Our Advent Calendar

We started a new tradition this year that involves our Advent calendar. Years back I bought one and have always put it on our mantel. But we never really did much with it, just opened the doors. I mentioned our Advent surprises a few days ago, so here's a little more about our new tradition and how we are celebrating Christmas every day in December.

On the last day of November, the husband and I sat down with 25 blank squares of paper. We split them up into 5 piles/categories. Our categories include: Bible verses (specifically relating to the Christmas story), Christmas movies, snacks, Christmas songs and things we are thankful for. For each category we each picked two and wrote one down for our baby girl.

Here's an example from the snack category: I picked Ritzies and Chex mix, the husband picked apple cider and puppy chow and we picked banana for the baby (she is just starting to try solids).

So, after all the cards were filled, we mixed them up and randomly put one in each of the doors. Well, kind of random. I saved the entire Christmas story verses for Christmas day.

Each morning we get up and open the door for our surprise! If it's a song, we crank up the music and sing along. If it's a movie, we make some popcorn and watch it that evening.

If it's a Bible verse, we read it together and think on it throughout the day.


It has been so much fun for us this year. I'm really looking forward to next year when Sweet P will be talking and can tell us what she wants!!