I love coming up with new ideas for an Advent Calendar for Miss O. This is only my second year of doing it but next year I’ll get to make one for Little J as well! This year I decided to buy the traditional $2 cheapie chocolate calendar (in a Frozen theme of course) to go along with her super-special Advent Calendar full of BOOKS! 

I found a whimsical fuzzy Santa box that I fell in love with. Plus it was 40% off at Michaels. Bonus. I used to make a variety of paper products including embellished gift bags & mini cards, both of which I still have a massive stash of. Double bonus. All I needed were the books! Purchasing 24 new books can get pricey so I highly recommend checking out discount stores, dollar stores, and even raiding that stash of books in the basement that your kids have long forgotten about. I may or may not have pilfered some Christmas books from last year’s stash for this year’s Advent Calendar….

Making this Advent Calendar is quite simple. All you need is:

• 24 books (get some ideas from Holly’s excellent list)
• 24 gift bags
• a box to contain everything

I spruced it up a little by using some mini-cards and writing Dec (date) on each one and clipping to the bags with the clothespins I acquired for last year’s calendar. If you’re a tech-savvy family, you can always gift some ebooks as well. Or perhaps your house is overflowing with books so you’d rather use library books in your calendar. The books in our calendar this year are about 70% regular books and 30% Christmas-themed books. No matter what you decide, I bet your kids will adore reading a special new book every night before bed!