Custom Advent Calendars | Family Economics

By Cathe Holden

The first day of December every year in our home marks the beginning of our children’s countdown to Christmas. For as long as they can remember, there’s been an advent calendar of small gifts to help them track the days.

Our past calendar is a display of small, mismatched bags sewn with scrap fabric of different patterns and styles, stuffed with goodies, tied closed with various styles of ribbon and hung from the clips of a vintage potato chip bag counter display. Each gift bag is numbered by an old bingo game piece attached to a hangtag.

With the bags numbered 1 through 24 and arranged completely out of order, my three children take turns daily scouring the display for the number of the day’s bag to open and share the gifts. There’s no number 25 on our old display as that is the day they celebrate Christmas by opening their presents under the tree.

There are as many ways to create and display advent calendars, as there are things to put in them. You may choose to have one gift per day to open or as many gifts as you have children. Some creative advent calendar ideas include numbered gift bags hung around the Christmas tree or small numbered boxes arranged throughout the bookcase. A fabric panel of sewn-on and numbered pockets can hang on the wall or from a door.

There are unlimited handmade ideas that can be found with a simple internet search.

You can also create an advent calendar of paper gifts by tucking notes, sentiments, jokes, coupons, or clues into the calendar. Clue advent calendars are fun when the gifts are larger and can be hidden throughout the home. Keep track of the items and clues on a separate paper for referring to so you can hide gifts throughout the month instead of all at once and risk them being found too early. For a fun clue advent calendar, you can make a simple swag of small numbered coin envelopes hung from ribbon with decorative clips or clothespins. 

Repurpose last year’s holiday cards by taping or sewing decorative sections of greeting cards into pockets in lieu of envelopes, and numbering the clips.

For our family’s advent calendar this year I wrapped vintage wooden spools with paper clues. You can find the tutorial and printable numbers for making your own on my blog, justsomethingimade.com.