COUNTDOWN TO CHRISTMAS WITH A FUN ADVENT CALENDAR

Season’s greetings! November 27th, the first Sunday of Advent is just a short 4 days away! If you’re like me and have some little ones in your life, why not help them countdown to Christmas with a fun Advent Calendar? Last year I sent my 2 grandbabies a hanging advent calendar. You can read more about it by clicking here.

My son hung it up across a window and everyday when he came home from work the kids got to open their little gift of the day. I loved doing it because it was a daily reminder that their Grandma, who lives 3,000 miles away, loves them and is thinking of them. Sometimes I got to watch them opening their bags via Facetime.

I thought I’d make this a tradition and send them an advent calendar every year. They are only 2 & 3 years old so it’s a great time to start a “Grandma Tradition” with them. I picked up a treasure trove of small trinkets at Target’s $1 Shop and at World Market. Both of these stores have lots and lots of wonderful small toys and inexpensive treats. Since there are 28 days in the Advent Calendar this year, I picked up 56 small items, 1 for each of my 2 grandchildren for 28 days. I packaged the 2 items together in 28 packages. You could just as easily start on December 1st and in this case you’d only need 24 items.

This year I was inspired to make a “Mini Mail” Advent Calendar. The inspiration came from a favorite website: Oh Happy Day. Each little present is designed to look like a tiny, vintage package sent from Santa Claus at the North Pole.

You’ll notice that the packages are embellished with miniature postage stamps and shipping labels designed by the very talented folks at Oh Happy Day. They even provide the free printable for the stamps, which I downloaded and then printed out on sheets of adhesive paper.

I wrapped my little gifts up in craft paper, tied them with bakers twine and added the cute little stickers and voila, a fun advent calendar was born.

The next challenge was determining a way to contain all the little gifts so that each day of advent my grandchildren could select a gift to open. When all the packages have been opened it will be Christmas Eve. I found the perfect vessel, this darling Special Delivery Santa Sack at Target. Honestly, what could be more perfect for my Mini Mail Advent Calendar than a Special Delivery bag from Santa??!!

I hope this has inspired you to make a Special Delivery, Mini Mail Advent Calendar for the special children in your life.

Clickable Resources: Mini Postage Stamps Printable, Target, World Market, Baker’s Twine, Special Delivery Santa Sack. By the way, at World Market use this link to get 10% off all toys until Friday, 11/25/16. The discount will be automatically applied at checkout.

So there you have it: COUNTDOWN TO CHRISTMAS WITH A FUN ADVENT CALENDAR

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All opinions expressed in this post are my own. Unless otherwise creditied all photos are the original property of Celia Becker @ www.AfterOrangeCounty.com and may not be reproduced without specific permission. This post contains affiliate links that help to make this blog possible.