Christmas Countdown

After spending a lot of time on Pinterest, my friend Danielle and I decided to create our own Christmas Countdown boards. After some planning and material gathering we sat down one afternoon to do what my daughter deemed: craft chat. This project turned out adorable-I wish you could see Danielle's because she used the cutest paper that looks really cool and retro!! The pockets are filled with tickets (that she made on her cricket cutter-did I spell that right?) that have advent activities that are to be done as a family. Some examples of what our family will be doing this year are things like: Elfie's arrival (our Elf on the Shelf) breakfast, enjoy a new holiday journal, pizza in front of the Christmas tree, make s'mores in the fireplace, send a Christmas card to someone you love, complete a random act of kindness for a neighbor, take a late night walk, and several other cool ideas. If you are interested in the makings of the board, it was relatively easy. Here is how we did it:

Materials:
Foam board
25 pockets (ours came the stamping aisle)
wrapping paper (used to cover the board)
various paper and stickers
round punch
number stamps
tickets to write activities on

Here is my "Santa" pocket for Christmas day. You can see the black polka dot wrapping paper that I used to back my board. Then I covered the pocket with paper and added embellishments. The ticket is just tucked in to the pocket.

Another close up of pocket number 10

I have to say that the kids love the board so far!! In the past we have done a different Advent calendar which included a lot of candy. While they have asked about the candy, they have really enjoyed taking turns pulling out the tickets to see what they get to do each day. It has been fun starting a new tradition this year!!