Advent Calendar Sans CANDY??!!

Well, not quite.  But for the past couple years, I've been looking for a reusable Advent calendar that I could fill with whatever I wanted, be it candy or redeemable coupons for kid-size salads at dinnertime, seasonable veggies, etc.  You know, because I'm a fun mom like that.

So last year I got an unnatural urge to hit a post-Christmas sale and came out of it with this:

Pretty cool, I think, and so do the kids.  This will be our first year using it, and as I was racking my muddled brain for WHAT to fill it with, a friend of mine suggested using scripture...specifically, Biblical prophecy of the birth of Christ.  Of course, that led to a Google search, and I found a site called Teachingmom.com.  It's a couple years old, but the webpage on advent calendars can be found here, and if you scroll down, she has two links to Advent verse chain links for a 23-day Advent.  (You can fill the extra days with candy.  Or redeemable coupons for plain yogurt).  I'm thinking of printing these out on some red and green paper and making the actual chain link so we can add a bit of Christmas cheer to these plain, white, to-be-painted-someday walls.  And I'm excited that the kids will get to see the amazing accuracy with which the Old Testament prophets told of our coming Savior!

And the redeemable coupons for healthy food?  I'm kidding...I think.