Let the Countdown Begin

As soon as my sister-in-law's baby shower wrapped up Saturday and the last pink detail was put away, I began to take out our holiday decor and transition the house and our brains toward the holidays.  As excited as I usually am for this time of year, this year has brought added excitement because Colton actually seems to be understanding the concept of Santa and seems to be anticipating his arrival (and this Jewish girl may be even more excited than he is to see his face that morning...something I never got to experience as a kid!).
To keep the enthusiasm going, I figured this would be a good year to introduce a Countdown calendar (typically known as an advent calendar, but since I'm not technically Christian, I feel like we should stick with a more secular title).  There are tons of ideas for these things on Pinterest and elsewhere on the web, so I just combined some of the ideas I liked the most...and rounded up supplies I already had... to get to ours.

Other than the fact that I wish it was larger (I had the smaller canvases already, though, so in the interest of budget, I went with it), I am pretty pleased with our Countdown.  A different ornament hangs on each of 24 clothespins.  Both boys have mini trees in their rooms, and I figured they could take turns taking down the ornament from the calendar and hanging it on either of their trees...although a few days into it, it's fairly obvious, Colton and his tree will be getting the vast majority of the ornaments this year.  Maybe in future years I will have two ornaments per day...one for each of them!

Most of the ornaments were bought at Target in the 2 for $1 section or were small ones we already owned.  We happened to be out on the first day, and Josh and I let the boys each pick out a special ornament for their room trees.  I'm thinking this would be a fun tradition to continue...and each of their previous special ornaments could take the place of cheaper ornaments on the countdown.
I love traditions, and this is one that I can already tell I'm glad we started!  Colton gets so excited to put up his new ornament each day, and I'm sure in future years, Levi will too.  Certainly well worth about an hour of work and less than $10 spent in ornaments!