h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

An Adventskalender is no Christmas present in the conventional sense, I´m afraid (i.e. not for Christmas but for the time before) and,as if that wasn´t enough, it´s already much too late to make one and give it to somebody. But perhaps you would like to bear the idea in mind for next year.
In Germany - I don´t know about other countries, so I may be giving you information you don´t need at all, in which case I hope you will forgive me, it´s Christmas, after all - as I was saying, in Germany it is a very nice custom to give children (but not only children, of course) something called Adventskalender. It is a sort of calendar which covers the time from the 1st of December to the 24th (in Germany, we exchange presents on the evening of the 24th).
Those you can buy in the supermarket are very flat cardboard boxes, you hang them on the wall, and every day you may open one of 24 little doors that each of them hide a small piece of chocolate in the shape of a star, a Christmas tree, a bell, a parcel or other things connected with Christmas.
These, of course, you wouldn´t even dream of giving to one of your close friends, and perhaps you wouldn´t even give it to a family member . But you can easily make a much better one yourself. First, you buy (or make) 24 little gifts, e.g. a nice biro (as I had one from my sister yesterday), a hairclip, one of those glass-bead-bracelets that are so fashionable at the moment, a pencil sharpener, anything, be it as silly as it may. You will usually end up filling nearly the whole thing with candy and chocolate bars for lack of better ideas.
Then, you make the calendar itself. This is where you can´t worm yourself out of using your imagination as you could with the presents. You can do anything you like, e.g. wrap the presents up as small parcels and hang them on a pine twig, or attach 24 little stockings to a long pole to hang on the wall or, if you live in the same house as the person you want to give the calendar to, you could just pin the stockings or parcels to the wall in their room while they´re out. Or you can paint a christmassy picture on a wooden board with 24 hooks on it and hang the parcels/stockings on the hooks.
I´m out of ideas just at the moment, but as I said, it´s too late to make a calendar for this year anyway, so you guys have plenty of time to think of something.

JLC the TTP, making note to make several Adventskalenders for next year, Thansk..

I made one a couple of years ago from those little boxes the films come in. I started looking for small enough objects (e.g. pop sox - one per day! and things made of material mainly, which can be squashed into them.

These little round plastic containers have a press-on lid. When I had found 24 tiny presents, I put them in, put them into some kind of order, and stuck a tiny Christmas motif sticker on each. Then I cut a long length (a yard and a half at least) of gift ribbon and lay it along in front of my row of boxes. You simply string them together by opening the lid of the container, laying the ribbon flat across the top and popping the lid back on again. Tie a loop at each end and decorate by curling the ribbon or tying baubles on. You can numbe them with felt pens to keep tabs (1 - 24 for the days in December up to Christmas). This can then be strung across a window, over the fireplace, or anywhere on a wall with two drawing pins.

Other ideas are:

each container has its own string with a numbered label at the end and all 24 are thrown into a basket or bowl with the numbers dangling out, to be pulled out (and untangled!!) day by day.
Tie them to a pine twig or bunch of pine or evergreen branches in a large vase (similar to the suggestion above)
Hang the ribbon vertically next to the bathroom door or another door you pass every day
Wrap crepe paper or better still, evergreen branches round the banisters and tie the advent presents all along there - to be replaced by nice decorations as they diminish
Devise a little "vending machine'" where you pull out the bottom box each day - can later be used to store other similar small items, such as scrunched up carrier bags
Hide them round the house each morning and leave a "clue" at the breakfast table
or just put one on the breakfast table each morning
Put them into a "bran tub" - so each morning no one knows which gift will come up!

Plenty more ideas - just ask us - the GerManiaConnection - if that's not enough. Genfish - have earmarked you for the GMC - you will be receiving a posting soon.

Sorry. Genfinch ot Genfish

another idea for the advent calendar is not to give people presents but to have say a tree or vase of branches standing in the hll or lounge and to add one decoration every day, so that you can see as it gets prettier and more loaded Christmas is coming nearrer.

Now I've got loads of ideas for home made pressies and will post them elsewhere on this forum.