The advent calendar is an inseparable part of the Christmas preparation and can bring a festive mood at home. It makes waiting for the big day more enjoyable, especially for the children who get sweets or other little presents. Of course, there are a huge variety of different variants on the market – both the widely used disposable calendars, as well as those that can be used for several years. But it certainly makes fun to make your own calendar and thereby to delight the whole family. In this post we offer you some creative ideas on how to design an advent calendar yourself. Have fun crafting!
The goal of the Advent calendar



As everyone knows, the goal of the Advent Calendar is to help us count the days left until Christmas. The owner should open a box every day, and in this way the calendar serves as a daily reminder of how close the party is. Each door or window symbolizes in principle one day until Christmas. The open boxes show how many days have passed and the unopened ones – how many remain until the big celebration. The word “Advent” actually comes from Latin and means “arrival”. Thus, with the advent calendar, the days until the “arrival” of Christmas are counted. In Germany, counting traditionally begins on the fourth Sunday before the festival – this is the beginning of the Advent season. And the anticipation lasts almost a month!
Design advent calendars yourself – play with shapes and colors


If you like to tinker in your free time, you can easily design an advent calendar yourself – all you need is your own imagination! The creative ideas that we have collected in this article can serve as a suggestion, but they can also be changed or expanded – according to your own ideas. You can either design a traditional Advent calendar yourself, or experiment with shapes and colors to make the result look truly unique. For example, instead of just small paper bags and boxes, you can use old tin cans, empty jam jars, envelopes or even roll paper. For example, if you want to use envelopes for your home-made advent calendar, you can decorate them beautifully and label them with the numbers from 1 to 24 to determine when each envelope should be opened. An original and unusual advent calendar can also be made out of decorated matchboxes – this is a perfect variation if, for example, the gifts for each day are smaller.
Prepare different surprises


If you want to create an advent calendar yourself, you should also take into account that all the gifts that are behind the boxes can also be different – then the surprise will surely be bigger! The calendars traditionally include chocolates and other sweets, but you can also include interesting facts about the Christmas festival – for example, how Christmas is celebrated in different countries, or why December 25 is such a big holiday. Some advent calendars also have beautiful pictures of clocks, gifts, fir trees, numbers or cartoon characters on the outside – if you have a talent for painting, you can also implement this idea.
Find a suitable place for the advent calendar
After you have prepared all the boxes for your advent calendar, you should find a suitable place for him at home. It can be hung on the wall – you can even try to make the figure a fir-tree or make an original garland with the boxes. This can also affect a glass vase or bowl or decorate the box with an improvised fir-tree. And if you want to avoid the children opening all the boxes at once because they have no patience, you can, for example, leave one each evening next to their beds. The most important thing is that you are creative and see the potential in every item in the house – then the result will be unique!