Make an Advent Calendar

Last December I was inspired to start a new Holiday tradition by Karaimame of Acquiring Taste.  Last year's Advent Calendar was very simple and I've kept to a similar theme for this second year.  It hangs from a wire stretched across a wall, using clothespins to hold the simply wrapped gifts.  A row of paper mittens dangles across in lots of bright colors, each one a little different from the rest.   Unfortunately the Advent Calendar hangs in an area of the house that is very difficult to light properly and I couldn't quite get pictures as gorgeous as I wanted.  It looks better in person, I swear.

Yesterday was spent adoring my hot glue gun as I pasted paper tabs and felt cuffs to each mitten.   Some mittens have plain cuffs, some have bows or sparkly stars.  Green yarn is tied through each paper tab and tied to the wire with a long end stretched by the weight of a clothespin holding a present.

The gifts are small things that I found here and there throughout the year.  While there are a few pieces of chocolate, I'm very strict about candy so the gifts are mostly other things like ornaments to put on the tree, pairs of socks, a headband, some bookmarks, etc.

I wanted it to be truly random this year so there are no numbers.  Instead there is a matching mitten to each one that is hanging up, and every pair is unique.  The second mittens were collected into a basket and from there A-chan will get to blindly pull a mitten every morning.  When she finds its mate she will know which gift to open.  And once the gift is removed the matching mitten is put on that clothespin.  It was a lot of extra work to make 50 mittens instead of 25, but at the end of the Calendar our wall will be covered in fun colors and pairs of mittens with sparkly bows instead of leaving a boring blank wall.

A-chan was ecstatic about the Calendar when she found it hanging there after school yesterday.  She was very happy to see that I had included a few pink mittens and spent most of the evening telling me how much she couldn't wait until morning.  Those excited giggles and sweet smiles made all the hours spent with hot glue and scissors worth it!

Next year I want to try something more creative!  Karaimame made a lovely Advent Calendar again this year that I just adore.  Another inspirational blog is Coffee and Vanilla, with an intricate calendar this year.