Not Your Average Advent Calendar

Overall, I’ve received positive feedback about my Christmas Bucket list.

But there are some people who are saying that I’ve created more pressure for myself.

I’m not sure those people know me very well.

It’s not about perfection.

It’s about having fun.

That’s all.

I really wanted to do the advent calendar.

We always had the old school, cardboard, open-a-door-and-eat-the-chocolate-behind-it kind when I was a kid.

My kids, on the other hand, don’t even know what one is.

I didn’t want to buy 7 calendars, though, plus, if it involves candy, someone will find it, and someone will eat it.

Especially if it doesn’t belong to them.

So I wanted to do something with materials I already had.

I googled advent calendar ideas.

I was presented with pictures like this:

Spray painting recycled cans?

I saw this really cute ladder.

I even have an old wooden one I could use.

But Number 6 and 7 would be all over that thing.

I saw this one.

More spray painting cans.

Plus, all I kept picturing was this:

You might as well hang a sign over that last one that says KNOCK THIS SHIT OVER REPEATEDLY, PLEASE.

Nope.

I needed to make something that would be out of reach from the younger ones.

And I don’t need anything that’s pinworthy for my kids.

I mean, just yesterday, Number 5 gave me this picture.

You would have thought she had recreated the Mona Lisa by how proud she was.

Sure, it’s cute.

But my point is that it’s all relative for the kids.

Number 5, as well as the rest of the kids, won’t care if the advent calendar isn’t suitable for a magazine shoot.

Or what we, as adults, would feel is worthy of a magazine shoot.

As far as the kids are concerned, any of the things we make for them is “AWESOME!!!”

So, without any thoughts of perfection, I did some brainstorming.

I needed to use stuff I already had, and it needed to be quick.

I found this old frame when I was cleaning the office.

I had this wrapping paper,

and a whole bunch of old and mismatched socks.

I cut up some contruction paper. I wrote different things on 24 pieces of paper.

Many of them contain activities from the bucket list, broken into parts.

Like this one:

We’ll use those to make some ornaments for the tree, which is one of the other things on the CBL, and one of the other advent calendar activities.

Some of the other papers have things like:

See Mommy for your free candy cane.

and

Chocolate!

So I wrote out the activities/treats on the paper, and then I wrapped that old frame with the wrapping paper,

glued the socks onto it with a hot glue gun,

rolled up my construction paper,

aaaaaaaaaaaaand…..

Voila!

It’s not exactly the Sistene Chapel of advent calendars.

And I didn’t get it done until December 2, but the kids don’t care. We can catch up for a lost day.

Most importantly, though, the kids love it!

And that, rather than perfection, is the whole point.

Check one off the Christmas Bucket List 🙂

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