Our Christmas Advent Calendar

Every December as a child I loved the count down to the big day...especially the chocolate advent calendars we used. Last year was the first Christmas that Kirby kind of understood what was going on, and instead of doing chocolates every day I made our first Activity Advent calendar so that we could have a little Christmas cheer every day! 

It was such a success, and Kirby loved opening a new bag each day to see what activity or little gift she would be getting. So it has become a definate on the Christmas Traditions list for us.

As we moved house earlier in the year, I knew that the space I had would be limited, so I went against using the same set up as last year and did a little something different....it definatly took longer to make, but I'm so happy with the out come that it was worth while :D

*please excuse the quality of the photos, I took them on my phone* ;)

Our Activity Advent Calendar

The calendar is made up of 25 mini stockings that I machine and hand sewed and each one contains either an activity or little gift. Last year I used the activity cards and planner from the A Little Delightful blog (they are available as a free printable, just follow this link and you'll find them).

This year I decided to make my own activity cards as I could personalise them for Kirby. They include activities such as reading Christmas stories, having a movie night, doing some Christmas craft and baking and also popping a gift under the wishing tree. As you can see some of the gifts correspond with the activities and Kirby will have to find these hidden around the house!

I still used the free planner as it saved me some time from making my own, but it also doubles as our Elf planner too...Elf planner...yep, keep reading to find out more ;)

Some of the little gifts that will be used this year, our planner
(so I can keep track of what we are doing and when), and activity cards.

The display features a few other things, including the 'Santa Claus is coming to town ' print I designed for this years Christmas range. It is also the home of our 'Santa's (secret) Letter Box' which will be used for sending letters to Santa and also recieving them!

The little display under the advent calendar.

But I can not forget the most important feature... a special little doorway which our cheeky little house guest for the month will use to get to and from the North Pole!

Please meet Alfie Snowflake. She is our little Christmas Elf that will be popping up here and there and taking part in some of our Christmas activities and keeping an eye on Kirby and letting Santa know if she's being 'naughty or nice' ;) (if you have Instagram you can see what she's been up to by looking for #alfiesnowflake)

I decided to make our own elf rather than buy one of the traditional 'Elf on the Shelf', as it gave me the opportunity to create something special for our family, allowed for me to personalise her a little bit, and it also means that I can make a matching one for our new little baby next year, and they can get up to mischief together!

I will be doing a post about Alfie's arrival and first week in our home very soon so keep an eye out, but she is already very popular!!

What are some Christmas traditions you and your family have?

Stay Prettie

Jodie-Lee ox