When I was a little girl, one of the things my brother and I looked forward to the most at Christmas was the Advent Calendar. Each of us got our own paper calender, with the little  tab windows we pried open every morning on the countdown to Christmas.  As we got older, we had the special ones with chocolates behind each window – a big treat for us, raised to think raisins were candy until we were old enough to know better.

So this year, with our two oldest boys now almost 5 and almost 3, we started an Advent calendar. My mom, aka Nana, bought it for us and the boys take turns each alternating day, opening a window. My oldest searches to find the right date (great for number recognition and counting), and they open the little window to see the illustrations (wreathes, candles, Christmas trees etc.) No chocolates for my kids either (funny how we end up like our mothers), but this year we are trying a new addition and I’m hoping it will become an annual tradition for us.

Every day, as we open the calendar, we do a Christmas activity to help us get in the spirit. One day we sang Rudolph, the next we made paper snowflakes, one morning we chose two of my kids’ toys to give to charity. Today we wrote letters to Santa and one morning we made hot chocolate, a big treat in our home. I’ve made a list of activities (ranging from as simple as singing a carol to as involved as putting up the tree).  The kids are having a blast and are so excited each morning. I feel proud that we are doing something creative and Christmassy and hope that one day my kids will look back and remember these special times together.

And I must confess, this was not my brilliant idea. Oh how I love the Interent and Twitter and blogs – I find great parenting inspiration from other mothers online. I  saw a blog post on Canadian blogger bitofmomsense’s site. Turns out she found it at missfish in Ottawa. Then coolchillmom saw my tweet about it and so on. We are all attempting different versions of the same lovely idea. A quick Google search  on 25 Days of Christmas will reveal all kinds of sites and tips for creating your own reusable Advent calendars and coming up with wonderful activities for your family to count down the days.

As a bit of a busy slacker mom (got a baby, two preschoolers, a household and an online store to run), I’m taking a pretty simple approach with a storebought calendar and some simple, yet fun activities. But you can sew or create your own calendar, and lots of moms are journalling about each day’s event, or taking photos etc. There is even a Flicker page called Family Activity Advent Calendar.

Whatever you do, the important thing is spending some time with your kids and doing something special to gear up for the holidays. For us, it is really the first holiday tradition our young nuclear family can call our very own (not from my husband’s childhood and not from mine). I’m hoping our kids will one day carry it on.