Countdown To Christmas!

It’s finally time to start the countdown to Christmas – time has flown by so fast! Why not mark the beginning of the season by creating your own festive and unique Advent Calendar? Children love the warmth and comfort of family rituals, so get them involved in the decorating task of making one. A fun, creative and easy idea for a DIY calendar is a matchbox Advent tree.  

What you need to make your Advent matchbox tree:

• 24 matchboxes
• scraps of fabric, wrapping paper, tissue paper or acrylic paint
• buttons, string, ribbons, glitter
• felt tipped pens, a number stencil or number stickers or number stamps
• glue

7 Simple steps to constructing your Advent matchbox tree:

1) Remove the matches and arrange the boxes in five rows so that there are ten on the bottom row, seven on the next, four on top of that, then a row of two, with just one on the top.

2) Stick the boxes together in their rows using glue

3) Cover the exterior of each row with pretty festive paper or simply paint and decorate

4) Next, stick the rows together using glue

5) Use stamps, a stencil or stickers to print the numbers from 1 to 24 on the boxes.

6) Top with a paper star

7) Fill with a range of tiny gifts.

 Ideas for what you can put in your Advent matchbox tree:

• Sweets, homemade biscuits, chocolates
• Tickets to the local pantomime
• Christmas tree decorations
• Charms
• Small toys like marbles, mini cars, mini lego figures
• Stickers
• Coins
• Balloons

Make this a holiday to remember! Happy DIY!