Today marks the day of the greatest month of the year, December. From cold weather, delicious cookies, my birthday, endless holiday parties and Christmas, December is one for the records. In honor of my Christmas fanatic-ness, I’m giving you the ultimate Christmas surprise, 25 days with yours truly! 25 days of DIYs, outfits, recipes, and all the tricks of the trade to survive the days leading up to your visit from St. Nick.

Grab your cocoa and holiday sweater and let’s get jingling!

Day 1: Christmas Countdowns 

As a kid, Christmas Countdowns and advent calendars were a household favorite. It’s a fun and interactive craft for the family and kicks off December with a decorative bang! Forget the basic red and green construction paper links, check out these fun DIY countdowns!

Buy $1 cardbord boxes from your local Michael’s Craft store, decorate the lids and glue to a covered piece of of foam poster board for a unique and cheap advent calendar!

Print out colorful numbers and glue the bottom end of a clothespin to a pice of cardboard. You can hang this on a doorknob, the refrigerator or on a wall.

Glue string or wire on the inside of an old picture frame and hang pieces of stationary, as shown above. On the back side of each piece of paper write a simple act of service to be accomplished that day.

Buy mini gift bags at your local gift store and on the inside put an inspirational note, or piece of candy. Hang these bags on wire attached to a board or the wall.

Glue decorative envelopes to yarn and wrap along your staircase with garland.

Go to a thrift store and buy baby christmas socks and glue felt numbers on them. Clothespin the socks to ribbon and string along the wall for 25 mini adorable stockings.

Cut old magazines into the shapes of ornaments and glue numbers on them.

Hang ornaments on a pin board and each day hang up that ornament. These could be mini DIY ornaments or special family ones.

Decorate a lunch bag and inside have 25 slips of paper with crafts to do that day. These can keep the kids easily entertained through the month and is SUPER simple and cute!

I hope you had a wonderful 1st day of Christmas!

(all pictures came from Pinterest)