Our Advent Tree

As far as advent calendars go, this one has been our best by far.  We usually try to change it up every year.  Some years I just buy one from the store or some years I make a small one.  This year Hope keeps saying, "This is our best advent calendar EVER!!"  I have to agree.  Being that it was part of my job this year, I was able to plan out all of the prizes and activities in advance instead of rushing to get things together at the last minute. 

Hope wakes up before anyone else every morning to grab her prize from the tree.  I wanted to do a small one alongside it for Poe, but quickly realized that she's still too small to really understand what's going on.  That's okay by me... doing two advent calendars did seem a bit overwhelming.

There have been a lot of prizes.  Activities are fun and important, but I didn't want to take away the joy of opening tiny prizes or treats.  If you are curious, you can see a good deal of our prizes in the original post for the tree.  As for activities, we've been to the Bass Pro Winter Wonderland, had a frozen yogurt date, baked cookies, and are about to have a hot chocolate/Christmas movie night.  The best part about the activity cards for me is that there is no excuse.  I absolutely cannot get "too busy" because the dates are written out and there's no fudging it. 

I think this might be the tree that makes memories for a lot of years.  This has been a special first holiday season in our new town.  So far, so good.  ;)