I love doing little projects with the kids. It makes them smile, it makes me smile, we make other people smile...it's a SMILING event for all involved. I especially love the Holiday season because it gives me a reason to go arts and crafts crazy with the kiddos. This year I thought it would be totally fun to make an Advent Calendar, or a Christmas Countdown calendar to help build up the anticipation of the upcoming holiday. My other reason was to stop the almost constant "HOW MANY DAYS TILL CHRISTMAS?!?!?" whining which occurs atleast 1,353,876,543 times between now and Christmas day.
Initially, I really wanted to make this one. But I couldn't gather enough tins and it seemed a bit labor intensive for what I was hoping to accomplish. Then I found this one It's made from little terracotta pots and it has a tutorial video...I know...cool huh?! But again with labor intensive and the not having all the supplies at my disposal. So I looked at this PHOTO CALENDAR, these DIY mini envelopes, and these cute little calendar made with TAGS. Let's just say if you Google "homemade advent calendar" or "Christmas countdown calendar" you come up with A LOT of ideas...I went to bed with visions of advent calendars dancing in my head.
In the morning I realized what was missing from all those totally awesome advent calendars....the kids!! Just like that I had the coolest idea for our advent calendar....Christmas trees made out of my kids hand prints!!! Right after breakfast we got to work tracing everyone's hands then decorating each one like a mini Christmas tree. My kids had the best time and it really built up the excitement for the upcoming holiday. I then mounted each hand to red cardstock and matted that onto patterned Christmas paper.
We decided to fill our advent calendar with a family activity for each day. I made 25 little tags and tied them with ribbon. On each tag the kids, Jeremiah, and I came up with activities to write on the back. Each day we will take a tag out of the corresponding day and do the activity.
When we are done with the activity I have a little jar for each of the tags.
So there you have it...LET THE CHRISTMAS COUNTDOWN BEGIN!!
7 comments:
Hey you have got to tell me how you make those cute little I am not sure what it's called.......where you have your family picture and your saying for your blog.....I see everyone has cute ones like that and I want a cute one too.....I hope I made some sense
Who knew you guys were so crafty? :)
What a great idea! I love it!
I am so impressed. I love that it is a family activity!
That is awesome! Holy cow you are such a a good and fun mommy! I would've LOVED that when I was a kid! Very cute!
Very Cute Idea!
We have "The 24 days of Christmas" book with a scripture and song and story and sometimes a treat for every night, but.... it's not as visual for the kiddos. Way cute idea!
Oh my goodness what a cute idea! Now I'm smiling - it definitely is a smiling event for all involved!!! ;O)
Stopped by through Daily Scoop and I'm glad I did!
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