Advent Calendar Day 7

The pocket for Day 6 of my elder daughter's Advent Calendar contained a little reindeer character we first encountered in the Käthe Wohlfahrt Christmas shop in York at the end of September. She had commented at the time that she liked him, so when she wasn't looking he went into my shopping basket along with a few other things. 

Day 7 pocket

Teddy Reindeer Christmas decoration

I bought the brown reindeer character with a pink bow for her younger sister, so when she had emptied the pocket and opened the packet, the two reindeer greeted each other through the video call screen as the girls compared them and laughed.

Advent Calendar Day 6

The pocket for Day 6 of my elder daughter's Advent Calendar contained snowflakes! The picture was a snowman with snowflakes so my younger daughter took inspiration from them and made a variety of crochet snowflakes with white sparkly wool or white cotton crochet thread. She found the patterns via YouTube videos (rather than reading crochet patterns). 

Day 6 pocket

The snowflake collection on the Advent calendar fabric

The larger crochet snowflakes

The smaller crochet snowflakes

She was very impressed with the snowflakes and their intricacy. Via our video call we showed her the even larger one her sister had made which would need stiffening with starch as it was too floppy and was too big for the pocket, so hadn't been included in her Advent Calendar.

Advent Calendar Day 5

The pocket for Day 5 of my elder daughter's Advent Calendar contained a honeycomb fabric bauble I made for her tree. As a bauble it would not have fitted in the pocket, so I made it fold flat then fold out to the bauble shape, fastened with a press stud (snap fastener).

Day 5 pocket featuring baubles

Fabric honeycomb bauble

Fabric honeycomb bauble which folds flat
when the snap fastener hidden in a honeycomb is undone.

While we watched online, as she removed the packet from the pocket, I asked her what the picture was on the pocket. She noted it was baubles but decided the parcel was too flat to be a bauble. It was so funny watching her amazement as she unwrapped it and unfolded the honeycomb bauble into a ball shape, her eyes went wide!

Advent Calendar Day 4

The pocket for Day 4 of my elder daughter's Advent Calendar contained an ornament I bought for her in 2017 at the wonderful National Museum of the American Indian in Washington DC. It is a rainbow coloured hummingbird made of glass beads and has been hanging on the family Christmas tree for Christmas 2017, 2018 and 2019. However, it was time for it to fly to her tree.

Day 4 pocket

Rainbow hummingbird made of glass beads

The rainbow hummingbird will look wonderful on her Christmas tree

She was very pleased when she opened the parcel - her bird has returned to her.

Advent Calendar Day 3

The pocket for Day 3 of my elder daughter's Advent Calendar featured a gingerbread couple so I took inspiration from the pocket decoration and made a pair of felt gingerbread people for her tree. These were made using the stitch around the pattern method - placing the template on the doubled over felt, stitching around the edges of the template using a sewing machine, removing the template, trimming to near the stitching then stuffing them and closing the stuffing hole. I used embroidery thread, ribbon and beads for their features.

Day 3 pocket

Felt gingerbread man and woman

closeup of the felt gingerbread man and woman

Despite having ginger/auburn hair, she isn't actually that fond of gingerbread, however she was delighted with this pair of gingerbread characters for her Christmas tree.

Advent Calendar Day 2

The pocket for Day 2 of my elder daughter's Advent Calendar contains some Christmas decorations from our family Christmas tree. These were made by her little sister when she was at primary school. We have kept a set of these felt decorations (she had made lots to sell for a charity, which she did very successfully at a church event but we still had some duplicates left over).

Day 2 pocket

Front of the felt star

Back of the felt star

Front of the felt snowman

Back of the felt snowman

Front of the felt heart (yes, it lost some stars over the years)

Back of the felt heart

Front of the felt Christmas tree

Back of the felt Christmas tree

Front of the felt angel

Back of the felt angel

When she opened the parcel, my elder daughter laughed to see the felt decorations she remembered from our tree and recalled that she had helped make some of them.

Advent Calendar Day 1

This year, my elder daughter is away from home for Advent and Christmas and due to the pandemic, we may not be able to visit her for Christmas as planned. So in September I started planning a surprise Advent Calendar for her which would bring a little of her family home to her new abode in York (she is singing as a choral scholar at York Minster - at least we can see her when they live stream the sung services on YouTube). 

My girls shared a bought cloth Advent Calendar for much of their childhood, each day taking it in turns to take a character from the pocket and place it in the Nativity scene. 

We have just hung that Advent Calendar up ready for Mary to be placed in the scene.

I decided to make a new cloth Advent Calendar specially for my elder daughter and fill the pockets with gifts for her Christmas tree. I bought some Advent Calendar ribbon, some fabric and had fun designing and sewing the new cloth calendar.

The completed Advent Calendar, hanging on a wooden dowel in our home before it was posted to my elder daughter with instructions not to open the parcel until 1 December.

All the pockets filled with little numbered parcels (each gift was wrapped in brown paper). Three parcels were too large so I put numbered brown cards in those pockets instead and the related parcels were also labelled with the number.

Thanks to video call technology we had the fun of watching her open the large brown paper package (not tied up with string) on 1 December and hanging the Advent Calendar on a bar in front of the fireplace (not in use) in the house where she is staying.

The Advent Calendar with pockets filled, ready for opening the first parcel

Day 1 pocket

Day 1 parcel revealed the first of the Christmas tree decorations we had made for her.

Christmas Teddy cross stitch, stitched by my younger daughter and assembled by me

Christmas Teddy cross stitch, surrounded by tartan and poinsettia

Teddy with drum and trumpet on the back of the cross stitch teddy

She was delighted with this - she remembered the cross stitch kit (the girls had one each but she had never stitched hers, so it was returned to her complete for hanging on her Christmas tree while the other one will also be stitched to hang on our tree).