Never-Too-Late Advent Calender DIY!

A friend was saying how sad she felt because she had a late start getting ready for Christmas. She missed getting her Advent Calender out of storage in time for her kids to start counting off the 24 days of December. Just by sheer coincidence, I had to improvise my Advent Calender this year, because I wanted to give my teenage boys treats to unveil that would be more interesting, to them, than the traditional ones. Instead of pennies (loose change), little chocolates or gumdrops, I opted for small toys, notes, and edibles for a more grown up pallet. (I'll show you what I gave them later) Getting back to my friend. I told her that if she made her own Advent Calender, she could start the countdown anytime! Example: Why not do the "Twelve Days of Christmas." Start the calender on December 12th instead of the 1st. For the really busy parent, maybe just the last week before Christmas Day works best. The point is, when you make your own calendar, you make your own rules! :)

So here is the Calender I made for my boys, 17yo and 14yo). As you can see, I took average brown paper bags which can be bought at any dollar store, decorated them with holiday stickers, ink stamps, and glued buttons. Most of my decorations were leftover from last year, but I did buy a few extras at Wal-Mart.

I used the wall space at the foot of my staircase and cutout a big square of wrapping paper for the Calender background. I used push pins to keep it in place and also to tie the string to the pins that the brown bags will hang from.
Because I have 2 boys, I decided it would be best to hang 1 week's worth of treat baggies at a time. So each boy got one row of seven baggies on the Calender. If I had more wall space, or only 1 boy, then I may have been able to put all 24 baggies at the same time. But as I said before, "you make the Calender, you make the Rules!" :D
Now here's a few examples of what I put inside the baggies for my boys.
Day 1 was a love note from mom and little plastic whale and shark. Remember, you don't have to give expensive treats. God knows we already spend enough on actual Christmas presents! LOL This is just a fun little thing to get them in the holiday spirit.

Day 7 just a little 2 sided note and a mechanical pencil. They always need more office supplies during the school year, so why not incorporate that into the treats.

Day 9 Chocolate Wafer Cigars. (Wal-Mart). I split a $2 box b/n the two boys and wrapped the wafers with red ribbon. So easy it felt like cheating.

Remember, the treats don't have to be extravagant and you can start your own Calender anytime during the month of December!
Oh and please don't worry about my 2yo princess! She got her own special Calender. (Not featured here).
Ok, have fun making! And please comment if you have any suggestions, improvements, opinions. Would love to hear your thoughts! Thanks for checking out my post and Happy Holidyas!!!
-@sillychatchat