An Advent Tree Calendar

I always grew up doing Advent, in our churches we celebrated the four Sundays before Christmas, and at home we usually had some kind of calendar (the best ones were the ones with chocolates) and our own Advent candle wreath and I even remember having a chocolate advent calendar at boarding school one year that my roommates and I took turns opening. 

As our family has moved around a lot in the past few years, we have hardly spent Christmas in the same country twice, let alone the same house. So a few years ago my mom gave us a re-usable Advent Tree and I think it's been nice to do the same thing three years in row even though we haven't been in the same place. 

Here's what we do. We collect match stick boxes through the year. (Or if you're like me, you go to the store on November 29 and buy 20 boxes of matches for $2.00 since you can only find 4 around the house. I now have a big ziplock bag full of matches and no way to light them....hehehe) 

We fill the boxes with small candy or chocolate and wrap them up. This year I am doing a blue, white, turquoise and silver theme with our decorations, so I wrapped half of the boxes in white wrapping paper, and the other half in turquoise.

My supplies; tape, scissors, wrapping paper and boxes.

 Our Advent Tree is a jute tree with 24 loops for hanging ornaments or, in our case, boxes on. It came from Bangladesh I think.

 I decided to arrange the boxes in lines of white and turquoise. Each box is wrapped with ribbon and tied to the tree. If I was really organized I would have made cute little number tags to also add on to each box. As we take off the boxes, I tie the ribbon back on the loops in a bow.

Here is our finished tree! I put it up on the wall with a removable hook. Each day the kids get to open one box, share the contents and we talk about how Jesus is the best gift of Christmas. Of course, we also have to talk a lot about patience and waiting, several times a day, as 24 hours is a LONG time for the kids to wait for the next box.

What Advent traditions do you have?