Making an Advent Calendar

By Chris Kullstroem

Everybody loves a new craft to make during the Christmas season. It gives us something fun to do while listening to Christmas carols and watching our favorite Christmas specials on TV, not to mention we get a nice keepsake to put up each year. For your holiday craft this year, make an advent calendar for you and your family.

Your advent calendar can be as small or as big as you like. Use anything from colored construction paper to poster board from your local craft store. You can separate the calendar in a big picture for the top and the individual days below, like a regular calendar, or however you like.

For a picture on your advent calendar, you can draw a Christmas scene yourself, or for those of us who aren’t Michealangelos, cut out pictures from Christmas cards you send or receive, or use photos of your family.

For drawing out the individual days, draw a grid made up of the days leading up to Christmas, from December 1-24. Or if you prefer, draw boxes for the days and scatter them all around the pictures on your calendar, so that you’ll have to search for each one with each new day.

Inside the square for each day in December, you can place a different Christmas sticker, draw a small drawing, or write Christmas activities on each square, such as "Go look at Christmas lights" or "Bake Christmas cookies," etc. To cover each square, cut out squares of colored paper to glue or tape over each day. Number the squares 1-24.

To make your advent calendar even more festive, add Christmas stickers around the border, use ribbons, glitter, and Christmas cut-outs. If you have small children, have them trace their hands over the calendar and write their name inside.

If you like, make an additional advent calendar to give as a gift to your mom or grandmother. It’s a fun way to celebrate the holidays and a great craft for the whole family.

Best Advent Gift Ideas: