December 1st: DIY Advent Calendar – Sharing some ideas for cool homemade calendars.
One of the most important Christmas tradition especially for kids, is the famous Advent Calendar. It is used to strengthen the anticipation of Christmas during December and it certainly does a splendid job at it. While almost always a simple chocolate advent calendar is enough, nothing beats a DIY homemade Advent Calendar, with all sorts of little presents. You even can spike it up and have a bigger present on the Sundays of Advent, it is all up to you.
But how do you start at creating your own custom Advent Calendar? First, you should consider to whom you want to gift it to and what design the person specifically likes. Be it Christmas themed or maybe even completely different, like a tech theme. After that, of course you have to ask yourself what you want to gift the recipient. For kids you should consider little treats, like chocolate and other sweets, however you may even gift a little toy and split it into multiple parts. This idea was picked up by my parents when I was a kid, and they bought a little Lego toy and split the parts into 24 segments, with everyday some sweets next to it. And as far as I can remember it was a joy to open and build a bit of my newly acquired piece of Lego.
Enough about the gifts. Decorating your DIY Advent Calendar is even more important than the gifts inside, even though the decoration might not get as much appreciation as the gifts in the Calendar. If you want to have the same Advent Calendar year after year, it is recommended to use sturdier materials, like jute, linen, cotton, or even, if you are crafty enough, one out of wood. These Advent Calendars should be decorated with sturdier materials as well. The fabric ones can easily be designed with cross stitching, the wooden one can either be painted or glued on. For a cheaper but not so sturdy variant, paper bags are a valid alternative. They can be decorated using glue, glitter, pearl pencils, stickers and every other kind of decoration. It is up to you.
You can get a little impression of how it could look like on the pictures.
For further tips and tricks, for how to spike up your Christmas mood, feel free to follow up on our Advent Calendar every day!
written by Daniel