Advent starts on Sunday and the thing I have been looking forward to most is getting all our Christmas books and films down from the loft. Well not the getting them down from the loft bit. I hate that part – it reminds me of all the stuff we have shoved up there and need to sort out one day. But not today. Here’s our Home Made Book and Film Advent Calendar.
It’s the Christmas books I love. Reading one to the girls each night at bedtime always gets me feeling festive and I love the fact they get so excited about reading books. Ok I also have to admit that the fact they get to open a little present each night and that I choose the one who has got ready for bed the best to open it, also makes bedtime that bit sweeter for everyone. During advent they rush up to bed without any arguments – amazing!
Last year we wrapped the books and made them into a Christmas tree shape. It was an idea I originally saw on My Little Bookcase, and instantly fell in love with. This year I wanted to make a different shape and thought Snowmen would be a good idea as they would match our Christmas activity advent calendar which has little snowmen on it.
We piled all our books up first so they were in size order. We have over 25 so there is one for each day of advent. I wanted to use the Christmas films as well to make it more special when we watch one. These worked brilliantly as the snowman’s hat because they are all the same size and then we put a large book for the brim.
I had a very keen little helper with the wrapping. Rose is very keen on anything involving scissors and tape so she cut all the sellotape for me. It was a bit messy but it didn’t matter as you couldn’t see the top and bottom anyway. I used 3 rolls of silver paper for the snowman body and varied them in a pattern. The hate was a roll of red and then some black craft paper for one of the DVDs to make the ribbon around the hat. It did take about 45 minutes to wrap all the books and films but it’s definitely worth it.
I quite like how it looked without any extra decoration but thought a few details would be nice. I used some more of the black paper to make the coal shaped eyes and buttons and a cone of orange craft foam to make the carrot nose. I did think about adding a scarf but I don’t think he really needs it. The resulting snowman is pretty cute, although it is rather carefully balanced. I am going to start taking the books from the bottom and the films from the top so that he will stay in his shape as long as possible.
You’re probably wondering what my other twin was up to while we were doing this (Molly was at school). Well she was very excited about getting her hands on all these new books and got stuck in to the ones we didn’t include in the advent calendar. This is her reading Father Christmas by Raymond Briggs.
I haven’t listed all the books we included as I’m going to add to the post as we go along and post them on Facebook so make sure you have liked my page. By the way if you don’t have 24-25 Christmas books you could always do it for 12 Days of Christmas.
For our tree shaped advent calendar of Christmas books look here.
For our Snowmen homemade advent calendar look here.
For our list of favourite Christmas films look here.
For another alternative advent calendar have a look at this decoration idea from last year.
If you like this idea then make sure you are following me on Pinterest. I have a board dedicated to fun Christmas ideas.
For all of our Christmas idea in one place – check out our Christmas activities for kids which I keep updated as I add a new idea.
