After my Snow Globe post, there were lots of questions about my advent calendar, so here some more details about what I do with my family. Having an advent calendar has been one of my most favorite traditions since I was a little girl, so I am always excited to do things with my kids. This year I wanted to find a new calendar, and I bookmarked 547 of them (okay not really, but lots) from the web and pinterest, etc. I had very good intentions of being crafty and making something and in the end I splurged on one I loved from Pottery Barn Kids.
Unfortunately it says it’s no longer available, but I’m thinking for those of you who are the sewing-crafting kind of chicks, this would be fairly easy to knock off. It would definitely take quite a bit of work, but I think it would be doable, or at least something similar. If you’re interested in doing that, here’s some details:
First of all, it’s huge. It measures 5 feet tall by 3 feet wide. The entire back is red corduroy, and the front has a 2 inch corduroy border and then a burlap type center. It has batting inside so it feels like a big quilt.
All of the stockings are different, with felt, fabric, and embroidered stitching. They measure about 6 inches tall with the top opening being about 4 inches wide.They’re strung with white yarn that is loose so you can move it around.
Santa is at the bottom, with bells on his coat
And a reindeer holds Christmas Day
And there are little felt tree, branch, and berry details throughout.
If anyone attempts to make one, I want to see a picture!
Now, for filling it up. I do a mix of things inside. I like to have some activities, some service oriented things we do for others, and some that are simply for fun. Some involve opening a little gift, others are little riddles written on paper, and others are items that represent an activity.
Because the type of activity in each day really depends on my family schedule, I just keep my big master list and fill the actual stockings a few days at a time.
One trick is to make a list of the things you’ll be doing anyway during the month, and use those too. Things like a concert at school, or a church Christmas party, or pictures with Santa, etc.
Here are the things on my list, and I want to make sure everyone knows that I am realistic enough to know that we will not do all of these things, or even these types of things every day! December (and life in general) is busy, so I have little bags of treats and trinkets to slip in when I just need a little prize in there. The trick is having things organized so you have options.
Here’s my list:
Family Activities:
*Go to a Christmas movie in the theater (movie tix in stocking)
*Attend our church Christmas breakfast
*Drive to DQ for peppermint Blizzards (picture of a blizzard in the stocking)
*Have a movie night at home with red and green candy popcorn (photo of movie cover in stocking, tied on to a little bag of popcorn)
*Attend city tree lighting, our tour lights in our area (a baggie of lights in stocking)
*Read the Christmas story from the Bible and act it out (a tiny figurine of baby Jesus in the manger in stocking)
*Go sledding
*Go ice skating
Service for others:
*make gift baskets for the missionaries at our church
*visit the local nursing home and deliver flowers
*take goodies to friends and family
*prepare gifts for teachers, bus drivers, mail carriers, garbage men, etc
*Write Christmas letters to Grandparents
*Send Christmas cards to servicemen
*go shopping and pick out a toy to donate to charity
Gifts:
*These are slips of paper that tell them to open a numbered wrapped gift from a basket
*Read a new book (The Jolly Postman (my FAVE) wrapped up to open before bed, plus a few more we’re adding to our collection))
*Start a Lego count down (actual day #1 since we did snow globes early. More about this below) Lego advent wrapped under tree.
*Watch “The Snowman” movie (movie wrapped up under tree)
Kitchen/Craft Stuff:
*Make hot chocolate with all the fixings (hot chocolate fixings in stocking)
*Make snowflakes and eat them! (a little snowflake snack)
*Get trapped in a snow globe!
*Decorate gingerbread houses
*Make Christmas ornaments
*Open a new Christmas cereal (wrapped under the tree)
Lastly, if you have Lego fans at your house, we LOVE the Lego advent calendars. They make them in several different themes. At our house we’re all about Lego Star Wars. Each day you open a window and there is a tiny little Lego set in there. On the inside of the door is the instructions. Some our little things like ships, and others are Lego guys.
And one other fun tradition we sort of started this year is one I saw on 320 Sycamore last year. If you’ve got lots of Christmas books, wrap them all up and put them in a basket. Let your kids choose one book every night to unwrap and read. Or if you don’t have that many books, you can do it once or twice a week, etc. It’s fun because the books only come out once a year! (Do you all have “You are my Miracle“? My copy was a gift from my Aunt Barbara when I had my first baby, and it has become one of my most favorites. Such a beautiful, tender message about parenting, children, and Christmas. )
Oh, and last year we started the tradition of sprinkling Reindeer Food on Christmas Eve. *LOVE* this one.
Okay, this post turned out much longer than I anticipated! Now it’s your turn! If you have fun ideas, or have made an advent calendar you love, feel free to link up in the comments! I’d also love to hear about any great holiday traditions you think other people might enjoy starting in their homes. I’d love to hear all of your fun ideas, so please share!
Questions & Reviews
A tradition that my little guy loves is a month long activity during December. Prior to December first I take a 100 (started out with smaller sizes) piece Christmas puzzle and assemble and then I disassemble in a certain order and separate into 24 equal piles and keep them in a certain order for wrapping and labeling. (The order allows my son to put the puzzle together as he unwraps each pile of pieces.) I then wrap each pile of pieces and label with a number of a day of December. For example, the first packet are the first four pieces of the border of the puzzle and I label it with a 1. He then knows that’s the one we open on December first and assemble. Then on Christmas Eve he opens the last packet and completes the puzzle! He loves the challenge of putting the puzzle together and trying to guess what the picture is going to be. One fun tip – I take a picture every night the pieces are added and at the end of the puzzle I use an app to setup a stop motion “film” that shows how the puzzle progressed – great digital memory!! Also, another tip is I use a large piece of cardboard wrapped in plain wrapping paper to assemble the puzzle on – as I can’t give up my one large table for a whole month. We then slide the cardboard under our couch and take out every night!
Thank you for making advent calendar.. my family love the idea to adding activities and books to the advent line up on calendar.. very helpful
Your post has inspired me to enjoy the season with my girls and not get caught up in “getting it all done in time.” I love the idea of adding activities and books to the advent line up. I’m almost forty and I just got that the Christmas holiday is not just one day, but a month long celebration.
Sara, I read your post last year and fell in love with your calendar. Then I saw you write about “If anyone decides to make one, I want to see pictures” and I took it as a challenge!! Darn you!! LOL
It’s taken me a year, but here is mine. At first I was trying to copy it exactly. But a friend convinced me to do what I like, so I changed it up a bit. Hope you like it.
PS-the money you paid for your was definitely worth it!!!!!
http://rantsfromacrazedwoman.blogspot.com/
Karisa
Thank you for making my Christmas easier!
I have been searching for more ideas for our Advent train (found at Target a few years ago) I slip pieces of paper in with activities a lot like some you have listed but I always need new ideas to refresh my memory and also to have some NEW ideas!
I have pinned this and will be coming back to it when making my little slips of paper…..
I’ve made a Stuffed Advent Calendar Tree but I love your ideas . Would like to link it to my Squidoo Lens . Thanks for sharing .
I would love to win the Cooks Illustrated cookbook. I enjoy your blog a lot and have your lovely cookbook. thanks joy
We don’t have any kids yet but I love that advent calendar AND it’s back in stock! What creative ideas 😀
I’d LOVE to attempt a “knock-off” of this! Any chance I can get a close up of stocking #1? I’d like to see how they sewed it since it’s part fabric, part felt, and how they attached the stocking loops (that the yarn goes through).
Thanks!
Karisa
I love your calendar! It is soo cute! I like the idea that it is soo big and the stockings are big enough to put things in. I might try to make this, of course it would have to be for next Christmas! 🙂 I did find this turtorial online that I thought might be of interest to anyone trying to attempt this one!
http://bearrabbitbear.blogspot.com/2011/12/pottery-barn-knock-off-advent-calendar.html
I saw this and decided I had to have it for our family. I searched it down on eBay and we’ve been really enjoying it! I am curious, what do you have in mind for Christmas day? Will it be from you or Santa?
Thanks for sharing all of your calendar ideas — I want to get organized next year and do this but didn’t think I could come up with 25 ideas! Thanks — you’re awesome! Merry Christmas!
When i was young, when we put the cookies out for Santa (which later changed to McDonalds cheeseburgers lol), we also put carrots out for the reindeer. I was always very excited to see them chewed down to the nubs. Ahh, memories.
Sara-
I started making one tonight…can you tell me what the back looks like? I guess what I’m wondering is if they sewed everything on the burlap first before the batting and the backing, or if they sewed the burlap, batting and burlap together, then sewed on the reindeer, stockings and santa?? Does my question even make sense? I’m just cutting everything out and trying to figure out how to get all the layers right.
I love this idea & made an advent calender a couple years ago that we love. It was very easy, I sewed toilet paper tubes inside fabric to hold the papers. It looks more like a scroll, kinda hard to describe but cute & very easy to make.
A few of our daughters favorite days are:
-Peppermint bubble bath with candy canes & Christmas music
-Each girl gets a private shopping day with mom (me)
-Decorating gingerbread houses
-Ice skating
-The Nutcracker (live theater)
-Snowman pancakes
-Making Santa’s Christmas cookies
December is my favorite month of the year. Thank you for all of your time, ideas & recipes, they are WONDERFUL <3
Last year, my mother-in-law gave us a copy of the advent book their ward created many years ago. It is a binder that has a compilation of scriptures, stories, songs, etc. for each day of December. This year, we created a Christmas countdown using our favorite candy to go along with what we read in the book each night.
It is really getting us in the Christmas spirit!
This will be my husband and I’s first Christmas together. Growing up, on Christmas Eve, our family would attend our church’s service and then we’d drive around to look at lights. My husband and I plan to continue that tradition this year 🙂 We’ve already put up our first tree and made a gingerbread house!
We love Star Wars advents too! Mostly I have to tell you that I LOVE the snowglobes with your kids’ pics in them! 🙂
You mentioned ‘You Are My Miracle’. I hadn’t heard of this one, but last year my husband bought ‘You Are My I Love You’ by the same author for my 2 year old daughter. I cried and cried when we read it on Christmas morning. I had postpartum depression (have it again with baby #2), and it was just such a heartbreaking book to read, when you struggle with loving your kids. It is my favourite book because it reminds me that I DO love my kids even if I don’t always feel like I do. Thanks for mentioning this book – I’ve added it to my wish list.
That pottery barn calendar is adorable. I’m sad that it’s not available anymore. I am not crafty enough to make one-could you share links for a few of the other ones you were thinking about buying? I am having trouble finding any cute ones to purchase. Thanks!
Love your ideas!! My boys are Lego Stars Wars LOVERS!! I’ve never seen the advent…. where can you purchase them? I’d love to do one this year…. or next! Or both!
Love your website and recipes, I often find things that I love here and come to seek inspiration for dinner, holidays, etc. Love it!
We do the books under the tree as well, and we just checked out some from the library to get us up to 25! Thanks for inspiring us in so many ways!!
Oh my goodness! I love Santa’s legs sticking out under his coat! That advent calendar is on of the cutest I’ve ever seen. I just might try making it. Thanks for showing off the details!
I am in the process of collecting socks to do this advent calendar – mine do not all look like holiday socks but they are sssooo cute. I will jazz them up with some buttons and charms. My socks will have slips of paper with all the holiday fun activities in them. http://www.hellokids.com/c_18958/activities
De bien jolies décorations
Je te souhaite un agréable dimanche
Valérie.
Love all your ideas! So so cute! What were the other books in your basket that you read to your kids? I want to start a good collection…thank you so much! Merry Christmas!
Love all these ideas! Think I’ll work on the advent calendar for my 22 year old baby during the next year. Thanks for the great idea!