Christmas is Coming

I have such good memories of our advent calendar as a child. Our countdown was a green cloth calendar with pockets and a little mouse that helped you keep track of the days. My mom would fill each spot with a small candy or piece of gum (if I remember right, gum was Andrea's favorite). My sister and I would look forward to each new day and the candy that awaited us.
This year I decided, with a little help from Pintrest, to make an advent calendar for my family. It was quite the undertaking; mostly because I waited until November 29th to start the project. Needless to say, I stayed up way to late one night, sewing my little fingers off. The end product was well worth the effort.

Here I tried to capter myself slaving away at the sewing machine, but couldn't quite get the right angle. ;) So I took a picture of my sewing machine instead.

Here is one of the little bags after the sewing and ironing process was finished. I discovered he burlap is really hard to iron, but not impossible.

I decided to hand paint all the numbers to complete my rustic look.

Here is the finished product hanging in our dining room window.

Here is another one in the daylight. It was hard to get a good picture at night with all the glare.

... and a couple more close ups with all the goodies inside.

After filling my bags with goodies I also included a different activity for each day. There were some great ideas out there in interweb-land, but I had to pick and choose to make our activities two year old friendly. I imagine adding more and different activities each year as my kids get older. Here is a list of what I used:

Watch It’s a Wonderful Life or Elf, make spiced cider.

Make Christmas Cookies for friends.

Send Christmas Cards to Costco

Read a new Christmas book

Make a Christmas craft

Make Thick Hot Chocolate and Marshmallows

Have a picnic in the living room – eat ham sandwiches and watch a Christmas movie

Put up a ribbon sash for Christmas cards

Give neighbors a present

Put up a wreath

Make a Gingerbread house

Make a popcorn garland

Make hot chocolate and read a Christmas book

Sing (or listen) to favorite Christmas songs

Drive around to see neighborhood lights

Read Christmas story from the Bible

Make a family traditional dessert

Eat out at a festive restaurant

Build a fire and tell stories of childhood Christmas

Have a candlelit dinner by the Christmas tree

Make sugar cookies

Have a full traditional breakfast while listening to Christmas music

Find snow to play in

Go to the Festival of Lights Parade: Keizer – 7:00 pm

Go to Target and pick out a new family ornament

Write a letter to Santa

Pick out our Christmas tree

Learn about holidays in another culture

Go see Santa

So far the countdown has been a hit. Every morning after breakfast we open another bag, enjoy the treat, and plan that day's activity. In fact, I think it's time to open another bag...