This year Dev and I are doing an advent calendar. Growing up, advent was a big deal in my house. I remember lighting advent candles on Sundays and going to church to learn about the religious significance of advent. As Dev and I are creating new holiday traditions, I really wanted to do something with advent but I didn’t want it to be overly religious. I also received a big advent-boost while in Denmark (check out the pics here). Everywhere I looked there were advent candles, activities, and calendars for sale. When I came home I started looking for a fun way to celebrate advent. (Trumpet noise!) Pintrest to the rescue! Pintrest has many good advent suggestions however, I loved this one from a great blog called, Just A Girl:
Advent Calendar from Just a Girl Blog
Instead of match boxes we used Christmas cards (I have somehow managed to collect 200 different Christmas cards, so I was happy to donate some to the cause). We wrote the following actives on the cards, sealed them up, dated them and hung them under our bar:
- Play a board game together
- Build a fort and have a meal in it
- Cut out paper snowflakes
- Pick out a toy for Toys for Tots
- Make popcorn and watch a Christmas movie
- Go in the hot tub
- Hot cocoa and marshmallows
- Make a Christmas craft
- Breakfast for dinner
- Bake something
- Make a card for someone and mail it
- Go to dollar store and shop for family
- Go out to a movie
- Make gingerbread men
- Go for a walk and sing carols on the way
- Make a pinecone bird feeder
- Go bowling
- Go downtown and look at lights
- Popcorn and movie night
- Go out to eat
- Find a homeless person and give them a meal
- Sing 5 carols
- Bring food to the food bank
- Open one present
- Merry Christmas
Ayesha
December 15, 2011 at 12:40 pm
E grew up with the advent calendar being a source of treats and little toys. I never knew what advent was, and I don’t totally know the whole religious significance of it. Super Llama explained a little of it to me once, but maybe you can tell me when we’re together again. I have a seen more than a few Activity Advent calendars roaming around on Pinterest and the blogoshpere, and I think it’s something that E and I will incorporate next year, if I can convince him. Sometimes, it’s hard to live with boy, because they don’t think all the ideas you have are cute and fun, and they definitely don’t feel the need to help you with them. Haha.
deveryandcaitlin
December 20, 2011 at 1:07 pm
Good luck getting him on board, maybe you can suggest that he think of some ideas and activities so he looks forward to it as well?
intomind
December 15, 2011 at 1:29 pm
cute idea. my boyfriend and i made each other advent calendars as well, but next year we might have a joint one like this one
deveryandcaitlin
December 20, 2011 at 1:05 pm
It was really fun to do together, we both looked forward to opening a card after work and seeing what surprise we had that day. I hope you have a great advent season and Merry Christmas. Thanks for reading!
Kate
December 15, 2011 at 4:25 pm
Let me know how your homeless person hunt goes. =P