Welcome to Blogmas – The First December Post

The countdown has begun!

Welcome to December, Welcome to a terrible seasonal tunes overdose, and Welcome to Blogmas.

As some of you may know, I did attempt Blogtober, the concept being you write a post every day for a month – and I will freely admit that after a week or two it became a struggle. Blogmas will be different, hopefully. Although my plan to pre-write and schedule a few posts, has gone slightly astray, I do have a framework; I will be keeping the whole Vlog link/5 videos/Ponderings that I generally do each week, but I will be interspersing crafts, gift ideas, hauls, tips and suggestions through-out the next 24 days.

This whole blogmas thing coincides quite nicely with me stepping up my craft game, as I try to come up with 24 things to put on my Advent Tree. Let me introduce you to my little tree.

The 2017 tree

Biscuits for all

The gingerbread house…best not to ask.

This tree used to live in a shop I worked in about 15 years ago when the kids were little. It was used as a display for Christmas Decorations and was going to be thrown out at the end of the season, so I rescued it. It spent a few years in my Mum’s loft, and also at my church, where we used to use it to display the decorations I made with the kids in the youth club, until I finally brought it home about 5 years ago. It was at this point that I noticed that it had a very convenient 24 hooks on it…and Advent Tree was born!

The basic premise is that I have 24 little felt bags, and in them there is a note. We have tried a few ways of doing this:

• The note has a child’s name (I have 4 kids, so they divide into 24 nicely) and they have to wait another 3 days before pulling out their name again – this did not go down well with the more impatient members of the family.
• The note had a present that I had bought 4 of, so everyone got one – this did not go down well with my bank account.
• The notes contain suggestions for cool activities, crafts and Christmassy things to do, and occasionally offer out a nice foodie treat. This is the one we now do as it eliminates the two downsides of the first methods we tried!

So today the kids have started on the Advent Tree; I am glad it is a Saturday, as I leave for work at 6 am in the week and, as I insist on photos for Instagram, they generally have to wait until 6 pm when I get home before opening the felt bag! Today though they are welcome to open away, and they have pulled out a card craft, as they are going to have a go at making their own cards. I used to be really into crafts, so this is a great opportunity to get the kids involved in being creative…and covering themselves with glue…mainly the glue thing. I will let you know how the cards turned out tomorrow.

So, once again, welcome to Blogmas and thank you for joining me on this countdown to Christmas.
What are your plans for the first weekend of December?