By Honey and the Hive

The holiday season is in full-swing!  I love this time of year - the twinkling lights, freshly fallen snow, and hot cocoa is basically it's own food group - what more could you ask for?  Christmas has always been one of my favorite holidays, and I've only grown to love it more since becoming a mom.  There's something so special about getting to orchestrate the magic for your own kiddos.  

This year is going to be the most magical yet for our little family (let's just say that mom and dad have a pretty incredible surprise up our sleeves)  so I've been anxiously awaiting the holiday season even more so than I normally do this year. I'm already a very festive person, but this year I just wanted to soak up even more of the spirit of the holidays, and make it a season that we never ever forget.

A few weeks ago Dallas and I worked together to create a DIY Advent Calendar to help us count down the days to Christmas in a fun and intentional way.  I wanted this new tradition to be less about things, and more about mindfully taking time each day to do something festive and make memories together.  Inside each envelope on the calendar is a special holiday-themed activity that we can do together.  While Dallas doesn't know the surprises each day, he did help me to craft this calendar which was so special, and had him even more excited when December 1st rolled around and we finally got to open up our first envelope!

We made our calendar almost completely out of items that we had on hand, but even if you don't have a craft supply stash that you're embarrassed to show your husband, you can get everything you need pretty in-expensively from any local craft store.  

WHAT WE USED:
A branch (you don't need anything fancy, folks - we found one in our back yard)

Chunky Yarn

Faux Garland

Ornaments

Kraft Envelopes

Numbered Stickers

Twine

Gold Wreath Filling Pieces

Clothespins

Paddle Wire

We started by wrapping our branch in the faux garland, and adding in a few pieces of our gold wreath filling for a little sparkle - securing it all down with paddle wire.  Then we cut a large piece of twine and tied it to either end of the branch to hang the advent calendar from.  We tied 9 long pieces of yarn to the covered branch to hang our daily envelopes from using clothes pins.  Then we tied ornaments to a few of the pieces of yarn to give it a fun and festive look and attached number stickers to each envelope.  The entire project took us maybe 20 minutes (perfect to do with busy kiddos!) and I really love how it turned out.