Advent Calendar Decorations

The teddy bears were sitting peacefully indoors (for a change!) reading books, snoozing or chatting. Crackers noticed that Edward seemed very busy with some strips of coloured paper. Feeling a bit bored in all the quiet, he went over to him.

"Hey Edward! Wotcha doing?" he enquired. "Is that Christmas wrapping paper you're using? It must be for wrapping very small presents!"

"Actually," replied Edward with a smile, "I'm just trying to make an Advent Calendar for us all to use in the run-up to Christmas."

Crackers was Intrigued now. "How does it work then?" he asked, wondering how all those pieces of paper could become an Advent Calendar.

"Well, these strips of paper are usually used to make paper chain decorations to fasten in garlands around the house for Christmas," Edward answered. "We will still end up with some lovely paper decorations, but it will be a more fun way to make them."

The other bears, hearing what Edward was saying about having fun, gathered round to see what he was doing.

"Can I help then?" asked Crackers. Several of the other bears wanted to join in too.

"Of course you may," said Edward. "Actually, everyone can help."

"What do we do first?" asked Crackers eagerly.

"First of all," Edward explained, "we're going to write numbers on each of these strips of paper. They don't all have to be the same style, just that they are marked from 1 to 24. Make them as pretty as you like."

The bears numbered themselves off from 1 to 24, meaning that some bears actually ended up with two strips of paper to write numbers on.

"Just make sure the numbers are in the centre of each strip - like this," Edward showed them.

Soon all the bears were busy with their coloured pencils and felt pens, drawing beautifully illustrated numbers on each strip of paper. They were very different from each other, but all beautiful.

"Now what we do," continued Edward, "is on the first day of December, we take the paper strip numbered 1 and make it into a loop - see, the paper is gummed at one end so it is easier to stick. Because of the way the loops twist and turn, there needs to be a blank loop between each numbered loop, otherwise we won't see all the numbers at the end. So every day in December each bear will loop a blank strip through the previous numbered one, then take the next relevantly-numbered strip of paper, and loop that through the blank one. It sounds a bit complicated but I'll just do a few test ones for you to see exactly what I mean."

The bears all watched as Edward quickly put together a few loops to explain what he meant. It was much easier to understand when they could see how to do it, rather than just listen to instructions.

"So, in the count-down to Christmas," Edward resumed, "we will be making a long paper chain decoration as well!"

"Actually," James interrupted, "it will be a count-UP, not a count-DOWN!" Everyone burst out laughing. James was quite right!

Once they'd all stopped giggling, Edward managed to carry on. "By Christmas Eve," he said, "there should be 48 loops making a lovely new decoration which we can hang up in the house. It will be an Advent Calendar AND a Christmas decoration. And we will all have helped to make it."

The bears loved this idea and now can't wait for the first day of December so they can start their new Advent Calendar.

Maybe you could try this idea for yourselves too. If you can't find any pre-cut gummed strips, you could still cut your own strips from Christmas wrapping paper and use sticky tape or glue to join the ends together to make loops. They would make a great count-down (or as James said, a great count-up!) to Christmas!