Advent Calendars

I have a dream. A dream of an advent calendar. It is made entirely of wool felt. It has pockets with numbers on, and in each pocket there is a little felt figure or symbol that represents advent, along with a verse that relates to the symbol. Also, of course, there are little candies for each day. The figure gets velcroed or buttoned to the pocket to count down to Christmas.

One day, I will make this calendar. Until then, this is what we've made for the last two years:



As usual this was a collaborative project. MY idea was that they boys would colour them and put one construction paper star this week, to represent the coming King. But then once we had that glued on, Andrew said, "I need a heart, Mom. To show that I love Aaron."

Well, how could I say no? Before long there were three hearts, one for Aaron, one for Dad and one for Me. And then he wanted to cut out his own shapes, to represent his friends . . . and by then it was totally Andrew's project and I had no say in it. That's kind of how things go around here. Andrew is going to have trouble with close-ended assignments at school, I'm afraid. He seems to have inherited my bad habit of not being able to think inside the box.

Anyway, these were a lot of fun to make. They provide a lot of gummi bear related excitement every morning, and brighten up our kitchen a bit. And, most importantly, they help keep Advent in mind, and make the count down to Christmas a bit more understandable to little minds and hands.