Every December, I get out this very cute Christmas tree wall hanging with the days of the month magnets and my kids fight take turns placing the days on the tree as a countdown to Christmas. Each day is a different shape - candy canes, presents, elves, etc. In addition to this, we've always celebrated with an advent wreath we light each week to represent the season. This year, I had to come up with something different.
To make a very long, boring, almost painful story short - I decided to decorate our home without using red in any of my decorations (both inside and out). Instead, I decided to go with golds, whites, chocolate and a fern green. It really does look beautiful. BUT, I had no idea how much this "on the fly" decision would impact my decor. Lots of things you don't think about - including our Christmas tree countdown (it had tons of bright, reds and greens) and our Christmas stockings (which is a totally separate post!)
Well, I did a little brainstorming and decide to combine the countdown with an Advent concept.
There is one for each day of the month, and inside there is a Bible verse for the day and a trivia thought related to Christmas - history of the Christmas tree, several Christmas carols, even Norman Rockwell and how he got his start. Yesterday, the trivia note was about cultures who celebrate by drinking Wassail. We even made a recipe of it to try! Very fun.
I relied very heavily on this amazing Advent Calendar from the Teaching Mom to create ours. I just tweaked the days of the activities based on our schedule.
Then, I spruce up a basket (it's actually my Easter basket when I was a kid) with some greenery and a gold organza bow. It's been very fun and a great way to remember why we celebrate Christmas. I hope you are taking time out to enjoy the season. M.
