Guest post-Christmas Advent Calendar

I am so excited to get to introduce all of you to my friend Grace.  Grace is an amazing photographer who is based in Montgomery, AL.  She's a mom of four sweet kiddos, and I am proud to call her my friend.  Grace mostly blogs about photography (you will drool!), but this past week, she blogged about an advent calendar that she made for her kids in celebration of Christmas.  I just had to share it with all of you.  Welcome to Holy Craft Grace!

I’ve been wanting to build some new traditions for the holiday’s for awhile now and this year I actually did something about it.  I LOVED having Advent calendars when I was a kid, it was such a fun way to count down the days until Christmas. So I started from there.

I wanted to do something with my own kids that put the focus on preparing ourselves for the true meaning of the season.  After some thought (and a cruise through Pinterest!) I came up with my own version of an Advent calendar.   Look what some envelopes and stamps can get you. . .

(The first Sunday of Advent this year is November 27th which is why it starts with that date/number.)

I already had the linen/barnwood hanging up in the foyer (something I had custom made from the AWESOME people over at CHARLESTON HOUSE FRAMING & GALLERY) so I decided to put my holiday spin on it and use it as our background for my envelope calender.  Each envelope has a slip of paper in it with something to do – donate to the food bank, make cookies for friends, give compliments, cut out snowflakes.  I had to keep in mind our *very* hectic schedule when filling the envelopes, but I think we should be able to accomplish each day’s task.  There is a mix of ‘giving’ tasks and ‘fun family time’ tasks.  In the Sunday envelopes there are short children’s prayers each child will take turns reading while we light our advent candles.  And December 6th is the Feast of St. Nicholas so I put his story in to read and celebrate.

I am so happy with how it turned out and think the kids are going to love it too…they already want to start opening the envelopes!    The whole project  was probably under $20 (I already had the envelopes, twine and ‘backboard’) and I can see just stringing the envelopes inside an empty frame.

I just love the simplicity of this advent calendar, and the oodles of memories that will be made from the activities.  Thanks Grace for dropping by.