When I was a kid, we had an au pair for a year from Switzerland, and she made us the greatest advent calendars I have ever had. Each day was a different surprise and she made the whole thing by hand. Sadly, she had to return home to take care of her parents, so she was not around another year, but ever since then, I have loved advent calendars. This year is no exception, although for different reasons.
My kids are so motivated by opening the little doors that I can exert all sorts of control over them, which is an awesome thing to have in the morning as we struggle to get ourselves all sorted out and ready to go to school/work. Usually I have to keep reminding them, threatening them with timeouts, pushing, pushing, pushing until we finally get out the door. This morning, all I said was that everything had to be done before they opened their advent calendars - get dressed, eat breakfast, practice piano, brush teeth, wash face, brush hair, make bed, put on socks/shoes, feed the dog, and turn out the lights in their room. It is 8:15am and both kids are ready to go to school and we don't even have to leave for 15 minutes! This is going to be a great month!
Picture courtesy of Tim Bartel
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