Are advent calendars a thing where you live? They’re not very popular in Portugal, but when we lived in Germany they were everywhere this time of the year! The daily surprise is always exciting, whether it’s chocolate, toys or something else. Our favorites though, are the ones that are lovingly prepared by family or friends.
Around this time of the year, Carina (aka Caradeangel) from Germany is busy preparing an advent calendar for her son. Nicholas is 7 years old, and he used to get sad that he didn’t get much mail… so Carina decided to fix that, making him 24 days of special mail. Here she is to tell the story:
“Two years ago I decided to make an Advent Calendar out of postcards for my son. I chose 24 postcards that I thought he might like, decorated them and wrote something on them. To keep him in suspense, I put the postcards in envelopes which I decorated as well. I put them all on a string and hung that string on the door to his bedroom. And so from December 1st to the 24th, he got to open one envelope every day. Needless to say he loved it!”
We were intrigued and delighted by the idea, so we asked Carina what she usually wrote on the postcards. Writing 24 postcards to the same person isn’t easy to do!
“Some postcards held personal messages of love or encouragement, such as how proud we are of him for making good progress in school and how he will soon be able to actually read the postcards himself. On some postcards, I shared memories. For example, I used a postcard with the Berlin TV tower which we had visited earlier that year and on the postcard I wrote about that visit. On some animal postcards, I just wrote some information about the animal pictured. On other postcards, I gave a kind of outlook on things to come such as the next big vacation. Also, he LOVES the Minions so of course I had to have a Minions postcard and wrote in ”Minionish" (with a German translation) on it. With one postcard I included a little poem that fit the theme of the postcard."
Thank you for sharing, Carina!
This is a such a sweet idea to do for a loved one, and not that hard to put together… maybe something to do these coming weekends? 😊 Gather your stationery supplies and put them to good use!