Every year I spend way too much money on cardboard Advent calendars for the kids that are then thrown away at the end of the holiday season. And sometimes, like last year, I have a hard time even finding the disposable calendars, so I spend tons o’ time trying to track them down. But each of my children – from toddler to high school senior – love opening their Advent calendars each morning during the month of December, so it’s not a tradition I would ever think of ending. I had an Advent calendar as a child, and I’ll be darned if my kids won’t also have them.
Sometime over the last year, I ran across a wooden Advent calendar over on Pinterest, and I was like, VOILA!” No more throwaways each season!
I then spent six months trying to find wooden Advent calendars I liked but that weren’t so expensive that I wouldn’t also be able afford to buy Christmas gifts this year. Accomplishing this task ended up being trickier than one might imagine. However, I am happy to report my ADventual success (heh).
Here are the calendars I got for the kids, now filled with goodies to count down each day of the Advent season.
Buying all 4 at once was a little spendy, but if you consider that I typically spend $7-$15 each holiday for the throwaway version, this investment made sense.
And they’re so cute! I’m impressed with how substantial and well-made they are, and they came assembled and ready to fill up with treats. And speaking of treats, I like that I can add different goodies each day, including little ornaments, notes, chocolates, coins, etc. With the cardboard Advent calendars I’ve always gotten for the kids previously, they were already pre-filled with a single kind of sweet, usually chocolate. These new wooden calendars will be as much fun for me to stock as for the children to open.
Because I got four identical calendars, each child has his or her name written just inside the very top door of one of the four so we will know which one belongs to which offspring. (Thanks to my niece El for that most excellent idea.)
The plan is that as each of the children grows up, and eventually has his or her own home and family, their wooden Advent calendars will join them, and maybe even become a holiday heirloom that they then pass on to their own children and grandchildren.
If you celebrate Christmas, do you do an Advent calendar for your child(ren) each year? What kind? I’d love to heat about other families’ Advent traditions.
We do a simliar thing with an advent calendar from the same store, from a few years back. I saw these and thought they were really cute. After four years, our doors a little wiggly so I hope yours holds up for the long run! We have one for all three kids and the Elf on the Shelf brings three M&Ms each night in each box, and then our three girls replace them with a bean to mark the days that have gone by. It’s kind of the reverse of and Advent calendar. But with toddlers who don’t understand to ration each day when it is all sitting right in front of them, we’ve learned asking them not to touch the other boxes in waiting is too much temptation for them to resist.
we don’t really celebrate christmas, about 10 years ago we switched stockings and present giving to the winter solstice instead. But before that we already had a fabric advent calendar that my MIL had given my boys. There are no treats involved, it just has 24 little pockets and a little mouse (mouse head and sort of bookmark looking body) that moves from pocket to pocket. We still put it out every year, it has had the hanging cord replaced and is a little worn but my almost 16 year old daughter is enjoying and even my grown up boys love it and it is a reminder of my MIL who has been gone for quite a few years now.
I too, have a soft spot for advent calendars. I have a similar calendar but it’s shaped like a house…the kids do love it and have gotten up way too early this weekend in anticipation of what they’ll find (peppermint patties so far)!!!
But….my mother also gets the grandkids an advent calendar each year and this year she found this: http://www.jacquielawson.com/advent/london. The kids LOVE IT!!!! It’s beautiful, interactive, thoughtful and engaging. Definitely a lovely replacement for the cardboard variety.
Enjoy the season!
Ooh! I love the digital Advent calendar. I’d never seen that kind before . That seems like one that ‘Tweens would especially like.
We have cardboard ones every year, where you open the doors and there aren’t treats, our family buys ones that have pictures inside, hopefully relating to christmas.. But sometimes not. While in primary school, in the infants we had a fabric one where each day someone would get up and there would be pockets holding little characters and every day we would Velcro one to the right patch on the the image above, so by the end of term we’d fill the last few up and we’d have the nativity scene
I too have a soft spot for advent calendars. Ours is nativity themed and I put a verse of the Christmas story in each box. My son (only child) is 19 now and I struggle with what other trinkets to put in the box besides candy. Any ideas? I too hope he will take his calendar and continue the tradition when he has his own family.
We have a reusable paper advent calendar from IKEA that’s got little boxes, and we bought a stack of little toys (for our 4 year old) and put them in a gift bag. Some of the little boxes have just candy, some have a little note saying “draw a gift” and some have both. Perhaps that’s a way around trinkets to something like small amount gift cards or handy dandy items for life on his own (like a whisk or a cheese slicer or a laundry bag).
Just needed to check the notification box.
We have a string of 25 miniature mittens that we hang over the fireplace and fill with treats for all three kids.
We do the disposables, which I prefer to get from someone selling (as I did) for German Club. They do have them at Trader Joe’s for a buck. We also picked up a nice one with little cardboard boxes/drawers that can contain a treat per day. This year we decided to fill each box with the name of a person we haven’t been in touch with recently and then each day we call or email just to say hello.
GAh! I love those! I grew up with the cardboard/cardstock ones with the pictures behind the doors but also wanted something we could break out year after year. I actually found a wooden one on Zuliliy and snagged it for $25.00 plus shipping (it was usually almost $60) but I am not impressed with the quality. At all. *sad face* Your Target find looks way sturdier! Hopefully they will have them when my 3 year old drops this one and the top breaks off, lol.
The year my son was born I got an Advent calendar from a catalog (I think Signal). It’s folk art — a magnetic board with the stable painted on it. Every day a piece is added (so far the star and two angels) until Christmas morning, when we put the baby Jesus in the manger. I have never seen it in a catalog since then, and I’ve looked. It’s fabulous, and my now 11-year-old boy loves it now just as much as he did as a toddler. I hope someday he will be using it with his own little ones.
They’re wonderful!
Where’d you buy these?
@Kerri -
I ordered them from Target.com. The link is in my blog post but you could also probably just google “Target wooden advent calendar” to find them.
-Katie
We have had boxes for years. When the kids became older teens and it was difficult to find trinkets that they could use I started putting a miniature ornament in each day. Each kid has a tiny (maybe 1.5′) faux tree and there’s a new tiny ornament to add to it each day. They love this. Sent one to daughter at college this year! For college, I got a garland of felt stockings/mittens and included command hooks so she could hang it on the wall and not have the bulky box there.
I get one at trader joes each year for $1 and recycle the cardboard!
@Trisha -
We just recently got Trader Joe’s here in Knoxville. I’m already completely besotted with the place.
Katie
You could get one more for Henry. Before the first you could all write your favorite memories on different pieces of paper, and the get some of his favorite candies. Filling the boxes with his candies and memories could be a fun way to him maybe?
@Kate – This is such an amazing, beautiful idea. Thank you!
Katie
I absolutely have been doing the advent calendar for the past 8 years and also splurged this year on a fabric one that I had to fill with decorations and small toys! It all started with a Playmobil one that I would re-use every year, my collection and family grew with the years and then Playmobil stopped making the calendars you could re-use (with hours of work). We still can play with the toys though. I used to make a free avent calendar for my mom’s kindergarten, just cutting out pictures and covering them, so I don’t really know why I don’t limit myself more.
I absolutely have been doing the advent calendar for the past 8 years and also splurged this year on a fabric one that I had to fill with decorations and small toys! It all started with a Playmobil one that I would re-use every year, my collection and family grew with the years and then Playmobil stopped making the calendars you could re-use (with hours of work). We still can play with the toys though. I used to make a free avent calendar for my mom’s kindergarten, just cutting out pictures and covering them, so I don’t really know why I don’t limit myself more.
We grew up using cardboard advent calendars that involved just pictures, and I have to admit I am mystified and put off by the ones that involve candies or trinkets … our household has enough of those things in our lives (especially in the holiday season!) without needing to find a way to welcome more. I found an inexpensive calendar of the sort I remembered using as a child and we used it two years ago, neglected it (misplaced it!) last year, and then I thought I’d cleverly set it aside for this year. But now I can’t find it — annoying, but DS is eagerly counting the days with no need of a calendar to remind him, so I suppose we’ll probably just muddle through this season and I’ll either track one down (with more lead time) for next year, or (perhaps still) find the existing one, to re-use. He’s young enough, and enough time has gone by, he won’t remember it, so re-use is no problem if I can find it!
They are beautiful, we get the cardboard ones from Fresh Market, but should invest in something more permanent they can take along with them some day! Enjoyed the tree decorating pictures…we had a set of naked buns decorating our tree too! Why not? Merry Christmas!
Cute! Have you considered letting the kids decorate their calendars with a few stickers on the doors or something? Maybe you’d prefer them to stay ‘as is’ for heirloom purposes, and I wouldn’t go wild with paints or anything either. But a few glittering snowflakes or whatever each kid likes could be a nice way to add a personal touch to the otherwise identical trees.
We have 5. Each kid has a disposable one with candy thayt my inlaws got through a fundraiser. We have a cloth one with pouches that my husband used as a child, and his dad before him. We have a stocking that has one on it, with a magnet piece that goes in each pouch and makes Tigger talk. Like “whoohooo. Its december two. Its a great day for bouncing.” And we have a large one that is a tree that has magnets on the back. It has sticky numbered bulbs that go on the tree each day. The 25th is the star. My kids get to do each one after dinner nightly and remind us if we forget (3 & almost 2).
We buy a cardboard Advent calendar at the local religious store; however, a few years ago a wonderful friend showed us how to make our own personalized Advent calendars, and we’ve done that ever since. It’s a white piece of paper taped/glued behind a colored sheet of construction paper with little doors cut into it. We hold the doors closed with Christmas stickers. On each day we write something we want to do together to celebrate the Christmas season. Examples include caroling, buying gifts for foster chidren, reading The Polar Express, seeing A Christmas Carol, seeing The Nutcracker, rehearsing for the Christmas pageant, baking cookies with friends, delivering cookies, sending cards, buying gifts for the kids’ teachers, adding a toy to the Toys for Tots bin, calling far away family, and so forth. When our friend showed us how to do this, I had one of those “why didn’t I think of this sooner?” moments.