Noel Calendar

I found another brilliant idea in Treasuring God in Our Traditions. In order to sense the value of the idea, I'll let Noel Piper share it in her own experience:

For our family a more permanent [Advent] calendar has become a tradition. When our first child was a toddler, I could hardly find any Christmas things that had to do with Jesus. So I created the Noel Calendar, a burlap banner with plastic and wood figures that by December 25 have been attached with Velcro across the top half of the banner to represent the Christmas story. Throughout the month, that story is told in increments, starting over at the beginning and adding a bit more each day.

The first year we used the calendar, I learned an important lesson: Repitition is an excellent way for a child to memorize. In mid-December, when Karsten was barely two, my mother-in-law died in a bus crash in Israel. With little time to plan, we were on our way from Minnesota to South Carolina to take care of my father-in-law, who had been injured. On an impulse I tossed the calendar into a suitcase. In the midst of so much confusion, shock and irregularity, Karsten forgot everything he'd learned about potty training and too much of what he knew about behaving. But even though he could hardly make a whole sentence on his own yet, he could pick up the Christmas story at any point and keep it going, word for word, as he'd heard it day after day when we did the calendar. (Piper, Noel. Treasuring God in our Traditions. Wheaton, IL: Crossway. 2003. pp78-79)

We tell our children stories; that is without exception. But what is the central story, the repeated and overriding one that we impress upon them?

What better way to repeat and reinforce the story for a toddler than through a lift-the-flap, sequenced panel that leads them through Advent to the birth of the Son of God?