Our Advent Calendars

We have talked a lot about this, Nathan and I and really felt like with presents and parties and all of the hoopla our kids were missing out on the main point of Christmas. I know they are still young but now is the best time to experiment right?

I made these advent calendars out of mini muffin tins. Aren't they cute?  I made 3 because I used to get so mad that me and my sister always shared ONE chocolate box thing and it was so hard to wait for that stinkin lame piece of candy every other day. I promised myself that every kid in my house would have their own.


I didn't want to fill each one with candy either. 


"Advent calendars have changed a lot since then.  Now Lego, Playmobil, and many other companies make ones with toys or candy revealed each day.  They are adorable, but I'm not sure they fit the message we wanted to send.  In our home, Advent is the time to prepare for Christmas - both the religious and secular aspects of December 25th.  I wanted a calendar where each day we would be guided through the joy of the season without a lot of extra "stuff" - the holiday itself is filled with enough of that, thankyouverymuch". -  - Megan you said it better than me so I stole this from your awesome blog...(it makes me laugh because we were totally on the same page and never even discussed this)


So we decided to make ours ACTIVE.  So here is what I did.
To Eat - Candy


To Do - Something fun or weird each day like go play in the snow, go get an ice cream cone...etc


To Read - Its a puzzle with a scripture that is about Christmas.
This is where I got it this year HERE


The best part is that everyone gets to take one each day and be in charge of their particular "prize" 

We have started it and the kids are totally loving EVERY second of it. As we have more kids (one is coming in Feb!) I will make another one and make it Active too like To Serve or something like that. 


I am so excited about it and I really wanted to share this new tradition with you. I also wanted to show my sister these adorable calendars I have been killing myself over. LOL. They are laminated and magnetized and I love love love them. The best part is that they can change as the kids grow up, certain things like going to Grandma's to make cookies is specifically on the 13th and stuff like that but everything we have planned is mostly free! This is so perfect for our family!