Traditions - Advent Calendars

I can't even remember when we started using an Advent calendar with the kids. Most Advent calendars begin on December 1 (at least all of them we've had do) rather than the true beginning of Advent which moves around (datewise) every year. The first two years, we had one of those consumable paper Advent calendars. I know one was a Narnia calendar. I don't even remember the other one. By the 3rd Christmas season, I had purchased this non-consumable Nativity Advent Calendar. We've used it ever since. Usually, the three kids would take turns putting a figure on each day. This year we've let Carys do it all, since it's unbreakable, unlike most of the Christmas stuff!



She loves this calendar. We did have to move it from it's usual place hanging on the pantry doorknob, because Carys kept taking all the figures out of their little pockets, several times a day. The rest of us got tired of picking them up. The funny thing is that she was most attracted to the wise men's gifts and would carry them around with her!



Two years ago, we added another Advent calendar, a Lego Advent calendar. The boys loved it, and it is always the first of our family gifts on the 1st Sunday in Advent. Lego always sells two calendars, as I mentioned in a previous post, and this is the first year we purchased the girl's calendar from the Lego Bellville collection. Chase just LOVES it. We usually keep this on the table in our library, but Carys can climb on chairs now and was playing with (and losing) all the little pieces. Once we accounted for everything, we moved the calendar to the top of Chase's dresser.