12 DAYS OF CHRISTMAS COUNTDOWN CALENDAR
Hello! Well, this year I must admit, I was a bit late getting an Advent Calendar ready for my grandchildren. That’s because we were off on our One Thousand Mile Thanksgiving Road Trip. I felt bad because I know my grandchildren look forward to the Advent Calendars I send them each year. One year I made them this Countdown to Christmas Advent Calendar…
and another year I made them this one.
In 2018, Advent started on December 2nd, and will end on December 24th, so I am clearly too late this year. As an alternative I came up with the idea of giving them a 12 Days of Christmas Countdown Calendar. I had seen an Advent Calendar using a pocket shoe organizer in the December 2018 edition of Martha Stewart Living. I thought I could modify it to become a 12 Days of Christmas Countdown Calendar instead. To get started I ordered a Pocket Shoe Organizer here. The organizer I ordered actually had 24 pockets so I simply cut off 12 of the pockets.
To add the numbers for the 12 day countdown I went to the Pinterest Pin Board I call “Printable, Fonts & Clip Art”. Oh, what would I do without Pinterest? It’s where I save so many great ideas that I gather from all around the internet. Sure enough, there I found a pin for a free downloadable printable for Striped Numbers from Jones Design Co. I printed the numbers out onto cream colored card stock paper and they fit perfectly over my shoe pouches. You will need to print 5 number 1s in order to make the numbers one, ten, eleven and twelve. You will also need to print 2 number 2s.
To attach the numbers to the pouches I used these cute miniature holiday wooden clips that I picked up at Marshalls. You can find similar ones here.
Then I went shopping for the little gifts I planned to add to the 12 pouches. I purchased a total of 24 items, as I’d need one gift for my granddaughter, and one for my grandson, for each of the 12 days. Their parents would agree that they get way too many sweets this time of year, so I tried to find small toys and trinkets, even tiny books, pens, writing pads, stickers, and some funny eyeglasses and straws. My grandkids also love olives, so I got a couple of packets of flavored olives as well. I picked these items up at World Market, Target and Trader Joes. Remember to keep the gifts small enough to fit in the shoe pockets.
Next I used brown craft wrapping paper to wrap up each item. I then tied each gift up in Jute Twine. I thought the craft paper and twine looked good with the tan colored shoe pockets. A knot of green ribbon indicates the gifts for my grandson, a bow of red and white bakers twine indicates the gifts intended for my granddaughter.
Two little gifts got tucked into each of the twelve pouches. My 12 Days of Christmas Countdown Calendar is now on its way to Washington, DC, where it will arrive just in time for my grandchildren to start counting down to Christmas starting on Friday, December 14th, 12 days before Christmas.
So there you have it: 12 DAYS OF CHRISTMAS COUNTDOWN CALENDAR
Merry Christmas!
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