Advent Calandar....CHRISTMAS IS COMING!!

Ok, let's get this out of the way.....I LOVE CHRISTMAS!!! Which if you want to blame anyone.....it would be my Dad's fault! Hahahaha! Every year at Christmas he was as excited about it as I was as a kid! He loved to put lights up, the tree, sing Christmas songs....the whole nine yards! A tradition we had every year, was we would watch the original "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" on Christmas Eve before we went to bed. An of course I would recite the entire movie while we watched it! ;)

So now that I have started my own little family, I want to keep that love for Christmas going {even though I'm pretty sure I married the Grinch ;)...that's what I call him anyhow} and start some of our own traditions as well as carry on the ones I grew up loving. We have started a tradition with our son last year, with a Christmas Eve box. On Christmas Eve he gets 1 package to unwrap...which contains a pair of Christmas jammies, a Christmas movie to watch that night {which will probably be How the Grinch Stole Christmas}, a couple snacks to have while watching the movie and a small toy of some kind. He was so excited to be getting a gift the day before and then had to put his new jammies on RIGHT away. :)

I kept seeing these really neat advent calendars and I loved the idea of counting down the days and doing fun activities together! So I thought let's make one to start this year! Marshall is 3 and is really into Christmas and Santa this year, so what better time to start! So here is the one I made, pretty simple and will be easy to switch up next year when the calendar dates change.

I'm so excited for December 1st, so we can get started!!!

 

 

 First I just took a 9x13 canvas I had laying around and wrapped it in burlap!

 

I cut the piece just enough to wrap over the sides and on the back and hot glued it down.

 

 

 

 

 

 I then cut a piece of cork and glued that to the front in the center. An started cutting out festive Christmas paper circles.

 

 

After I got all my circle cut out, I just used sticker numbers and numbered all of them.

 

I then came up with 24 activities to do for each day leading up to Christmas day! Which I also cut out in circles

Couple of examples:

~Watch Christmas Movies

~String Popcorn

~ Green & Red Scavenger Hunt

~Make Snowman Pancakes

~Make Reindeer Food

~Build a Gingerbread House

 

Then I put an activity circle behind a numbered circle and thumb tacked it to the cork board!

 
 

 On the back of the piece of canvas {since it obviously sits on a little in the middle}, I made a little pocket to put the numbered circle's after we take it off everyday.

Just cut a square out of the extra cork I had and used a little piece of paper! It worked out great!

 

 Added a little snowflakes to the extra space at the beginning an end and then hot glued a piece of twine on the back so we can hang it up!