When I was growing up, my grandmother would always get us a chocolate advent calendar to count down to Christmas. While I still love chocolate, I went with this
advent calendar instead from
Garnet Hill:


Instead of chocolate or tiny gifts, I decided to have 25 days of doing Christmas-y things together as a family to celebrate all month long. I brainstormed holiday activities, added events from the community, and stole some ideas from
here. This morning I explained the advent calendar to Emma and she chose our first activity:


Stay tuned to follow our adventures.
PS. to our local friends: feel free to join us!