Advent Calendar

Another one of my Christmas traditions (a new-ish one) is an Advent calendar of activities to do with the girls/as a family. Each day of Advent, I have some kind of activity for us to do. Most of them are things we'd do anyway - wear Christmas shirts, bake cookies, watch the Grinch, read holiday stories, give money to the Salvation Army, give to the toy drive at school, etc. But it's a fun way to make sure we do something Christmas-y every day, and the girls really enjoy it.


So I started this tradition last year, and of course it was already December when I decided that I needed an advent calendar. I whipped one up very quickly at the time, and it was pretty bad. (I used magic marker for the numbers!) This year I thought I'd make a new and improved version. To be honest, I didn't work on it much in advance, either, so I was busily finishing it on November 30. And this was a good example of my vision and my patience not meshing! It isn't quite what I was aiming for (in particular, the stitching around the balls just isn't all that great, and I can't quite work out how to do the numbers without hand embroidering, which kills my wrists). I was pretty disappointed in it at first, but now that it's hanging up, it's not so bad. I put the activities on cardstock, and wrote the numbers on the back. That was just a stopgap, but I actually rather like it, because they sort of look like the top bit of an ornament. So, I may still want a new one (again!) next year, but at least I can live with this one for this year. Perhaps the next one will be purchased.....