The growing advent calendar

I grew up with advent calendars and looked forward to it every morning in December.  They were from Germany, my Mim would have them sent over, and they were the prettiest things I can remember.  All glittery and beautiful pictures.  And there was never any candy or junk inside them, just really cool pictures.  I think the best part was finding that one little window to open everyday, because they were plopped all over the place.

Well, the ones that you find now are full of chocolate little bears or gummy things or what nots.  I wanted one that would be something my kids looked forward to besides a quick sugar rush first thing in the morning.  I was checking out my fave blogs that I stalk and of course found inspiration at I am Momma Hear Me Roar like normal.  I'm sure if you've read my blog before you know I stalk love her blog.  She was having a week of putting Christ back into Christmas last week and had some wonderful guest bloggers and great ideas.  This is the post that inspired me. 

I ran to the dollar tree in big town to pick up the little metal buckets and this is all that they had, of course.

I was so distraught but I went ahead and bought them anyway.  They came in packs of 8 so I only lost $3 if it didn't work.  And since it is for Christmas, I picked the green ones, but they had yellow, blue and pink.  But as I was driving home my mind was buzzing with ideas and I came up with this.

I got home and pulled out the pad of Christmas paper that I bought at Michael's the other day for 50% off plus another 20% off.  Hello....can we say bargain!

I took apart one of the boxes and starting tracing them onto the papers.  Since it was double sided I got to use only 13 pages, but got 26 different boxes....even though I only needed 24.

Before my destruction.

After my destruction.  And yes, it is green, promise.  Baby green!

Then I set out on my tracing....this didn't really take that long, but the cutting, wow...that was a whole nother adventure.  And since I want instant gratification I worked on it all night long.  And my mind was turning to mush and I needed to get these suckers done.  So, I grabbed my exacto and let me tell you what...what a difference that made.  I finished the last half in about 20 minutes...as opposed to 2 hours.  Then I slept.  Seriously, I think my brain was running out of my ears.

Bright and early the next day, after the kiddos were on the bus, I got to assembling the many boxes.  I used stick glue and started folding and gluing while watching my back log of "Glee" episodes.  After two hours of "Glee" I was caught up and had all these boxes.  Check them out.

Aren't they pretty?!

Now....how to display them....hmm.  I want to hang them so I took my trusty scissors and got to punching holes into the sides.  See...

After punching holes for 24 boxes I grabbed the roll of natural jute and to to hanging.

Then, I set out to printing things to put into the boxes that the kids could do everyday without my help, or as little as possible.  I wanted things that might bring them closer to understanding what is important at Christmas.  Yes, getting things are fun, but it is the birth of our Lord and Savior that is the real reason for this time of year.

Some of the things that are in the boxes are things that I picked off of I am Momma Hear Me Roar and then I came up with some of my own.  Sorry, I can't remember them all.

Then, I made some numbers.  Printed the numbers out on card stock and cut them out in circles.

After cutting them...I burned the edges and glued them on the boxes.  With the glue stick again!  Those things work better than I gave them credit for.  Its amazing the resources you can find when all your crafty stuff is boxed up.

And that's it. 

I seriously think I need a new camera.  These pics are awful!  Sorry.

The kids think it is awesome and they don't even care that there isn't any candy inside them.  They just think its cool to open it and find out there adventure that they get to participate in that day.  Like today...we made Christmas goodies to eat and it just so happened that we were going to my MIL to make cookies after church.  They thought that was awesome...and I didn't even plan it that way.  Crazy!

Another thing I like about them is that I can change the things to put inside them every year.  The older they get, the bigger the good deed or objective will be.  I love it!

Thanks for checking in today...hope to see you again soon!

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