First Day A Success

[sherrardk]

In an effort to get away from the vicious cycle of Lego advent calendars (our own fault), with similar girlie advent calendars and cash equivalent for boy #1 I have introduced the advent bag. This consists of a lucky dip of cheap treats, wrapped, with a target spend of £1 a day for five kids (some days I have upped the ante). Tonight's offering of toffee popcorn went down a storm (and I would have been giving them a treat after tea anyway). Go me, saved about £150!

[bednobs]

well done you :) i posted this earlier, but just be grateful mr sher didn't want this http://www.ocado.com/webshop/getSearchProducts.do?clearTabs=yes&isFreshSearch=true&entry=gin+advent+calendar

[B00]

Nice one, think you should treat yourself with the savings with your own advent calender.

http://media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/5a/69/c6/5a69c6574baa440c8f8a37d38c452e33.jpg

[boxtops]

Nice one, sher!

[ferlew]

Yayyyyyy you. I spent 3 months making mine a quilted advent calender.

[sherrardk]

The Christmas Eve one is going to be a DVD, big bottle of coke, Pringles, sweets - a whole night in in a box (plus a sugar rush).

[pixie373]

Brilliant idea, sherr. Do you still do stockings on Christmas eve, too? I found that hard with 4 little ones- trying to get same number of presents, same kind of price and same size, especially with girls and boys of different ages. Only got youngest two wanting stockings this year (cash for other two). Easier, but a bit sad, in a way.

[sherrardk]

Still do stockings for all of them, tricky with the age range but they seem to be happy with what they get. Told boy #1 to play along with advent bag and he was brilliant, actually seemed pleased with the popcorn (have been teasing them that the stuff most days was going to be rubbish and other days it was going to be worse).

[Caran]

We always used to do the advent calendar thing, it got out of hand. Last year it cost me £120. 5 grandchildren, daughter and SIL. We used an advent box as the things wouldn't fit in the fabric calendar. Daughter struggled to find 24 pressies for OH and me.so we agreed to call it a day. I just got the GK's a chocolate advent calendar. I will still do a stocking with a pressie in it for everyone on Christmas Eve. The three oldest GK get a small present and money but the twins are too young yet to value money so they get a proper present!

[DaisyNonna]

Nightmare trying to find Advent calendars with envelopes so that they could be posted and no chocolates.

[belrec]

We always make our own advent calendar.

I spend a fraught hour doing the calculations and working out where all the boxes will be then my girl draws pics in all the holes.

Glue it together and voila! a couple of hours of festive entertainment and virtually free :-)

They are so caught up they even agree about taking it in turns and no arguments.

[joggerjayne]

Brilliant!

[Sparkles62]

Instead of buying xmas presents for my youngest grandsons, I make them an Advent bag each year containing 24 presents, all numbered, they can be anything from a chocolate santa lolly to a jigsaw,
yesterday they had bubble bath and today they had socks,
They both love it. X

[woofgang]

blimey, we had the paper and card ones when we were kids.....