Christmas Advent Calendars

I've had an Advent Calendar that we used for several years, however, it saw its last Christmas last year.  It was a simple, store bought countdown calendar.  You simply moved the snowflake to the correct date until Christmas day.  I loved having it for J, simply to avoid the 25 days of "how many more days?" question.  He knew he could go count it himself! 

This is year I am planning to DiY one.  I love the idea of adding little trinkets and gifts for each day.  We can deter not only the "how many days" question but also the "can we open a gift" one too! Lil Bug won't quite understand the concept yet, but I think its a great tradition to start with her....I love family traditions!

Here are some of the DIY countdown calendars I am pondering...

Simple pouches, made from Scrapbook paper from Kimberly Petersen

Bucket list Calendar made from Dollar Store items! Via Infarrantly Creative

UPDATE****
Our Advent Calendar 2011

I went with pockets made from scrapbook paper.  Inside each pocket is an activity from the free printable advent activities I posted about here.