Advent Calendar

Happy December 1st! We are starting off the month with our little handmade advent calendar. Our original one is boxed up in Virginia Beach. So, we are still bringing the fun in NC with the Elf and some special advent items each day. 

Hot Chocolate Bar and Doughnuts

Another advent activity was to have doughnuts and a hot chocolate bar. So, after school on Thursday we enjoyed hot chocolate (french vanilla, milk chocolate, and caramel) with marshmallows, mini M&Ms, caramel sauce, and candy canes. The mugs with sweaters were from Target.

The doughnuts were, of course, from Krispy Kreme! It was a great little break after school before the girls got busy with their homework.

Loving the retro KK box!

Advent Ideas

I'm preparing for the upcoming advent calendar season. Each year we (I) like to fill the advent calendar with fun activities for the family. I have a few small items that go into the calendar (lip gloss, money, candy, ornaments, etc.) along with service activities and fun things to do. Here are a few things on our list this year:

• Decorate Christmas cookies
• Drive around and look at the lights
• Watch Elf together as a family
• Play a game together
• Paint your toenails Christmas colors
• Make Christmas ornaments
• Send cards to recovering soldiers
• Make a snow globe
• Decorate a gingerbread house
• Perform a random act of kindness
• Hot Chocolate Bar & Doughnuts 
• Bake a treat for a neighbor
• Make Chocolate covered pretzels
• Do some Christmas Mad Libs
• Volunteer

Years ago, my sister-in-law got us this super cute personalized Advent Calendar from Pottery barn. We love it! 

These are some current versions that are cute:

Rudolph

Snowman

Painted Reindeer

Tree Ornament/Pinterest Fail?

Tuesday's Advent calendar activity was to make an ornament. On Pinterest, I found this really cute and easy little tree ornament. So, I got the supplies together for the girls and showed them what the tree ornament would look like when they were done. 

Selection of ribbons in greens, golds, and browns

Shelly creating her tree

Lily tying the ribbons

The final product

A tree on a tree

I'm not sure exactly what is a little off on our creations, but they didn't turn out much like the pictures. Oh well. they had a good time creating them. It isn't always smooth and perfect over here. But it can still be fun! 

Holiday Activity Fail

One of our fun Advent calendar activities was the making of a peppermint gingerbread house. Well, it was a fail! And, I just had to share it. 


We decorated all of the pieces and then attempted to put it together. Well, that wasn't happening. So, it now sits as a decorative centerpiece on the kitchen table in a big heap! But, we sure did have fun!

Snowmen & Snowladies

This little craft was inspired by the lady at one of my favorite blogs. Our advent activity this day was to create a Christmas craft. So we assembled the supplies and got ready to make an ornament for the tree.





I love how they turned out. So cute and a great keepsake.

Gingerbread Home

We got busy on the advent calendar activity---decorate a gingerbread house. Lily had the piping of the icing down and they both added the embellishments and made their little house a home!










Daddy came along and decided Lily needed a little decorating of her own.

Advent Season

 This is one of my favorite holiday decorative items. This advent calendar is from Pottery Barn and my sister-in-law got it for us several years ago. It has a special spot in the hallway. Last year, I started to post our Christmas cards from friends around the calendar. We love to walk by and glance at the many faces included in the Christmas cards (you might even see your own up there!).

Our advent calendar consists of a variety of items and activities. Here are just a few of the things in those pockets:

• Decorate Christmas cookies
• Drive around and look at the lights
• Watch Elf together as a family
• Play a game together
• Volunteer at the church to package food for the hungry
• Paint your toenails Christmas colors
• Silly Bandz in holiday shapes
• Christmas ornaments
• candy
• Shop for the Christmas Angels
• Send cards to recovering soldiers
• Make a craft
• Decorate a gingerbread house
• Perform a random act of kindness

Just a few of the ideas for a fun and charitable Advent calendar.

Geodesic Fun

In the advent calendar yesterday the note said to make a Christmas craft together. So, I grabbed the bazillion circles I punched out of old Christmas cards and got ready for a little holiday ornament fun.

From 2002 until last year I have collected and kept every Christmas card we received. This year I decided it was time to purge. I pulled out some significant cards and pictures and left the remaining cards for punching 2" and 3" circles. In the back of my mind I had the idea to make an ornament with the circles. When I was teaching 5th grade my team teacher and I made some geodesic ornaments using 20 circles with the students. They were cool. I decided this might be a fun activity to do with the girls. I also thought that my mom would have loved this idea.

The process is this:

• Cut out 20 circles (2" or 3" work great)
• Fold three (3) flaps on the circle to form an equilateral triangle in the center of the circle
• Now take 5 folded circles and adhere with glue or staple together in a circle
• Repeat this step with another 5 folded circles
• Take the remaining 10 folded circles and staple them together in a line
• These will now form a nice circle and you will staple them together
• Now put the first circle on top and staple and then the second circle (group of 5) and staple to the bottom
• We added glue to the edges and put inside a ziploc bag with glitter
• Shake
• Let it sit in there for a bit to dry
• Punch a hole in the ornament and thread a ribbon or piece of thread through the hole to hang on the tree.

A little note here---for younger children, trace an equilateral triangle on to a card and cut out. Then let them use this as a template to trace the triangle on to the circle. From there, they can fold along the lines they have traced. Lily was able to do the folding without using a template, but it helped Shelly to follow this as a guide.