Advent

Today is the day to begin your countdown to Christmas. This is the first year I've made an advent calendar. In fact, until recent years I had no idea what the advent calendar was for. This year, my girls will each have their very own advent calendars to count down the days until Christmas. I hope this will become a treasured memory for them.

If you want to incorporate the advent calendar into your holiday celebrations, it is quite easy to do. You can make this as simple or as elaborate as you choose. Here are a few ideas for creating your own special advent calendar.

1) You can buy a store bought calendar at Target or any other department store. I noticed some very nicely made wooden boxes at Target with little doors for hidden treasures. The boxes start around $25.00 and are made to last a lifetime. You can purchase one and then fill each compartment with a special treat for your child to find each day.

2) You can use a paper calendar and tape a piece of candy to each day of the month of December to count down the days until Christmas.

3) You can make your own calendar with cardboard or other materials. Include a small treat for each day.

What I did ---

I took that wonderful wallpaper that I've been collecting from Lowe's and found some that was appropriately colored for the season.

I cut pieces of cardboard out of those pesky moving boxes that we have piled all over the place and glued the wallpaper to the cardboard.

I cut strips of collector card inserts to create pockets for my advent calendar.

I glued or used stickers to create various decorations to the front of each clear pocket.

I filled each pocket with a small treat. I used candy and small toys to fill my pockets. You can also use pieces of paper with special activities for the day.

I cut card stock to the appropriate size and wrote a number on each piece **1 through 24**. Then I taped it to the front of each decorated pocket in the proper numerical order.

-- I made two separate calendars - one for each girl. Every day they will get to remove a number from the front. Each number will reveal a decoration and a small treat in the pocket.