Advent calendar 2015

Last year after advent was over I threw away our trusty(made by me) felt stocking garland advent calendar as it really had seen better days.

At the time I vowed I would not leave making a new one till the last minute.

And as I'm usually up till the wee hours of the morning of December the first stuffing chocolate coins and little slips of paper with activity suggestions in to the little stockings; I feel quite pleased with myself that I've got it all together with a couple of days to spare.

I've been making lists and notes for a couple of weeks of activities and items I need to buy .

Today I got a mini grocery delivery which also contained all the bits and bobs I'd need to put my plan in to action.

I'd already brought some lovely books from the book people.

So...firstly I wrote numbers 1- 25 on some wooden disks and glued them to dolly pegs using a glue gun. ( in hindsight although the dolly pegs look cute I would of been better of using normal pegs because the gaps between the prongs were too wide)

I then went about stuffing brown envelopes with various items.

Some days the children will discover a book to share; some days some decorations; some days some chocolate and other times they will find the envelope holds items they need to carry out a certain festive activity.

The activities are;
Baking cup cakes
Baking snowman biscuits
Baking gingerbread men
Making Xmas cards
Making edible Christmas trees
Snow spray
Painting wooden decorations
Hanging new ornaments on the tree
Enjoying hot chocolate with marshmallows

I'm hoping the children will all work together and have lots of fun.

I have also included a little note in each envelope.

I had intended on putting a beeswax candle in each envelope to be placed in our advent spiral but as I left it till the last moment to order them they are yet to arrive ....maybe I'm not that organised after all !!!

Roll on Tuesday; I'm really looking forward to the next few weeks.