Our Advent Calendar

This is our Advent calendar this year, my own take on the rustic calendar
featured in last month's Mollie Makes. I've also seen similar calendars online,
some using little envelopes like ours, some with small gift-wrapped parcels,
some using muslin bags with stamped or stencilled numbers. I like ours very much.
It is a chocolate-filled calendar for the girls that's also a Christmas decoration.
I think it's suitably festive in a simple, un-sparkly way, a lovely starting point
to most of our Christmas preparations.

It was very easy and didn't take very long to make. I used the envelopes left
over from making last year's calendar, a red pen and number stencils, a hole punch,
bakers twine, a branch and bit of foliage. Once all envelopes were numbered and
 we've made star-shaped holes on each of them, they were filled with little treats.
Then it was on to tying and hanging them all up on this tree branch I picked up
on one of my walks in Carr Wood.

I added a sprig of holly and that finished it off - our Advent calendar for 2016 is finished!

The girls know the envelopes have chocolates but they don't know whether
they're in the shape of Father Christmas, coins or other ornaments, and their
excitement is the same everyday. I enjoy watching them; it all adds to my own
anticipation and enjoyment of the festive season.

How about you, how are your festive preparations going? I'll start writing cards today
 and wrap up parcels for friends who live abroad. We have two separate nativity plays
from the girls this week and we're really looking forward to them. Lulu is one of the
Wise Men in hers and Markie is Mary in year two's play. First time ever in my
husband's family and mine that someone's got one of the bigger roles and this year
we have two! We're certainly very proud and we are going to enjoy.

Have a lovely, cosy week. See you soon!

Advent Calendar

Hello. I hope you've had a lovely start to the Advent season. There
are still three weeks to go before Christmas but I'm starting to feel
excited. I've finished making Markie's cowl and this week I've added
a few more ticks in my list of presents to buy. Our mantel is looking
a little more festive too with some red and sparkly things and every
 morning over breakfast we light our Advent candle. And of course,
there's the Advent calendar with a surprise treat for the girls everyday. 

As you can see I've made our own Advent calendar this year. This
was a very last-minute make, hurriedly assembled on the afternoon
of December first.

I've forgotten to buy the girls their usual chocolate-filled calendars
and after failing to find on Tuesday morning anything that wasn't
 either a Peppa Pig or Olaf, I decided to just make my own. I got
a packet of small brown envelopes and number stencils from
Ryman's and I found these festive wooden pegs from Poundland
 - twelve for a pound. Perfect!

I stencilled the numbers on the envelopes, hung them from a string
 using the pegs and it was done! It's very simple but it works and
the girls love it.

So our countdown to Christmas is underway with the help of
our DIY Advent calendar and there are lots of things we're looking
forward to. Top of the list is the girls' Christmas show at school
next week. I'm very, very excited about that. We're also getting
our tree, maybe on the twelfth and I'd like to try making gingerbread biscuits with my girls. This is a very special time of year and
I'm beginning to really enjoy myself now.