Advent Stuff

A few years ago, I decided my holiday season needed a little more focus on Christ and a little more buildup to Christmas day, so I put together an Advent. I've tweaked it a bit from the original draft; adding some scriptures from the Book of Mormon telling of Christ's birth along with those in the Bible. And in the last few years, this Advent has become one of our family Christmas traditions. I love it!

Last year, I decided that this Advent stuff seems to be a tradition that's sticking, so we ought to have some kind of sturdy and reusable calendar; something with pockets or doors from which we can pull the scriptures and songs each day which we could use, year after year (currently we're just reading from a Word table printed on a piece of paper). To make it a one-time purchase, it'd have to be something simple, timeless and sturdy.
So, I went questing.

sketched out, then inked over

Turns out, finding a simple, timeless, sturdy Advent calendar (that doesn't have Santa incorporated in the design or decorations somewhere), even looking on Etsy, is tough to find. I considered the type made of tins and magnets (like this), or ones made of fabric (like this), or ones made with boxes (like this), but none really seemed to be quite what I was looking for. In the end, I couldn't make a decision, so I decided to wait rather than get one I wouldn't really like; we have a lifetime of Christmases, after all.

So, this year (well, this past holiday season), I began my questing anew. Having had a year to consider my options and determine a little more specifically what I was looking for, I narrowed my search to wooden Advent calendars. Though a little challenging to find here in the States (uk.amazon had some gorgeous ones), I did stumble upon one that I absolutely loved. It was a little spendy, so I hemmed.. drooled a bit.. and hawed, but couldn't quite decide.
Then, Hubby got it for me as an early Christmas present and there was much joy.

just as awesome in person!

This box fits all the criteria: simple, timeless and sturdy. There are these little drawers for each day leading up to Christmas and it even came with a little Charlie Brown-esk tree. It's perfect!

Originally, the box came with a little ornament in each drawer, to be placed on the little tree each day. I think, with these ornaments, the look they were going for was "rustic"... but really, they are kind of grotesque; including, but limited to, decapitated snowmen in various hats and sparkly caterpillars all hung from wire hooks. We put it all together, over the course of December, just to see what it looked like all assembled, but the final verdict was: the ornaments had to go.

yeah... not so lovely.

I considered not keeping the tree either and just enjoying this sweet sweet wooden box and drawers, but then I came up with the idea to create my own, better looking, ornaments with the scriptures and songs for each day written on the back, and then we would be able to retire that Word printout. Win win!

muuuuuuch better.

And so it was. Next year our silly, little tree will look awesome!