A Christmas Countdown

Caedmon asks every day if it’s Christmas yet. And if he can open his presents that currently reside under the tree. He picked one up the other day (completely disregarding the “no touching” rule), shook it and declared, “Hey, there’s a DVD in here!” It seems he has his Daddy’s talent of guessing gifts. Great.

So to have a visual way for him to know how long we have until he actually gets to open that DVD, I thought it would be fun to make a countdown to Christmas.

I know a lot of people do Advent calendars, and while there’s nothing wrong with that, I just didn’t quite want to go that full-blown with it. And I didn’t want to put a lot of time and effort into a calendar that would end up in storage 11 months of the year. I searched Pinterest and finally found something I thought I could handle.

The above photo is from limegreenbogiegirl.blogspot.com. And here’s a link to her original instructions and free printable. I, however, did not make the wreath shown above. Because I am a rebel.

I thought it was adorable. And a great idea. But when it came right down to it, I thought a different method might work better for us. At least this year. I take comfort in knowing that I can change it next year with little effort or expense.

So here’s what I did.

I dug out my craft glue that busted open as soon as I squeezed it. It’s amazing it didn’t pop open in my craft tub during the move and get glue all over everything. Small miracles.

I grabbed my helper and we armed ourselves with toothpicks (to spread the glue, of course).

And we glued the printed (and cut out) numbers from Kirsty’s free printable to some clothespins.

While I waited for those to dry, I found a thin frame and printed “Countdown to Christmas” to fit inside. Then, we attached the clothespins to the frame.

The 4x6 frame I had is a tad small, so a 5x7 would be perfect. I just didn’t have one thin enough for the clothespins to fit on.

Now we have our own simple countdown to Christmas. Caedmon is excited about it. He knows that every pin we take off is one day closer to Christmas and opening the presents under the tree. If he doesn’t figure out what they all are before then.