11/09/2011

Advent Calendar

In Norway Advent Calendars are big business - we do all kinds of calendars, and a lot of kids have more than one calendar. Many families do what we call a gift-calendar, where (usually) the mother buys a little something for the 24 days before Christmas. We did one of these last year.

 This year we're doing something differently.
I have made the girls an angel calendar from wood, last year I put present on the one below, the one above has been given to my nieces.  This year there will be notes on the calendar - notes that tell my girls what we will be doing that specific day.

Some of the things we will be doing:
Bake
Send gifts to some poor girls in the Philippines, from their toys
Make Christmas cards
Make Christmas presents
Ring our neighbors door and run, leaving behind a gift

We will do one thing every day - some things that will be nice for us to do and some things where e focus on other people's needs.

It is very important to me that my girls learn that Christmas is about giving, God giving His son for all humanity, and not about receiving gifts.  want them to really discover the joy it is when you're making someone else happy.

And you guys are invited to join us. I will post in advance what we will be doing, and you can play along if you want to.

I think we will have a very special time before Christmas this year.

Tomorrow I'll be back with a guest post tutorial for you guys.

2 kommentarer:

Jeanine The Crafting Fiend sa...

LOVE!!!!! I'm huge into advent calendars and now that I have a daughter I want her to be into them as well. I love that you are incorporating doing something and giving into the advent (totally going to do that as well). Wonderful idea - and cute way to do it in a small space with the packages hanging off the angel.

Janelle sa...

I like your idea of daily activities, rather than gifts or candy. Last year I saw a number of nice Advent calendar ideas - the one I chose for this year is to take all our Christmas-season books (plus a smattering of new ones), wrap them in pretty paper, put #s 1-24 on them, and put them in a basket. Then, each evening during Advent, open one and read it together as a family. I'm excited to see how it is received by my 5.