of fun for special holiday treats and our local parade is a family tradition from when I was a little girl.

Snowmen Ice Cream are easy to throw together with any of your favorite candy treats.  We used Vanilla Ice Cream, don't judge me on that huge bucket of ice cream in the background!  I used Twizzlers for the arms, some Reese's Christmas Bells for his hat, M&Ms for the eyes and buttons and mini chocolate and peanut butter chips for the nose and mouth.  Of course, you can decorate him anyway you like or let the kids do it and have a great time.  I also put some whipped cream around the bottom to be the extra snow around him.

 

Grinch Floats are even easier but so cute and yummy!  I bought some lime sherbet and filled the cups with it, packing it down just slightly.  Once the glasses were full, I added some Sprite and topped, of course, with whipped cream. 

 

Grinch floats are fun to drink while watching the Christmas move, "How The Grinch Stole Christmas" together.  When my daughter, Alyssa, was little she was afraid of the Grinch but my 2 year old nephew loves him and enjoyed him at the parade last night!

In order to get good seats and parking, we arrive several hours before the start and hang out.  My sister, my niece, and the girls.

Which brings us to the parade.  Having lived within the area most of my life, I've been coming to our local parade each year for as long as I can remember and so have my siblings and all of our children.

Chance and my nephew hanging out while waiting for the parade to start.

  It's a family tradition we look forward to each year and we followed it up with some hot, "home cooked" food at Cracker Barrel.  Enjoy some of the photos I took last night. 

My sister and brother in law.  As you can see, much of the day and evening is spent waiting and trying to keep warm, but since we're with family, it's a huge part of the enjoyment!
 

I hope you're enjoying our Advent activities series and finding some ideas to begin Christmas traditions with your families.  If you're enjoying other advent activities or Christmas fun with your family, leave us a message, we'd love to share in the joy and I'm always looking for new ideas for my own kids!

As always, the grand finale is Santa's arrival!

 For more fun ideas I found for Christmas, follow my Christmas Pinterest board.  For more photos of life at The Egg Basket, follow us on Facebook. 

 

Blessings to you and yours,

 

Tiffany