Christmas Advent Calendar

Did anyone else have an awesome advent calendar when they were kids? We had one that was a huge felt tree with pockets at the bottom and every day you got to take the handmade ornament out of the pocket and pin it on the tree. It is a very fond memory from my childhood. Even though I dont have my own children yet, I still wanted to have a fun advent calendar so I decided to make one this year and here it is... 

I found this great line of fabric (Countdown to Christmas by Moda) which has numbers 1-25 on it so I cut the numbers out and sewed them onto the pockets I made for the ornament for each day. 

When I was a kid, we pinned our ornaments to the tree but I saw a bunch of calendars online that used buttons instead. Genius! I used big and small buttons to add a little fun.  

 Now for the ornaments. This was the part that took the longest. I wanted to make each one different (even though there are some duplicates). I made a few presents, a Poinsettia, holly and berry, a few snowmen...

 a pear, a buckeye (I mean- we do live in Ohio after all), some cute retro ornaments, a sugar cookie with sparkly "sprinkles," a little bird (probably my favorite one)...

 a gingerbread man, a few stockings, a candy cane, a mitten, peppermint candy, a Christmas light, a Santa hat, a bell, and a cute little penguin. On December 25th, a bright yellow star gets put on the very top of the tree.

Do you have any fun Christmas traditions?