Advent, advent, a little light burns

As long as I can remember, my family has had this advent calendar that my mom made that is a giant stocking, with 24 small pockets and one big one (for Christmas day). She would hide ornaments in each pocket and then, starting youngest to oldest, we would take out one ornament a day and put it on the cloth Christmas tree she had made as well. I remember being so excited to see which ornament got taken out each day. I remember waking up and running to the stocking when it was my turn to take out the ornament. I loved it.

Last year, my mom gave the advent calendar to me. I was so happy and couldn't wait to share it with my kids. So, when we got it out this year and showed it to the kids, they loved it. They did the same thing I did as a kid. The first thing they thought about when they woke up was to get the ornament out of the stocking and to put it on the tree. They also loved to get on the chair and just look at the different ornaments (Beckett especially loved the train one). It was so fun to share my tradition with them and for them to love it as much as I did.







Here is the tree when we were all done putting ornaments on it. It kept folding. I had to hold it open for this picture. Next year, I will have to figure out a better way to keep it from buckling. Any ideas, all you crafty people out there?