Here is the first week of my Advent calendar. I love the daily discipline of praying this way–especially when I manage to get up at 5 AM and sit at the table in the dark with only the lights of the candles on the Advent wreath.
Here is my friend Cindy O’s calendar. Cindy and I have both been drawing Advent calendars for the past five years.
Here are links to two of the Advent Calendars with a higher resolution than the original. They have been scanned at 600dpi. Hope this helps for those having trouble with blurry downloads.
A Blessed Advent to you.
Here is an Advent calendar shaped like a Christmas tree. Feel free to download the template here or click on the drawing itself. I like to take a copy of the 8 1/2 x 11 page to a commercial copier, enlarge it to 11 x 17 inches (about 129%), and print it on white card stock.
This calendar is designed to start tomorrow November 27, the first Sunday of Advent, and go through December 24. You can add dates to the shapes and start drawing in any of the twenty-eight shapes–one a day. The star at the top of the tree is not considered a day unless you want to make it Christmas.
Last Advent, I did a Praying in Color workshop at a Catholic parish in Pittsford, New York called St. Louis Church. The woman in charge of organizing the workshop gave each family a piece of string, tiny manila envelopes and clothespins to create an Advent calendar. Each day someone would draw a prayer on an envelope and hang it on the clothesline. Families had different ideas about what to put in the envelopes–candy, toys, little notes….One idea I liked: Each day anyone could put pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters in the envelopes. At the end of Advent the family would decide where to donate the collected money.
Depending on how much space you have, the clothesline and the envelopes can be small or large.
My friend Cindy gave me permission to doodle many years ago. Without her encouragement, I never would have had the nerve to draw. Cindy and I enjoy making Advent calendars. Here is the first two weeks of hers this year. To see Cindy’s entire calendar, go to her website Mostly Markers. I really like the words of hope and promise she includes each day. The whole calendar looks like a patchwork quilt anticipating the birth of Jesus. Since today is only the 6th day of Christmas, I will look at our Advent calendars and continue the celebration of Jesus’s birth for the rest of the twelve days of Christmas.
Cindy also has a ministry of making greeting cards for men and women in the military. The project of creating these handmade cards is called Operation Write Home. The cards encourage people who are deployed to write to friends and loved ones. Check out the cards she has made.