Saturday, December 1, 2012

Advent Calendar

     
Before 
"My Aunty Anne, Aunt Jane, and Grandma Blidberg collaborated in 1982 to make me an advent calendar. Each Christmas growing up I looked forward every year to pulling it out of the Christmas box, having my Mom re-fill the pockets with the ornaments, and then every day adding an ornament to my tree. Sometimes my Dad would slip a fifty cent piece into a pocket and I would get an extra surprise that day. I still have many of those fifty cent pieces and I probably will pass them down to Stomper some day". ~ Advent

After







For the past year I have been dreaming and planning on re-working the Advent Calendar from when I was a kid. Over the past few months I have knit two ornaments, some garland, and an angel for the top. I bought some simple hooks at the craft store to hang to the ornaments from and filled the pockets with ornaments for his tree and our actual tree, prizes, and activities to do together. 

The ornaments for his tree are a selection from the old tree, some store bought by my sister years ago, and a few made by me. The sweater, bell, and angel are all ornaments I found on Ravely. There are still a few details left to put on the calendar including a way to pay tribute to the three kids who have used the calendar before him, but that can wait until later.

We are also going to use Adorenaments (It was bought years ago from www.FamilyLife.com and may be out of print), which define 12 names of Jesus, in an effort to keep the focus of Christmas where it needs to be. The Adorenaments will go on our actual tree so that when we look at our tree we will be further reminded of the Savior the little baby grew up to be.

In addition to all that I have made little cards to put in some of the pockets with Christmas activities to do with Stomper. I got the idea a few years ago when one of the blogs I read mentioned that in the advent she uses for her son she puts in little activities for them to do like: go for a walk, make biscuits, to name a few. 

Ohh, tragedy, there are typos! Gah!
(Made the cards with Microsoft Word)
With that list in mind I  looked through this list that I found via pinterest for some ideas and then came up with a few of my own. They are: Deck the Halls, Look at Christmas Lights, Go Shopping, Go to a Play or Musical, Make Gifts, Make Cookies, Read Christmas Books, Operation Family Photo, Wrap Gifts, go to Mimi's House, Grandma Day, Make Ornaments, Read a Book or Watch a Movie About Jesus, Make a Treat and Give it to Someone, and Christmas Movie Night.

I am so excited to start this tradition with my little guy!

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