Happy December!!
Luckily, the first day of Advent this year begins on the 2nd of December, which gives us all an extra day to get our Advent Calendars ready :-)
Kitty, Teddy and I put ours together yesterday. We had so much fun working together. We made a Christmas tree from string and used little brown numbered bags for the days of December, held onto the string with little pegs. Some greenery stolen from the Christmas Tree and a cookie-cutter star for the top made our Advent Calendar even more magical.
We used these little hooks that stick on the wall but allow you to take them off by pulling on the tab – no holes in the wall nor pain pulled off.
We strung our string in the zig-zag shape of a Christmas tree.
Then Kitty numbered each little brown bag with a marker.
Teddy (yes, in last years Halloween bat costume about 2 sizes too small for him) pegged each bag onto the Christmas tree. What a good exercise in counting it was for him!
He couldn’t reach the top of the tree so his sister pegged 24 in place for him.
Off they wend to school and I set about filling the little bags.
At least half of the bags are filled with little slips of paper that suggest a fun family activity for us to enjoy. Finding 24 (x2) little toys worth having is just too much pressure for this mom! And, as Advent is a time of family togetherness, creating special memory-making family times together is so much more valuable to us.
Here are a few of the family activities in our Advent calendar this year:
Let’s make hot coco with marshmallows today!
Lets play UNO after dinner today!
Let’s decorate our Gingerbread House today!
Let’s, go to The Nutcracker Ballet today (we have tickets for the 16th December)
Let’s make Daddy a Christmas gift today!
Let’s make a Nativity Set today!
But, some of the baggies have fun little treasures too.
Kitty and Teddy’s favorite cookies, wrapped up with red ribbon. A tiny set of baking pots for Fairy Garden play, a little deer and Christmas tree, silver bell necklaces, some green Christmas fairy dust.
Happy Advent, Magic Friends! May your December be full of beautiful family memories and devoid of all the pressures that we heap on our selves each holiday season.
Blessings and magic,
Donni
10 Responses
So sweet! I love the idea of having tiny fairy garden sized things in there!
Lovely idea! I do a calendar for my three each year and it does get a bit crazy with finding the items. I love the suggestions for family activities – I’ll be using that next year!
beautiful and simple. Love the activities!
This is nice.
I made our first Advent calendar this year and it is mainly made up of tissue rolls. Maybe next year I can try something like this – with family activities included. =)
What a beautiful idea. I love that you used natural greens and included gifts for the fairy garden! I hope you and your family have a fantastic Christmas!
Oh my word–I wish I’d found your blog sooner! I love the design of your advent calendar! I was trying to find a cute way to display our with limited space–I ended up just clothes-pinning paper stars to some raffia. (http://www.thereverieblog.com/2012/11/advent.html) This little tree is just darling. Filing away for next year. :)
Sarah
the Reverie blog
Thanks so much for sending this to me Donni! I have been looking for a fun way to celebrate Advent…this is it!! Just posted on Craft Gossip!
http://lessonplans.craftgossip.com/?p=7314
A great list! I love the beauty and simplicity of the calendar.
Really love this, thanks for sharing — wondering where can I find some tiny fairy garden and christmas toys like this? would love to find a set with lots of trinkets like this to buy. kindly
Hi Shelly,
Thanks for getting in touch.
Have you checked out my shop… http://www.theMagicOnions.com/shop … I have fairy garden kits that have lots of little trinkets for creative kids.
xo Donni