Advent Traditions: Calendar

In 2011, I sprung for an eight euro chocolate-filled Advent calender for Maria.  All the cheaper options that I found had pictures of  Hello Kitty or Disney Cars--their manufacturers having abandoned all pretense that Advent calendars have anything to do with Christmas.  This expensive one had a pretty Victorian-inspired scene of Father
Christmas trimming a tree. The chocolates were gourmet.  I figured the eight Euros were the price of tradition.  

This year, I opted to make a calendar.  I wanted something that could hold a few treats and a little piece of paper with a Bible passage.  Here's the result.

A piece of cardboard with 24 origami cups made from Ikea wrapping paper. We had some paper beads and origami mini stars on hand, so I strung them onto some yarn for the hanger.  A simple little project, but I was pleased with how it turned out.
Maria sat next to me as I folded the cups.  I showed here how to make them, but she was a little too young for the lesson to stick.

Each pocket held a wrapped chocolate or a tinfoil package with gummi bears or crystallized pineapple.

We printed this Advent chain-- it has a Bible passage and a picture for the first twenty-four days of December.  I cut out the links and rolled them so that each pocket had its own little scroll. We read the text out loud while Maria ate her treat, trying to explain the text to her as best we could.  Maria colored in some of the pictures. My plan was to cut them out and use them as ornaments on our Christmas tree, though I ended up forgetting about them (and there was no room left on our tiny Christmas tree).
 
A few days after completing our calendar, Mum told me that EuroNews was reporting massive recalls of commercial calenders---the chocolates were potentially contaminated with machine oil. So our choice to make a calendar was especially fortunate!

This is a little craft I hope to repeat next year.  Maybe I'll get some help folding the cups.