What is an advent calendar?

I have a confession to make, before two years ago I had never heard of an advent calendar.  The first one that caught my attention was on Ellen Hutson's Classroom blog. There was a post showing this beautiful creation by Sharon Harnist. Advent Calendar I really loved it but had no small children in the house. If I had just heard about it when my boy was younger....sigh So I passed that year but kept it in the back of my mind.

Fast forward to the next year. You've heard me talk about Journal Your Christmas before, well last year was my first attempt. One of the topics was...can you guess?...advent calendars! Thanks to Shimelle I realized I hadn't done my son a disservice by leaving these creations out of his Christmas memories. The paper chains we made to count down to when Santa came were a type of advent calendar. Ahhh, relief.

Finally this year I talked myself into at least buying the supplies to make one of my own. Like most of my craft projects I waited till the last minute to order the supplies so there is almost no way it will even be done before Christmas, but that's alright. I'll have plenty of time to create it and figure out how it works before the grandchildren arrive. Maybe by then it will be perfect and they can make wonderful Christmas memories with it.