Making our advent calendar for the countdown to Christmas

Esteban & Luna were awake before it was light yesterday morning, excited to get out of bed as soon as possible to celebrate the beginning of December by opening the first day of their advent calendar. Normally I would not encourage them to jump out of bed early with sweets on their mind but on this occasion it was difference because our advent calendar was created by Esteban and it is unlike any before it!

Despite only being six years old, he is exceptional at taking an idea and recreating it in his own way to expand on its original meaning & purpose. In this case he wanted the calendar to be more like a game than a box of chocolates with numbers on.

So before any of this, the first thing he did was create a 25 piece jigsaw puzzle (a picture of Father Christmas delivering presents under a tree) and he dropped one piece into each box.

What a great idea right? Now they can slowly build a puzzle as the month progresses, only seeing the full image on Christmas Day. A wonderful exercise in patience at the very least!

I helped him a little by creating the structure (using old cardboard & glue gun) but the rest of it really was his idea.

He wanted to use the remainder of our Halloween sweets in the boxes. Which again is a super idea! No need to buy anything this way ;)

Hmmm... which pen to use next?

Errr... don't touch the glue gun please Luna.

That's better ;)

And both smile for the camera please!

A bit forced, but it will do ;)

Dec 1st

As I mentioned, they were up mega early. I could hear them whispering together in the darkness, before eventually they tired of this and started gently calling my name, knowing I was working in my office. How could I not let them get up when they were this excited?

So, clothes went on (trying to remain silent as not to wake Sabrina) and off we went to the living room where day one was quickly identified.

Gently push through into the box...

Esteban was keen to get his fingers in there too!

Today's prize is two red sweets...

And this jigsaw piece! Think it is a part of the Christmas tree.

I also wanted to point out how he has included maths questions as a way to identify the date. Here we are looking at the 16th Dec.

This one is a multiple choice, giving three potential answers to the maths question.

Our advent calendar also serves as a birthday calendar because we happen to know a few people born in December. Here you can see Eliott's birthday on the 26th!

And finally, here is Luna showing off the pink sweet under that wrapper.

So I think that's it for now.

Just wanted to show off Esteban's creativity really ;)

Oh yes, and I wanted to show you the V shape on his forehead because I noticed it glowing strongly in a recent shot.

He was born with it and the more conventional folk told me it was nothing significant and would fade in a few years (which it evidently hasn't) while the more spiritual folk said it related to a heightened energy in his third eye.

I prefer the third eye story but I am unsure if our pineal gland in some way connects with our creativity? Perhaps it does, because he is surely creative.

Anyway, I checked in on their savings account @esteban-luna the other day and noticed with a smile it was worth over $1000 in that moment. I have been sending them a little bit of my rewards from time to time, especially when my posts are so very dominated by their awesomeness!

So, all rewards from this particular post will go to the @esteban-luna account where it will stay till they are old enough to know what to do with it.

Something tells me it won't be long before Esteban is making his own posts here ;)

Love & Light everyone 🌱