Countdown to Christmas

So here's the story, I worked at Fossil for quite a long time and besides falling in love with watches, purses and people, I fell in love with the display pieces. They would often use cute vintage boxes and wooden benches in the window and shelf displays and most of them were easy to fall for. A little known secret is that after the visual merchandisers decided that they would never use these display items again they were added to a toss sheet. this meant shopping for the staff who worked there, in fact usually as soon as a particularly nice one would come in one of the staff would stick a long piece of tape on in somewhere and write their name on it, claiming it for whenever it would be added to that list. When this shelf came in there was nearly a blood bath trying to be the first to get a name on it. There were several discussions about how they would be used and I took one look at it and said, "Advent calendar!". I am proud to say that one got me the right to claim it, and even though I had left the company before it made it to the throw out list my good friends still working there had my back.

 

 

I will admit when I first saw it, and knew that it would make a great advent calendar, I dreamt about how great the treats would be that I could fit in those slots. For the record you can fit four full sized chocolate bars in each space, or four kinder eggs or I imagine many of your preferred options. However as we got closer to the first time I would pull it out and use it I got slightly more sentimental and saw the potential for something a little different. I decided that I would give us an activity countdown instead, each day wrapped in a little present to be opened and then done as a family. In a fit of pride at it's completion I took a picture and posted it to Facebook. Most people took absolutely no notice, but a couple of people got very interested in what we did each day. One of these people was my sister in law who insisted that it would make a great blog topic, so this one is for her. I suppose since I did bring the thing across the ocean, it should get some recognition.



So the first thing I do is create a long list of activities that I think would be fun to do with the family, movie nights, picnics by the Christmas tree, and so on. I look on line, pinterest is one of my favorites but a general google search or checking out what's going on in your community are also great places to start. Then I write out a list of the days of the month and what other activities we have going on in December all in an attempt to not over extend ourselves on any given day.

 

 

This also helps me remember what activities are coming up so that when they open the box I am ready for whatever it says and things run a little smoother then. This becomes the thing I look at most through December I think. Once this step is complete I make the boxes. This year I didn't have any Christmas colored origami paper and so I used white paper that I squared off and drew designs on myself.

 

 

 

The next step is to fold them into box shape, truthfully this takes longer than you think it might. If you opt to do something similar I suggest Christmas carols and hot chocolate, this really helps me stay festive feeling. Okay shameless plug, my good friend Maren Ord has a tune available to buy called, "The King is Born", buy it! It is my favorite, friendship aside, honestly I listen to it over and over.

 

 

 

 

Eventually you end up with a beautiful pile of boxes that looks something like this. As they are pulled off each day and opened they reveal what we will be doing that day.

 

 

 

The last thing that I do is go to the grocery store and pick out the goodies that will fill the few days I selected to just have something sweet. Last year we had them only on the weekend but somewhat wiser, well more experienced, I chose days that were our busiest with other things. Then I load them into the shelf.

 

 

 

I am always a tiny bit sad when we start emptying it out because I enjoy the way it looks all full. As I really enjoy the quality family time this forces us to have I sacrifice the finished product. I would love to hear some of the things you guys do with your family, might be inspiration for me next year. I will try to post later in the month with pictures of some of the things we did together, in the mean time, only 23 sleeps to Christmas!!