Holiday Pops and Lights

We have been working our way through the advent calendar test tubes and last night Aaron surprised me with tickets to the RPO Holiday Pops Gala!

I enjoy any opportunity to visit the Eastman Theatre. The Holiday Pops are just the thing to put you in the Christmas spirit.

Afterwards we walked down to the Liberty Pole to see it lit up with lights.

The Liberty Pole is a landmark in downtown Rochester. The first one was erected on the hill at the triangular intersection of East Avenue, Main and Franklin Streets and stood 118 feet tall. The current pole was built in 1965 and is 190 feet tall with a network of steel wires forming a riangle around it's base. There are concerts and other gatherings there but I think it's most well known for the lights at Christmas.

Test Tube Advent Calendar

We are doing an advent countdown again this holiday and using the test tube advent calendar that Aaron made last year. I refreshed it with new Christmas paper. Plaid paper this year. I like to shake things up.

Cork dates

You know I'm starting to feel better when I'm crafting again. Used my woodburner to burn dates into the corks for our test tube advent calendar.

Advent calendar treats

It's fun putting together treats for each day of the advent calendar. One night we had warm chocolate pudding on vanilla ice cream.

We started a mushroom farm.

And had warm cinnamon buns for breakfast.

Do you have an advent calendar? What are some of the treats you include?

Test tube advent calendar

A couple years ago I made us a simple advent calendar with envelopes. I wanted to do it again, but wanted something special. I spent a good bit of time looking at advent calendars on pinterest.

I was cleaning the craft room when I happened upon a bag of test tubes I was saving for Halloween but had a different idea instead. I turned them into an advent calendar!

Each tube has a bit of washi tape and ribbon for decoration. Then I cut out the numbers 1 to 25 on vinyl adhesive with my cricut. Each tube has a slip of patterned paper with the treat for the day written inside.

I think they turned out really cute, but I wasn't happy with my display. I tried putting them in all sorts of containers like this fishbowl but wasn't quite right.

Then Aaron surprised me with this! He made a wood holder for our test tube advent calendar! It's perfect!