Happy Advent!

Today marks the first day of the Advent season!

Advent is not something that I grew up participating in, but last year my hubs and I followed the Advent reading schedule that our church posted.

This year, with it being E's first Christmas, I have been focusing on getting traditions started for our family! Before children it didn't seem so important, but now I am feeling the weight of beginning traditions for our family like my parents did when I was a child.

I wanted to do something fun for Advent, but it seems like everything is geared a bit toward older children and we don't have any of those yet :) I wanted something simple that would mark the days until Christmas and allow us a chance to be intentional about the Advent readings. I found a simple idea on pinterest (don't you just love it?!) and ran with it.

Remember the library card pockets that use to be in the backs of the library books? Well, that's what these are. Rather than buying some, I found a pattern online and made my own!

I wanted to decorate them, so I used to Ellison machine at my campus library to cut out numbers and various Christmasy shapes.

I plan to use twine and clothes pins to string them across my mantle or bookcase. Inside the pockets I will put cards that have the Advent reading on one side and a fun Christmas activity on the other (such as, "Read a Christmas book", "Go to the festival of lights", or "bake sugar cookies"). That's how we will count down the days until Christmas here at our house!
What are your Advent traditions?