Every year when the kids were growing up we had an advent calendar and often we had more than one on the go at a time. The Playmobil advent calendar was popular for many years as were the chocolate ones, of course. However, when all your children are teenagers or young adults you have to do things a little different than when they were young. Malcolm is married and living away from home, but they are still poor students, and Kate is away (a looong way away) from home at University, and only William is at home. Even though they are growing up I still wanted to do give them each an advent calendar. The time just before Christmas is very stressful and tiring for students so they need all the care they can get.
Last year I used envelopes to wrap their presents in and packaged them all in a gift-wrapped box (which you can read about here), but I wanted to do something a bit different this year. I decided to make an Advent Blob! Do you remember when you played Pass-the-Parcel with your kiddos - well the Advent Blob is based on that concept.
Here is how I made it. I laid out all the presents and numbered them from 1 - 24.
Then we started wrapping the presents using crepe paper streamers leftover from when the kids were young and we had birthday parties (sniff sniff). Fortunately, Christie's sister was visiting for the weekend and she helped me with the rolling as this project is much easier with two sets of hands. Just be sure and start with 24 and work backwards as the last present to be opened is the one at the centre of the blob.
We used a new colour of streamer after every present.
The blob gradually grew as we added presents and layers of streamers.
Thanks for your help Valerie.
When we had added the last present (or is that the first since it is #1 ???) we completely covered the blob in several wraps of teal streamers to make it look rounder and well - more blob-like. Then we tied some white wool around it for a fancy touch.
William went down to visit Kate over Thanksgiving weekend and took hers to her. All her friends thought she should open it right away, but she (being the good girl that she is) said that she was going to wait so she could enjoy it in December. She did marvel at how lovely her Advent Blob looks on her bookshelf. It's not everyone who has one of these in their dorm room waiting to be opened.
Anyone else make advent calendars?
Linked to Thrifty Thursdays at Inspired by Charm,
Show and Share at Just a Girl,
Wow Us Wednesday at Savvy Southern Style
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