If you haven't already bought an advent calendar in the shops, then please don't! There's still time to make something that builds on the excitement and leads us up to Christmas. I love an advent calendar; it marks the start of the festive season, it helps us measure the days and, most importantly, it gives us the opportunity to enjoy giving and seeing the excitement that brings. What I'm less keen on is rampant consumerism, so here's a few ways that you can make things personal without laying waste to precious resources...
The reusable calendar - I bought a lovely patchwork calendar a few years ago and now I love to pull it out of the decorations box, it feels part of the family and our traditions already. One of my very best friends has a beautiful array of 24 hand sewn stocking which hang from the beams of her house and I've seen dozens of other variations on Instagram, from branches with hanging packages to little handmade boxes - it's a great way to get your craft on before you get too jaded with the whole palaver.
For contents, I try to mix a few treats with more thoughtful, charitable delights. I snap up kids toys, books and trinkets from charity shops, knowing that consuming them does a power of good. With small people it's also a chance to help with learning - one year we bought a Lego number train, with bricks from 1 - 10. These bricks were then dotted around the calendar, encouraging our daughter with number recognition and ordering. In fact, Lego is also a real winner for older kids, who might be tiring of the whole thing. Split up across the month, who could resist the slow build? Same goes for a jigsaw puzzle.
I love to include activities as well as "things", so there's always recipes and ingredients to follow, craft projects to make and day trips to surprise them with - you can schedule them in a way that works for you; include an envelope that announces a winter picnic seaside on a Saturday and then, perhaps, wrap up a DVD and a packet of unpopped corn for a Sunday. This year Christmas Eve will be marked with a surprise invitation to the Panto for the whole family, which I hope will make it even more exciting.