First Advent Calendar

Okay, here's the thing: becoming the matriarch of the family has snuck up on me, and I haven't felt prepared.
"Oh! I need to make dinner every night for these children?"
"Oh! I need to get crafts together so that we have something to do?"
"Oh! I need establish Christmas traditions, already? They're only ages 1, 2, and 5."
Yeah, that's me... barely keeping up with it all. Sometimes I don't think Matt and I really thought through the conscience of getting married, and having kids. I think we just thought, "It'll be fun!"

So it's November 30th, getting late into the evening. I had looked up a few home-made Christmas advent calendars that day, but each took so much time and energy! I knew I needed to get a calendar up, so that Mr. I-Need-A-Plan-Isaac could have a solid understanding when Christmas was coming. WHAT TO DO?!?!

I had deduced that there were some basic components of a calendar: day numbers, treats, presentation. "Okay," I thought, "I could get some large tags and stencil each day's number on an individual tag." Good start. "Well, then I could hang them up by ornament hooks... but on what?" I remembered a snap shot of a Pottery Barn page, and which idea I had used before: sticks nailed on a wall. "Brilliant!! But what is going to be the treat?" Some sort of candy... I just needed to go to the store and look around. After looking through the whole candy isle, I decided on the small Hershey's holiday chocolate bars.

It all turned into a great success. The boys loved their "Christmas Treat" as a mid-morning snack. So I've decided that some sort of Christmas Advent calendar will be a tradition.

And the adhesive for the chocolates is wood glue! It was the only thing on hand. The chocolates came off great, but left a yellow glue stain. So I flipped the tag over, re-stenciled the number, then hung up.