Thursday, December 6, 2007

Advent Calendars















Heather sent in a link to her thoughtful blog post about her very fun advent calendar, which can be found here. I've liked advent calendars since I was a kid--there is something so magical about counting down the days, finding out what waits in each compartment, learning little things about Christmas, fighting with your twin brother over who gets to eat each day's candy (if you were in my family, anyway).

(And of course, I'm pleasantly reminded of the crass-but-heart-warming Bad Santa, when in a drunken fit the bad Santa, played by Billy Bob Thornton, rips apart a kid's cherished advent calendar to eat all the chocolates in one sitting, but then feels bad and does a pathetic job of taping it back together, filling the compartments with candy corn and aspirin.)

Here's a link to an article of advent calendar history on Wikipedia.

Here's a link to advent calendars you can make at home.

And some advent calendars you can buy:

Quilted cat advent calendar on Etsy
Stocking advent calendar on Etsy
A ton of advent calendars on Amazon, including this one, or this one, and this one
Calendar on Pottery Barn Kids website
Online advent calendars of all kinds
Even good old Target gets in on the advent calendar love

Do you guys use this tradition?

5 comments:

email said...

A couple years ago, I saw a Noah's Ark advent calendar similar (or maybe the same one) to the one you picture. I desperately wanted it, but it was so so expensive (if I remember correctly, it was 50% off, but still cost $150). Anyway, now I wish I had it. If I ever see it again, I may splurge.

Unknown said...

I just got one of the wooden ones from Target and we filled each cubby with little ornaments, and then I also bought a little Rosemary tree (from Target, of course) and my girls are LOVING decorating the little mini-tree.

el-e-e said...

Every year I walk by the ones in Target longingly and don't buy them. But I kind-of do want to do this as a tradition. I posted about it yesterday and a commenter also left this link

(I want one that doesn't have candy in every door! My kid eats WAY too much candy already. Heh.)

Beth said...

I love Advent calendars, but I prefer a little something inside that isn't candy. I wish I could find one that had little figures and animals in the dates, so that at the end you had a wooden Nativity scene. If I had any eye-hand coordination with a jigsaw, I'd make one, but since my job requires fingers for typing, Mr. Pi won't let me play with the jigsaw.

Swistle said...

Someone sent us a Christmas card one year that had a little flap for each day, and the kids used that every year until finally last year it wore out. I'm going to be searching the post-Christmas clearances for one with little cupboards or drawers so I can put in, say, a piece of candy for each child. Imagine FIVE kids fighting over a single piece!