A surprise a day keeps the blues away

We have a very cute Mickey Mouse Advent calendar that my mom bought the kids years ago. Every Christmas we pull it out and they are always excited to greet each day with putting up another ornament on the Mickey Mouse tree. It makes me so happy to see how happy they are each morning.

Well, this year, I saw so many cute advent calendar ideas out in blogosphere that I had to try one of them. And I'm so glad I did! Our newest, homemade surprise envelopes advent is a hit with my munchkins. The original idea can be found on Design Sponge. I love the simplicity.

Unfortunately, I didn't have any white open end envelopes and for some strange reason my printer printed the numbers brown instead of red. So, we adjusted just a wee bit. I did have some beige open end envelopes and they went quite lovely with the brown print. I also ended up using natural twine instead of the bakers twine. In the end, I really like the way it turned out and it's been fun to see the kids' faces light up each morning. Here is our didn't-have-all-the-materials-so-I-used-what-we-had-on-hand version:



I did buy some small wooden ornaments to put in the envelopes so they could decorate their "small" tree. I also put other fun "surprises" like:

candy
holiday jokes
coupon for night of christmas cookie baking
invitation for a moonlit night walk (flashlights okay too)
christmas music dance-a-thon
make a twig star night
... and other fun goodies.

It's not too late to make your own advent calendar if you don't have one or want to update your old one. Happy Holidays!