Advent Calendar - Kid's Edition

Wow, so it’s been AWHILE I posted anything here, but it’s that time of the year again – the festive season! I know that not everyone out there enjoys this time of the year (with the temperatures plummeting and the lack of sunshine outside), but I just love it. Just think about it – hot chocolate, warm socks, decorations and music.

It’s been more than a few weeks now that most of the stores started selling advent calendars, you know, the kind with chocolates in them. Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE CHOCOLATE, but I think it’s not what the holiday season is about after all.

So this year I’ve decided to do something different. Miss V is 4 now, so she totally gets the concept of Christmas and gift-giving and such. I decided to create an advent calendar for her that it made up of activities (there’ll be some chocolate eating in there too, of course!). Some will be easy tasks (week nights) and others will be more elaborate (weekends).

There are LOTS of ideas out there, especially if you are a fan of Pinterest. I browsed some stuff, and after getting better acquainted with what this is all about, I’ve come up with something we’ll be doing this year – it’s cheap, it’s simple, anyone can do it!

What you’ll need:

          * Festive paper bags – ours were purchased for $9.99 from IKEA; they even come with numbered stickers from 1 to 24, in case, like me, you want to use them for an advent calendar (so we’ll have 24 activities). Of course, you can always make your our bags, socks, pouches, whatever else your heart desires! :) I just don’t have that kind of time.

          * Some sort of word-processing application and a printer (alternatively, you can just cut up pieces of paper and write out activities by hand; I did ours in a spreadsheet program and added a small embellishment of holly, I couldn't resist!).

Print them up & cut them up

          * Ribbon (or something else to hang the activities).

Our activities:
(W designates 6 weekend day activities)

1. Decorate the tree
2. Take a photo with Santa
3. Make Christmas cookies (W)
4. Build a gingerbread house
5. Read a Christmas story
6. Hang stockings
7. Make paper snowflakes (here's how I usually do it)
8. Buy a gift for charity
9. Listen to Christmas music
10. Buy a gift for daddy
11. Buy a gift for mommy
12. Make gifts for your teachers (W)
13. Make & send special cards to babushka and deda (our out-of-country grandparents) (W)
14. Read a Christmas story
15. Snuggle with mom & dad by the fire
16. Watch Christmas cartoons
17. Enjoy a candy cane
18. Give a gift to A (Miss V's special friend) (W)
19. Buy Christmas jammies (W)
20. Wrap presents
21. Make special cards for your teachers (W)
22. Read a Christmas story
23. Drink hot chocolate
24. Make s'mores

I lined up the bags into weekly rows and sorted the activities that way :)

As you might notice, some of these activities aren't really activities (like, enjoying a candy cane, for example) and some are super easy or are repeated (reading a Christmas story), but given that we are busy during the week, we'll do just that - simple things to keep out advent countdown going.

I hope you enjoy our list - feel free to borrow some or all of it!

Happy Holidays everyone! :)

Read my older blog posts on the subject of Christmas here :)

Let it snow!...

I don't know why, but this year I've been itching to decorate my office for the holidays. Early.
BUT I made myself hold off and kept saying "wait till it at least snows!". Of course, as if on purpose, we enjoyed a warmer than usual autumn, and the average temperature in November was +10 C!!! Anyhow, we got our first real snow on November 23, which is when I busted out the scissors, and the cutting of paper began.

I always loved making snowflakes so I never thought of it as a special skill on anything, but after many oooohs and aaaahs from my coworkers and one suggestion that I should teach a class, I figured that maybe a blog post is in order :)

My office door window
(it's a pretty narrow hallway, so the photo came out a bit crooked)

Here are some of the snowflakes up close:

Now... Are you wondering how to do them? I will show you.

Nursery Closet project 2011

My daughter's room has been finished for a while now; however, there was one thing left - her closet doors. They are quite wide and tall as well = expensive to replace... But they really were an eyesore and totally didn't flow with the rest of the room.

A while back we were at Home Depot I forget for what, but while I was waiting for hubby to get his stuff, I noticed this Martha Stewart raised wallpaper stand. I was intrigued! Turns out all you really need to install them is glue. So... I bought a container of ready-to-use wallpaper glue and a roll of wallpaper.

Many weeks later, I got my sister to help glue them onto the nursery closet doors :)

Our supplies:

Before and after:

The pattern:

Now we just have to decide whether or not to paint it...