Our Advent Tree/Calendar (first of my crafty posts)

As I said in my last post, James was given a book of Christmas crafts and I'm planning on doing one Christmas activity per week until we leave for VA.  This week we made an Advent calendar.  I didn't follow the book exactly, but pretty close.

What I used:

12" x 18" cardboard

4 pieces scrapbook paper (2 matching blue, one brown, one green)

20 small boxes (most advent calendars have 24 but we're leaving on the 20th)

wrapping paper

scissors, glue stick, marker, tape

How I made it: 

Glue the blue scrapbook paper onto the cardboard.  Cut out the tree and trunk and glue it on.  Wrap all the boxes in wrapping paper.  This took the longest time.  The book recommends matchboxes.  I didn't have enough of those so I used whatever small boxes I could find.  Matchboxes would have been easier because you can slide them open after wrapping them.  But they are also very short which limits what you can put in them.  I took them in another room to stuff and number them so that J wouldn't see what is in them.  I stuffed them with M&Ms and little nativity ornaments.  There is a special treat on his birthday and on the last day.  J helped me tape them to the tree.  Every day in December he'll get to find the right number and get a treat and put up an ornament.  The great part about having the mini nativity ornaments in there is that we can talk about  a different part of the Christmas story each day.