I clothespinned little envelopes to Christmas ribbon... one for each day in December. (I found an entire box of unused RSVP cards and envelopes from my wedding and decorated them with Christmas clip art, so the entire project was free.)
Here is the part that I love: Each day's card has an activity we can do as a family: Roast marshmallows, get in PJs and watch Polar Express, etc. I love that instead of "stuff" each day, we are creating Christmas memories. I have been taking a photo of each activity and will put the photo in the corresponding envelope, so next year we can look back and remember exactly what we did the year before.
Malia is so excited when she wakes up each morning to open that day's envelope and see what we get to do!
I gathered a lot of the artwork and the activity ideas from Pinterest. If you are interested in creating this, here are the links so you don't have to re-invent the wheel. For some reason Blogger isn't letting me link up tonight, so just copy and paste in your browser:
The numbers on the envelopes:
http://www.makoodle.com/diy-advent-calendar/
The daily activities:
http://designdazzle.blogspot.com/2011/11/advent-countdown-calendar-including-100.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+DesignDazzle+%28Design+Dazzle%29
