Tuesday, December 1

Advent Calendars

A few years ago, by pure luck, I found a great advent count down "calendar" on ebay. It's 25 stockings hung on clothesline with pins. Each stocking was hand knit by a grandmother in England somewhere. I paid big bucks to have these shipped overseas and I'm so glad I did. I know it will be something the boys remember every year.

This year, we have several of the chocolate type advent calendars, so I didn't want to fill our stockings with more treats. I looked around online and read a few articles and found a great idea in Family Fun magazine.

I wrote out little events or ideas for the boys to read each day. Some are things like "Make Hot Cocoa". Friday, we'll be taking the boys to a special event, so that is listed on their paper in the stocking.

I hope it will provide something for these things will give them something to look forward to, but I also put in some ideas that are important in the giving part of Christmas. "Pass out treats to our neighbors" and "Think of someone who needs something you can give". I hope that this will become part of our tradition as well and these ideas will help to encourage the less commercial side of Christmas.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

GREAT Idea!!!!! Love Mom K

Danielle said...

I actually got chills when I read this because I think it is such a sweet idea and the part about doing things like passing treats out to the neighbors and giving something to someone who is in need is just awesome. I have big plans for our family to do some nice things for our neighbors over the next few weeks and your advent idea inspires me to do something similar to make it even more of a memorable experience for the boys (and Brian and I). You sure are a smart one, miss Ellisa. You never fail to amaze me with the cool stuff you come up with!

Kim Cervone said...

Great idea. I love the ones about helping others...andplan on stealing hte idea for next year : ) xo