Advent Calendar.

This year I have found myself Pinspired to throw away our cardboard advent calendars and make us one that can be reused each year.

I largely made it up as I went along and I think it has not come out too badly considering my lack of forethought and the fact that I did the majority of it with a cracking hangover.  

It's a fairly simple design - I cut out 24 squares of fabric from my Christmas material and hemmed them using iron on interfacing.  I interfaced a block of felt, then cut out the numbers using the magnetic ones that I have on my fridge as a guide.  I then stuck the numbers on with fabric glue and took a break overnight.  When I came back to it, I reinforced the numbers by sewing round the edges of them (this was probably the most time consuming part).  I then became sidetracked by making a Christmas wall hanging which I had vague ideas of putting the pockets onto, but came back instead to a plain back ground.  I cut out two equal rectangles, on one I ironed on yet more interfacing, and on the other I sewed the pockets on.  I sewed round three sides, leaving the top of each pocket free so that I can put stuff in it.  Then I sewed the two pieces together inside out, putting bits of ribbon in the right place for hanging and finally I turned it the right way round and sewed all around the edge to finish it off.  Simples.  It's not perfect, I certainly wouldn't try to sell it to anyone, but it will do for what I want it for.

And what I want it for is this - as well as the usual chocolates that I will put in each pocket (The Eldest was VERY keen to make sure that she would still get chocolate), I have a Christmas activity to do each day.  When we dish out the chocolate each morning, we'll also pull out a piece of paper that has today's activity on it.  The following our the ones I thought would be good for us, and I've decided which day they should be on, bearing in mind whether or not the day fell on the weekend etc etc.

Choose and decorate a Christmas tree.

Make Borax Christmas tree ornaments.

Write your letter to Father Christmas.

Make paper chains to decorate the house.

Make Salt Dough Christmas tree Ornaments.

Decorate the salt doughornaments

Make paper snowflakes

Write your Christmas cards.

Go to a Christmas Pantomine.

Give your cards out to your friends.

Bake some Christmas Cookies

Decorate some Christmas Cookies

Dance to some Christmas music.

Watch a Christmas movie

Have a Christmas Party

Make Fudge and cookies for your teachers.

Colour a Christmas picture.

Ring their Aunt and sing Jingle bells to her.

Read a Christmas story.

Give Cards and presents to your teachers.

Make a cotton wool snowman.

Drive up to see Granny and Granddad in Norfolk and Go for a walk in the dark with torches.

Visit Father Christmas in his Grotto.

Open the Christmas Eve Box (with new pjs and slippers in, a christmas movie, hot chocolate supplies etc)

There are loads of other ideas around on Pinterest and elsewhere on the net, I just picked the ones that worked for us.