The Advent Spiral

Each Christmas we look for a way to introduce the heart of Christmas to Hamish and for a new and reusable advent calendar.

What does Advent Mean?

Advent is a term from the Latin word ‘adventus‘ which means “arrival“.Advent is a time, in the Christian calendar, of waiting for the arrival of Christmas and represents the coming of Jesus to earth when he was born as a baby at Bethlehem about two thousand years ago

The Spiral Advent

Last year I came across a spiral Advent calendar and was blown away by both it’s simplicity and possibilities.

The spiral was formed from wood or using a clay and had groves etched into the clay before it hardened.These little groves were used to hold a candle, marble or bead to count down the days until Christmas.Often there was a candle at the centre.

Our advent calendar

My inner craft mamma knew I could make one and sat down one afternoon with Hamish to make a spiral advent calendar.

We first gathered our supplies:

Some unused plaster paris to mould with
24 beads
Craft paint
Paying brushes
Candle
Elastic band
Fir tree foliage
A toilet roll inner to form a nanger
Dry wet wipes
Red felt
Scissors
Craft glue
Some Christmas decorations to make a donkey, Mary and Joseph
Marker
A3 sheet of paper

How to make your Advent Spiral

To make the spiral I first drew a spiral shape onto a piece of paper.

This helped me to both keep to size and form as I molded the plaster paris on top of this outline.

Plaster paris was all we had in the house, but I would recommend using air drying clay, river clay, playdough,modeling clay or salt dough.Once the spiral was formed, I made 24 faint marks to mark out where each bead would bead to be inserted.

Hamish then used his finger to push each bead in.

These would become our daily markers.

Again we used beads because that is what we had avaliable but you could use marbles, candles, small toys, hearts,sequences,ectI wrapped some of our fir tree leaves around a candle using an elastic band to keep it in place and this became the centre of the spiral to represent Christmas day and the birth of Jesus.

We lit the candle on Christmas morning.Lastly I made the Christmas nativity charactes.

We would need a donkey, Mary, Joseph and baby Jesus in a manager.

To make baby Jesus snug in his manger I first cut a toilet roll tube in half to form the manger.

Next I wrapped a bead into a dry wet wipe that I folded to look like a swaddled baby.

Lastly I cut a red felt heart and wings and placedar them onto the bead baby. Heart on it’s stomach area and wings underneath the body.To make Mary, Joseph and the donkey I took two Angels off our tree and cut the hair of one to represent Mary and Joseph.