egg carton advent calendar

I grew up in the 80’s and I remember quite well the advent Christmas calendars that my mom would buy with the tiny cardboard windows and the chocolates that never seemed to stay in place.

Well I also remember them costing $1. And since my childhood memory still can’t seem to comprehend inflation and that the prices from the 80’s certainly are going to be higher in the 2018’s, I tend to get sticker shock when I see those advent calendars now costing $10 and up.

So I made my own.

It took about an hour of older-child-in-preschool-and-younger-child-napping. So basically one hour interrupted to make this.

And it was totally worth it.

Yes, it is full of candy and no, we have no shame for that.

But I also recently bought five new DVD’s from the Walmart Black Friday sale so we are incorporating those into this advent calendar too.

My son is very much like me and loves jelly beans. But he’s never actually had Jellly Belly jelly beans and isn’t aware of the world of flavors awaiting him!

While trying to figure out how to contain and conceal each surprise I looked around my kitchen for something that I have a lot of. Well we have a lot of empty egg cartons. Then it dawned on me that and advent calendar has 24 days/surprises in it and two egg cartons equals 24!

You will need:

Bag of candy

two empty egg cartons

tiny plastic baggies and tape

four sheets tissue paper

paper circles

glitter gel pens or sharpie

large cardboard flat, measure about 20 X 20

wrapping paper

glue gun

This is optional but I also wrote activities on most of the days (not all of them to keep my sanity). These are things that we most likely would be doing any way so it’s nothing that really makes us have to leave the house much or spend money. I also added in ideas like “hot chocolate for breakfast” since what kid wouldn’t love that? Plus it’s easy and sprinkles in a little more festiveness throughout the day.

Wrap your edibles. I also wrapped up small papers of instructions that said “look under the tree” for the wrapped DVDs.

Now cut up your cartons and stuff the candy in. Secure with tape. You may need to dump out some of the beans to make them fit.

You should be able to get six small squares of tissue paper out of each tissue paper. Cut them up and wrap up the individual egg carton, being sure to tuck it on the inside where the candy is. This will be the part you glue onto the board.

Now take your cardboard and wrap one side of it with some pretty wrapping paper, glue and secure the other side with hot glue.

With hot glue, attach all of your surprises onto it. I was able to fit five per row.

Optional: Write your daily Christmas activities that you will be doing each day.

Hint: Make them easy since more than likely your kid will be holding you to it!

Then with your glitter gel pen or sharpie number them at the very end, just before you glue them on with hot glue. Glitter gel pens take about six hours to dry so you don’t want to have to mess with them much after that.

I planned my last days to be activities that we probably will be doing anyway like make a ginger bread house or make cookies or see Christmas lights.

You’re done! I’m leaning mine against a wall on my kitchen counter.