When we were growing up, the Hann family had an Advent Calendar. I don’t remember if my mom did it every year or not, but a lot of years in my childhood.
The Advent Calendar was/is designed (mom, do you have a picture?) out of kind of a burlap fabric — if I’m remembering correctly. Baby Jesus was pictured at the top, made out of pieced fabric, as if he were lying in his manger. The burlap extends below him to make the manger. The burlap is also made into little pockets (i.e. hay in the manger). My mom thought enough to write our daily activities on pieces of (paper) grocery bag so it would all be the same color and actually look kind of neat.
Kevin and I took turns picking out the day’s note — each numbered for a day in December.
If something was already on the (regular) calendar for the day, it ended up in the Advent Calendar. Example: A Christmas musical at church or a holiday party. My mom usually spread throughout December big activities (decorate Christmas tree, drive around looking at house lights) with little activities (wrap a Christmas present, drink hot chocolate).
I definitely remember if being fun — always that anticipation that something really exciting could happen that day. I also remember our lives being so busy (especially by the time I was in high school) that there was no way we could have kept it up.
I’ll also never know how my mom thought of something different for every day.
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Wasn’t that fun! I liked it so much better than the traditional piece of candy every day. I still have it and will see if I can find it before we leave to take a picture. If I don’t, remind me when we get back and I’ll do that. It was fun to come up with different things and I think we did it every year when you guys were young. I think by the time you got to high school you thought it was kinda dorky, so we stopped. I would always check the list of Christmas specials on TV and fill in some days with those, then on the quieter days I’d just fill in with simple things that we could do anytime. I enjoyed it and hope you continue the tradition some day.