Advent Calendar: A New Take on an Old Tradition

Advent Calendars have such a history and are a tradition in so many homes. For a while I've been looking for Advent Calendars that can hold items, that don't have a cheesy design, that can be reused, and the spot that can hold items isn't super small where only a piece of nickel candy can fit inside. 

Decided to go with the Grundtal "spice jars" from IKEA. I picked up enough to for 25 days, but a couple extra in case one goes missing or breaks. I think I picked up about nine or ten packages, so the initial cost was between $70-$80, more than I was planning on, but I am hoping to use this system for many many years!

When opened, I pulled out the paper that was inside the lid (that has the lovely food pictures on them) and I used it as my template and traced 25 circles onto cranberry cardstock and paper (of course left over from our wedding. Will we ever use up all the wedding paper goods?!).

Coming up with what picture or design went on the cardstock was a little challenging. I didn't want something that was "too adult" or was pretty just for me, but something that my son would like or would be interested in. At Fred Meyer, I found a bunch of gift tag stickers in a variety of pictures and styles that I thought would be perfect. Since he knows a lot of his animals, I picked up kitties and puppies. He also knows what snowmen/snow/snowflakes are, so picked up ones that had a lot of images of snow "things" too.

Then, I got to assembling each date, writing the numbers really large and tried to find a good place for all the stickers. Some stickers had to be cut, or used in a funny spot, but I tried to used most of the images so I didn't have a lot of repeaters.

I had enough canisters to make a complete tree and hang low on our fridge, so it is right at eye level for him. He LOVES opening and closing the canisters. Really he could care less about the prize inside at this point, but everyday I find him playing with them. I am pretty happy with the entire project and I love that it is something I don't have to find a spot for on a self or table.

My thought is, I can change the images as he gets older and even start to print some of my favorite Christmas pictures from over the years to put inside too. I also like that the space is large enough for other treats other than candy. Since my son is just about 17 months, this year's goodies were those sticky window decals, really tiny jars of Play-Do, and little monsters that squish when you squeeze them.