About what an advent calendar is and why you should start one - Irina Yakusheva.

...And again, Lent, no matter how much you read or think about it, passes in the work and pre-holiday bustle. Our children go to kindergartens and schools, and in the evenings we rarely sit with them in the mysterious light of candles, reading good stories. The end of the semester, we are preparing for tests and New Year's performances. I wish I had time to clean up, but still buy some gifts. “How to fast with a child? You can't have a TV, but can you give sweet gifts? But three more Christmas trees until January 7th - is this normal?

I just want to fill the remaining time with something, to celebrate the joy of the approaching Christmas a little every day. And the New Year - whatever one may say, it is the first. And something simpler, but so that there is joy, and a surprise, and a reminder. After all, these are our ordinary children, who are becoming more and more difficult to surprise every year: pink ponies, princesses, fashionable construction sets and harsh transformers are piled on the shelves - they are still waiting for something...

The European tradition of the Advent calendar presupposes such tender care for every day of the child remaining until Christmas. Calendars are sold - these are cardboard boxes with chocolate for every day, or wooden houses with drawers where you can put any surprises yourself. But very often parents make such calendars themselves, and this is the same warm, sincere work, that genuine attention that our relatives so lack in the pre-holiday bustle.

Waiting calendar made easy

My first calendar for my three-year-old daughter consisted of bags of sweets suspended on a string: I wrapped the treats in colored paper that I found at home. Colored napkins and leftovers were used wrapping paper, foil. For variety, I glued together several boxes of colored cardboard. The sweets were simple: cookies, marmalade, tangerines. Despite its simplicity, the calendar created a sensation - all that remained was to remind the baby that the next day when she could cut off the bag had not yet arrived.

And how many other simple things can be used to create an original calendar: disposable cups, jars, envelopes. I've seen the idea of ​​a calendar on a tray - if you have absolutely nowhere to hang something - paper cones, painted to look like Christmas trees, and there’s a surprise underneath!

Advent calendar decorates the home

It can be considered the first festive garland. Bright, elegant, colorful. Brilliant, original, unlike any other decoration. Already on December 1, the holiday will begin to look into your home. The child will drag the visiting grandmother to this thing, and you will smile modestly: well, yes, we’ll spoil it a little, whatever. And to the question of friends: “Oh, what is this?” - you can happily answer: “Yes, we are preparing slowly.”

Last year I made little mittens and boots from colored fleece. It took me one evening, but now, I think, for several years (until I get tired of it), I will only buy sweets. However, homemade things have one mysterious property - for some reason you like them more over the years. That year I was in a hurry and thought about somehow improving our calendar later, but this year I didn’t even want to redo anything.

Calendar organizes

The room where you place your future calendar will quickly be put in order. Honestly, honestly, you will simply have nowhere to go. Well, even if not right away, you will still want to do it in the near future. By the way, this year, at the same time as the calendar, I somehow unexpectedly got new red curtains, and a cute tablecloth with snowmen was immediately taken out - all this pleases the eye and creates pre-New Year comfort.

Besides, the calendar is just that - a calendar. The bag disappears - the day ends. It’s good if this helps you and your child discover in time that there are 10 days left before the holidays! The child chews sweets and asks every day when to decorate the Christmas tree? In general, with some important things you will not be able to wait until the last minute.

Where would we be without development?

So we got to it. If you want your calendar to not only pamper, but also develop - please!

You can number the calendar, or you can simply count the surprises. How much was removed, how much was left. If the child is small, you can teach colors and numbers, write the days of the week and short poems about New Year and winter, and provide schoolchildren with not only sweets, but also useful things. Winter proverbs and sayings, folk wisdom, interesting quotes. Things to do for the day are not lessons, of course, but reminders of preparation for the holidays. Send a postcard to grandma. Complete the role for the play. Prepare holiday surprises for friends.

The advent calendar is a simple and kind gift. It develops not only children, but also the whole family - emotionally. It will be great if older children eventually begin to participate in creating a calendar for the little ones. And I know one family where mom and children make another calendar - for... dad! And he rejoices like a child, receiving a little surprise every morning.

What if we don’t have time?..

We still have time. The calendar can be made three, two or even one week before the celebration. For the New Year or for Christmas. To do this, use the most simple materials: paper, paper clips, ribbons, napkins, glitter, chocolate egg jars, matchboxes. You don't have to make 31 or 25 surprises. Let even the “week” be pre-holiday and filled with new meaning.

At the same time, you can think now - what would you like for next year? Maybe something more complex and interesting will turn out. A cozy wall panel with pockets, a cardboard snow-covered house with drawers, and as surprises - not only sweets, but also interesting tasks for every day.

I will be glad if a holiday, a good tradition and good guests come to your home with the new advent calendar. After all, adventus is the “arrival”. A few days before the main Birth - it’s so simple, clear and close. So let's make them childishly memorable and important!

In a few weeks, the most wonderful period of the Nativity Fast, called “Advent,” will begin. By this period people begin to invent original congratulations and surprises for each other, and special ones are prepared for children DIY advent calendars.

Before we tell you how to make such items , We would like to say a few words about where the tradition of using them came from on the eve of magical holidays, loved by all children and adults.

First advent calendar appeared at the end of the 19th century. The mother of the famous German designer Gerhard Lang made a calendar of 24 cards for her son for Christmas. Every day before the holiday arrived, she attached sweets to these cards and wrote wishes so that her son would believe in miracles and be in a joyful mood. When Gerhard grew up and got a job in a printing house, he decided to create a brand from his mother’s annual congratulations, which very quickly and widely spread not only throughout Germany, but also in other Catholic countries.

Since in our country we most expect and prepare for the New Year, the Advent calendar is not relevant for us. Instead, we can produce new year calendars, consisting not of 24 pockets with surprises, but 31. With its help, your child will keep a cheerful and festive countdown to the New Year, finding small gifts, wishes or tasks in the pockets of the calendar every day. Just imagine what a fabulous mood he will be in before Santa Claus comes to visit!

There are a lot of ideas for creating advent calendars! We will tell you about some of them. We just want to note that if your child is less than one year old, then it is better to make him a calendar of several pockets - 10, for example, because he will not yet be able to fully experience the meaning of New Year's surprises.

DIY Advent Calendar Options

You can make pockets with surprises for your family and friends from anything, in any form. There are a few original ways, which will be useful even for the busiest and business women. With their help, you can quickly and beautifully make an advent calendar for Christmas or New Year. Here it all depends on which holiday your family honors and looks forward to most.

Option #1: Matchbox Advent Calendar

Ordinary matchboxes can be pasted over using decorative paper or decorate them using the technique. The main element of the decor is the presence of a number indicating the day of the month before the New Year or Christmas. You can hide a small gift or wish in each of the boxes. Now all that’s left to do is arrange the matchboxes in the form of an advent calendar:

Option #2: Advent calendar made from paper boxes and envelopes

Make boxes of any size and format from thick cardboard. We have attached several examples in this article:

Paint them in different colors to make your future advent calendar look bright. Don't forget about the numbers, they can also be cut out from original paper or fabric. Ready-made boxes or envelopes can be hung on ordinary linen thread with the simplest wooden clothespins near the fireplace or wall in the living room.

An alternative way to make an advent calendar this way is to fold the boxes into a cut-up cake shape. Each piece contains a gift and a wish for your baby or husband.

By the way, boxes can also be glued to whatman paper. Only here you need to think about how they should open and what will be stored in them, so that the child can immediately guess how to get the desired gift.

Option #3: Fabric Advent Calendar

The best option for needlewomen who know how to knit, sew and embroider. You can make lots of colorful knitted socks and mittens, attach numbers and other decorations to them, attach each item to a rope and hang an Advent garland from the fireplace, for example.

There is an easier way - cut out a Christmas tree from felt, to which you need to sew pockets in the form of New Year's toys, which will become a place for gifts. This advent calendar will look good in a child's room. Instead of a Christmas tree, there can be a snowman, a snowflake, or any fairy tale or cartoon character that your child loves. Everything will depend on your imagination.

How to fill the pockets of an advent calendar?

Perhaps, appearance Advent calendar is not the most important thing for a child. Still, he will show more interest in its contents. What can you fill your pockets with? In this article, we have compiled a small list of tasks for the baby and gifts for the husband and other family members. You can show your imagination and come up with your own ideas for congratulations.

Advent Calendar Activities

1. Write a holiday letter with wishes for Santa Claus;
2. Prepare your own New Year's gifts for your loved ones;
3. Decorate your room New Year's decor, made independently;
4. Decorate the Christmas tree;
5. Learn New Year's poem or a song for a morning party;
6. Build a snowman with your dad or brother;
7. Clean your room;
8. Do ;
9. Come up with new Year costume and make it with your mother or grandmother;
10. Read a new fairy tale and tell it to your parents.

Instead of tasks, you can indicate what day it is in the family. For example:

1. Sweet Tooth Day;
2. Day of watching New Year's films or fairy tales;
3. Family photo shoot day;
4. The day of drawing up the menu for the New Year's table;
5. House cleaning day.

Gifts for the advent calendar

vestibule New Year's holiday– this is a reason to rejoice for adults too. In the Advent calendar, you can prepare symbolic nice things for your loved ones. For example:

1. Write beautiful confession in love or to express gratitude for family happiness;
2. A ticket to the long-awaited concert of your favorite performer;
3. Certificate for " romantic dinner by candlelight";
4. The original "permission" to do in one of pre-holiday days whatever he pleases;
5. Fulfill any whim.

Let your holiday mood be truly magical and fabulous! Do miracles for your loved ones, make their dreams and little desires come true! This will not only add positivity to your life, but will also strengthen your relationships!

As soon as I found out about this interesting tradition, like the Advent calendar, I immediately wanted to try to introduce this custom in our family. True, last year I was a little worried that my daughter, at only 2 years old, might not understand the whole essence of the tradition or would be too “tired of waiting” for the holiday with such advance preparation. But, as it turned out, all the worries were in vain, the daughter was delighted with such an interesting preparation for the holiday and with the surprises that awaited her every day in the advent calendar. Therefore, this year the miracle calendar will again decorate our pre-holiday days.

After all, the sweetest thing about any holiday is the anticipation of the holiday. And together with the New Year's advent calendar, waiting is much more fun. Thanks to him, a festive atmosphere will reign in the house long before the New Year. In addition, it will help to better acquaint the child with the holiday and involve him in interesting creative process. The Advent calendar tells the child every day what interesting events await him today, what surprises and tasks Santa Claus has prepared for him on this day.

In this article I want to talk about how you can design a New Year’s Advent calendar, what tasks and gifts you can include in it. When my daughter was 2 years old, our advent calendar was designed only for the last 10 days of the outgoing year. It seems to me that for this age this is the most optimal duration. This year, I plan to start early and stretch out the pleasure for 20 days.

Advent calendar design

On the Internet you can find a huge number of the most different ideas DIY calendar design. Basically, advent calendars are designed so that for each day of waiting there is a small container in which you can put a small surprise for the child. The container can be pockets, drawers, socks, jars, cardboard houses, etc. If the gift does not fit in the box, you can put a note “Look for the gift under the pillow” or include a photo of the place where the gift is hidden. All containers are marked with numbers that correspond to the number of days remaining until the holiday.

Option 1

This year our advent calendar features a small town made of cardboard houses. These are mostly small one-story houses, but there are also two-story and even three-story buildings. To make small houses, I used templates found on the Internet, for variety I used different ones, here are the ones that I liked the most: template 1, template 2, template 3. I deliberately cut off the bottoms on all the templates, otherwise how would I get the gifts out of the houses if they were sealed? (Just in case, here's these same templates with bottoms). The layouts are printed on colored cardboard in A3 or A4 format, cut out, glued with PVA glue and you're done!

I made two- and three-story buildings according to the logic of template 2, only I changed the dimensions of the roof and walls. Also inside the two-story houses there are transverse cardboard partitions so that a gift from the 1st floor does not interfere with a gift from the 2nd floor

Option 2

Last year our advent calendar consisted of 10 gnomes based on cylinders. Generally speaking, Santa Clauses were originally intended, but my daughter considered them more similar to gnomes, and I agree with her.

I will briefly tell you about the process of making such gnomes (Santa Clauses). The cylinder is made of A4 colored cardboard, secured at the back with tape and a stapler. The bottom bottom is also made of cardboard and secured with a stapler. It’s not difficult to make a gnome’s face - all you need is colored paper, cotton wool and PVA glue. Well, on top, instead of a hat, there is an ordinary sock of an adult. Preferably bright, colorful and not too narrow, because... From sheet A4, cylinders are obtained with a fairly large diameter. On the side we sign a number indicating the number of days remaining until the New Year.

Option 3

And here is our 2017 waiting calendar. This is a town again but with significant changes. You can read more about it.

Tasks for the New Year's advent calendar

I put all the tasks in the advent calendar in the form of short notes. While my daughter couldn’t read and we only wrote laconic notes with large in block letters, read the assignments together. Now that he already reads well, the size of the note need not be limited to 2-3 words. In general, you can also try to represent tasks in the form of pictures.

Also, every day, all the necessary props for completing the task are included in the advent calendar or next to them.

So, the task options:

• Decorate a Christmas tree

• Decorate the house for the holiday , for example: other decorations, hang tinsel, decorate windows and mirrors with snowflakes, etc. We love decorating mirrors like this ready-made sets glass stickers

• Cook together or .

• Write a letter to Santa Claus. Just because your baby can't write yet doesn't mean you have to do without it. interesting task. Firstly, if the baby already knows the letters, you can try together to form words from the letters or syllables you have prepared in advance. If you haven’t become familiar with letters yet, or you don’t want to play with them, you can compose a letter from pictures.

Ma-a-m, look what Santa Claus brought at night! - every December morning this year begins with this phrase in our house. The son runs to check his “mailboxes”: that’s what he dubbed the bags attached to the wall in the shape of a Christmas tree. This is a New Year's advent calendar. It can be in the form of magnets or cardboard windows. They put treats, humorous tasks or small gifts in it. They make it themselves, buy it from book publishers or order it from craftsmen. self made. They have one thing in common: this calendar turns the anticipation of the New Year from a painfully drawn-out time into thirty-one mornings of surprises.

Did Santa Claus fly to us through Africa?
- Why?
- Look, he gave me a banana!

The banana, of course, was brought not by the bearded man with the bag, but by his mother, who at one in the morning discovered that the supply of miniature toys had dried up, and chocolate egg it's too late to run. But the banana also went well: by mid-December you understand that any trifle included in an advent calendar for children takes on a flair of mystery and magic. And if you approach it with all responsibility!..

What is an advent calendar

Irina Soldaeva, creator of handmade advent calendars.

The Advent calendar is a very clever invention! It helps children understand the passage of time (how many days are left until the New Year?), and adults prolong the feeling of the holiday, says Tomsk resident Irina Soldaeva. For the second year now, she has been immersed in the paper business: now, in addition to interior stickers, stadiometers, bags for storing toys and bags made of craft paper, advents have been added. - The content of the calendar can be very different: sweets, gingerbread, small toys or Christmas decorations, which the baby must hang himself. These could be cards with tasks for this date (for a child or for the whole family, for example, making hot chocolate), the number of a book about winter or the New Year that you will read today (prepare the list in advance). In general, the flight of imagination is unlimited! These memories will stay with your children for life, that's for sure. Even if you just fill the bags with chocolate.

By the way, the advent calendar offers tasks and gifts not only for children. It's also great for adults who don't mind adding some romance to their everyday life. Windows-bags-boxes-envelopes can be filled with:

• love notes;
• list of movies for Friday evening;
• photo cards;
• cinema tickets, invitations to the circus, coupons to the supermarket (which leisure activity is preferable to whom);
• greetings in different languages.

You can also ask each other as a family throughout December: take turns answering what event you remember most, what you expect from the coming year, what your most vivid memory was in 2016, what you want to get rid of this year Fire Rooster. This is much more fun than sending a letter to Santa Claus. Advent can also be used for yourself, your loved one: write plans for the year ahead, set goals, seal your innermost dreams under a wax seal, and check after a year to see if they have come true.

It’s easy to make tasks for the Advent calendar with your own hands: be it tasks for children or tasks for older people celebrating the holiday. Choose something that is age appropriate, write it on a card and put it in your calendar. Here are just a few examples:

• To make a snowman;
• make pizza;
• go ice skating;
• sign and send postcards to grandmothers;
• come up with a craft for family competition New Year's decor;
• make a collage of the best photographs from the whole year;
• carry out a general cleaning of trash so as not to take anything unnecessary into the New Year;
• learn by heart a poem about winter;
• decorate the apartment for the holiday.

They ask us: what age are our Advents intended for? - continues Irina Soldaeva. - And my friend and companion Tatyana Ladonina and I answer every time: not at all, we didn’t count on anything at all. But we are deeply convinced that such a thing will be useful in every family, even if there are very young children in it, who, as it seems to parents, will not understand anything. Or, on the contrary, they are too grown-up, who seem to be no longer interested in these pranks. And the mothers themselves, in the pre-New Year rush, could use some system, a plan, a list of things to do. Be smart and add an Advent task for household members like: “Sorting out the family library” or “Learning how to set a holiday table.”

Advent Calendar Ideas

• Magnetic calendar for the refrigerator.
• Poster with stickers for every New Year's day.
• Cardboard houses: each contains a task or a small gift. By December 31st, a whole town is built on a table or shelf.
• Wall calendar - Santa Claus needs to put 31 stickers on his beard.
• With pockets: every day a new flap opens, containing a task or a funny phrase.
• Catholic with sweets: helps to wait for Christmas, therefore it is designed for 24 days. In each window there is a figurine sculpted from milk chocolate.
• Quest calendar: book publishers decided to combine the useful with the interesting and invite children to delve into an intricate detective plot.
• Handmade in luxury format: a panel made of cotton with padding polyester, on which pockets for gifts are sewn, is not cheap, but will also last for many years.
• DIY Advent calendar: notes with tasks and wishes, surprises and sweets are placed in paper pockets.

Background

What Advent is historically is difficult to answer unequivocally. There are at least three interpretations of this word, which is increasingly used in everyday life every year.

• Sacred meaning. The word has Latin roots; translated from Latin it means “coming”. In the Catholic context - the coming of the time of the Nativity of Christ. Various religious rites and customs are dedicated to this time. There are four Advent days in total: according to the number of Sundays in December. “Celebrating Advent” means celebrating the milestones that lead up to the great holiday.
• Meaning literal, applied. In Europe that’s what they say: do Advent. That is, literally making days and counting them down - for example, opening cardboard slits in a large piece of thick paper. Behind each window there are cookies or candy. And then the children know for sure: there are six candies left before the New Year.
• The meaning is material. Since we are talking about weeks and days, a calendar made by hand or using printing technology began to be called Advent.

Do it yourself: quick master class

Irina laughs: the shoemaker without boots, the manufacturer of advent calendars left his own children without this entertainment. But he immediately puts on a serious face and promises to definitely post a shortened version starting December 20th. If among the readers of the portal site there are also those who, in the pre-New Year bustle, did not have time to buy Advent in advance (or learned too late about its existence in nature), then you can make it yourself and quickly.

You will need :

• thick colored paper (or kraft paper);
• double sided tape;
• satin ribbon;
• PVA glue.

Process of creation

1. Bend the edge of the A4 sheet one centimeter inward on one side. Apply glue and fold the sheet in half.
2. Decide on the thickness of the bag and bend the edge on both sides to the desired depth. Usually it is one and a half to two centimeters. Fold the sides in half and inward.
3. Make the bottom. To do this, bend the bottom of the future package and its corners. This will allow you to outline the folding lines. To make it clearer, you can “cut” a large packaging bag and see how the bottom is made. Secure with glue.
4. Punch two holes in the top of the bag. Stick or draw a number and stretch a satin ribbon through the holes.
5. Find out in advance how much surprise weight each package can support. Decide how Advent will be presented: in the form of a wall-mounted tree or a tiered structure. The tape will securely hold bags with light contents on the surface.

You know, we just do it for people. paper bags, - Irina Soldaeva smiles. - And what mothers and grandmothers do for their children is where the real magic lies. They put so much work, so much love into these empty craft bags - this is what their loved ones will remember!

Photos of calendars

How to make an advent calendar for children + tasks and gift ideas

How to make a DIY advent calendar for children out of paper

What we need:

• office paper
• Printer
• pencils/markers
• scissors
• glue/tape

How to make a paper advent calendar:

1. First you need to print the advent calendar (download advent calendar templates). I found these templates on the Internet last year, saved them, and now the kids and I use them :) I print them out on A4 sheets.
2. Next, we give the sheets to the child so that he can color with pencils or felt-tip pens.
3. While the child is busy, we are busy cutting out pockets in which tasks and surprises for the child will be placed every day (as I said above, we still have these pockets after the New Year for passing surprises and letters to each other).
4. After the child has colored the advent calendar, we attach the “New Year’s Mail” mailbox pocket to it.
5. And now all that remains is to glue our advent calendar to the wall.

That's all, a simple DIY advent calendar for children made from paper is ready. Easy and fast :) And most importantly, a child took part in its production). Below I will show a photo of the advent calendar (higher quality templates can be downloaded for free from the link above).

Advent calendar activities for children

And of course, what would an Advent calendar be without tasks and sweets? Below I will write examples of tasks for the advent calendar. I would be grateful if you add to this list in the comments. It is interesting to diversify the assignments every year. so that the anticipation of the new year will be interesting.

1. Learn a poem for Santa Claus and the Snow Maiden for the matinee. Well, of course, no New Year is complete without a Christmas tree, Santa Claus and New Year's poem. So this task is a must in the advent calendar. Examples of small and easy-to-remember poems can be viewed. And in I described our secrets, how my children and I quickly and easily remember poems.
2. Decorate the Christmas tree. The main decoration of the New Year's house :)
3. We decorate the apartment. You can see ideas on how to decorate your apartment for the New Year).
4. Make a New Year's garland chain. Remember what we did as children in anticipation of the New Year? Now you can create such a garland with your children and decorate your apartment. I wrote how we made it
5. Make ice toys for the Christmas tree. Of course, such toys are suitable for an outdoor Christmas tree. Last year we decorated the Christmas tree near the house with ice toys, this year we decorated the territory of our group in kindergarten(we did this last Sunday). I described how we created these toys
6. Make colored ice balls with the kids. Ooooh, that's another one interesting decoration for the street. We painted the area near the house with these balls. The yard has been transformed :) By the way, to decorate the territory of our group in the garden we also used such balls. See how to make them
7. Let's solve New Year's riddles. An interesting pastime for children and parents :) Examples New Year's riddles for children with answers we watch
8. Make a New Year's applique with your baby. For example, simple New Year's applique herringbone
9. Draw a New Year's drawing.
10. Make a Christmas tree toy out of paper. ()
11. Write a letter to Santa Claus.
12. To make a snowman.
13. Build a slide
14. Play in the snow.
15. Go downhill on ice skates/sleds
16. Make Santa Claus and a Christmas tree. plasticine snow maiden
17. Decorating the windows
18. Make New Year's soap
19. Cut out snowflakes
20. Watch the New Year's cartoon
21. Write congratulations to your grandparents, if they do not live with you, make a postcard with your own hands
22. Draw or make a gift for parents, brothers, sisters. grandparents
23. Buy together with parents New Year's toys and decorations for the apartment
24. Color it New Year coloring book(there are many coloring pages in)
25. We sing New Year's songs and learn new ones
26. Making New Year's toys from salt dough
27. Making a bird feeder (my children and I made a simple bird feeder from scrap materials)
28. Make a New Year's newspaper
29. Try on / choose a New Year's costume
30. Go to a New Year's party
31. Make a gingerbread house or Christmas cookies
32. Reading New Year's fairy tales
33. Take a walk through the city at night, glowing with New Year's lights

New Year Gift Ideas for the Advent Calendar

Along with the task, your child will be interested in receiving a small New Year's gift in the pocket of the advent calendar. Here are just some examples of what you can put there (if the gift is large, then you can put a note-card in the pocket where the gift is in the apartment and let the baby try to find it):

1. New Year stickers,
2. candies in the shape of Christmas tree decorations,
3. chocolate Santa Clauses and Snow Maidens
4. small New Year cards for congratulating friends
5. symbols of the coming year
6. chocolate medals or the “Most” medal printed on cardboard best son"or daughter
7. tinsel and rain to decorate the apartment for the holiday
8. New Year's garlands
9. coins with symbols of the new year or Sochi 2014
10. artificial snow can
11. books
12. curly gingerbread
13. small chocolates
14. hairpins and elastic bands for girls
15. small cars
16. transparent cone with sweets: nuts or raisins
17. tickets for the New Year's performance
18. photos on a mug or a puzzle from a photo
19. tangerines with drawn emoticons.

DIY Advent Calendar Ideas for Kids

Below I will share with you some advent calendar ideas. which can be done for children. after all, no one says that there should be only one advent calendar)

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