'Christmas isn't a season. It's a feeling.'

Its got to that time of year again when you start opening your advent calender's. Seth has been very excited about this coming round and we wanted to make it that little bit more exciting for him and Opeie. I was really disappointed last year when we brought Seth a Lego Star Wars advent calender, i was obviously expecting a lot more and really wasn't impressed with what you got for the £25 asking price. I did write an email to them letting them know this and to be fair they did send me a freebie, which was nice but unfortunately for them i vowed never to waste my money again.

If you have been reading the blog for quite some time then you will probably remember that last year i made Mrs M an advent calender after spending the year collecting rare Dick Bruna books for her collection. It went down a treat and i thought this year i would do the same for the boys. You can guarantee that the boys will end up being brought a calender by someone else and i didn't think it was necessary to get them more chocolate.

Ive spent the last 12 months buying Batman figures for Seth from eBay, charity shops, Carboots and anywhere else i can get my hands on them for cheap. I wasn't sure what i was going to do with them but as it got closer to Christmas i decided that i was going to make a Batman advent. Me and Mrs M talked about it and Mrs M thought it would be nice if we made Opeie one with books as he is a little book fiend. So again i started searching the pages of eBay but this time for books.

Rather than just wrap the Batman figures up Mrs M thought it would be fun to write a story to go with them in short parts which was a great idea as it meant that Seth would have something to practice his reading too. I got cracking on the wrapping of all the days presents and writing a short story and Mrs M made some beautiful fleece pockets for the boys presents to go in. I thought about mounting them on the wall somehow but then Mrs M came up with the idea of hanging them all from the ceiling in Seth's bedroom which turned out to be a great idea and it made the room look amazing.

Seth wasn't with us yesterday so when he got home earlier the boys got to open their first two advent presents. Seth was very excited when he saw his room decorated but also a bit confused as to what it was that was hanging from his ceiling. Once he realised he was desperate to get down the first two so he began his search for number 1 and 2.

Once he had found them i got them down and the boys opened them together which was really cute. Here are what the boys got for day one and two:

 

And Opeie's first two books...

Opeie was all over the Lego Batman figures (no surprise there) and Seth didn't get much of a look in but he was really excited about having new characters for the Lego Ice Cream truck, Helicopter and of course our Jokers Fun house that we have built in the last few months. Seth has been saying all night 'i wonder whats in the others? i cant wait to wake up tomorrow morning'.

Well it all turned out really well and i know as the days go by the boys will get more and more excited. I'm not going to write a post about them every day as I'm sure that might get a little boring for my readers but if you are interested i will be adding them to our Facebook page so please click the link below and while your there please 'Like' the page.

https://www.facebook.com/GiftsFromThePiratesBlog

The great thing about the fleece pockets that Mrs M made is that they can be packed away and reused again next year. Its got me wondering what the boys will be into next year as I'm going to need to start my searching a few months into the new year.