Advent calendars.

Every year the advent calendars appear at the tills at the beginning of November. Clever marketing because by the time you get to that point of your shopping trip and your child yells "pleeeeease can I have one of those?" you are most likely to say "yes, dear, of course you can!".

But this year I decided to do things differently. I wanted to make my own advent calendars. So, at about 22h45 last night I realized - "it's the last day of November!!" So there I was at midnight putting together 2 very basic advent calendars! I had to work with what I had which ended up being some coloured pieces of card cut into squares,and 2 brown paper bags which I bought for something specific (can't remember what) but have been very useful to have around.

I stuck the squares on like little pockets and wrote a number from 1 to 24 on each pocket. I had to use both sides of the bag!

The idea is to pop some kind of treat into each pocket on the corresponding day accompanied by a piece of the Christmas story which will be stuck up next to the calendar so that by the 24th the whole story is there. This is a small attempt to move away from the whole "Father Christmas" focus of Christmas and more onto the real reason for Christmas which is the birth of Jesus.

Last night, or rather early hours of this morning, I didn't have any treats in the house and all I could find was a bag of balloons!! So this morning they found a balloon in the pocket with a 1 on the front as well as the first piece of the story.

They seem to very excited, more so than with the store-bought variety. My goal is to make a much more creative and aesthetically pleasing calendar next year! Hopefully one that can be re-used every year. ( Better start making it in January - it might be done by December 2010!!)