When I was a child, my mom received a Christmas greeting card that opened up to be the shape of a large paper wreath. Inside were 24 little cut-out paper dolls that were to be inserted into numbered slits in the wreath, one for each day of the month. It was a Christmas advent calendar, themed "Christmas Around the World". Each of the paper dolls was uniquely dressed to represent different countries and their traditional wardrobe. My sisters and I rotated each day placing the paper dolls on the wreath as Christmas approached, and I always looked forward to my turn. I loved waking up in the morning and putting my doll in her numbered slot on the wreath! My mom no longer has that wreath--it was well-loved and became worn out from years of using it! I wish I had a picture of it, because I have such fond memories of anticipating so many approaching Christmases with it, but unfortunately I don't have one.
We use different advent calendars now in our home than the one that I grew up with, but the advent calendars my boys use still produce the exact same feelings of anticipation and excitement about Christmas approaching that I remember feeling in my childhood!
We have two identical flannel nativity advent calendars that hang on the wall, and the boys alternate between hanging up a different character each day. We all like watching the nativity scene unfold as the holiday nears! It's exciting when baby Jesus gets to be laid in the manger each December 24th on the calendar!
Each of my boys also gets their own Chocolate Countdown. Every day in December, the first thing they do after waking up in the morning, is come in to the kitchen to get the day's chocolate. They open a little numbered door on the box decorated with a Santa scene, to discover a small uniquely-shaped milk chocolate inside. 
Unfortunately, this year Kanyon sneakily opened several doors on everyone's calendars, and took most of their chocolates about 10 days into the month. The boys were SOOO upset! I told them I would just buy them all replacement chocolate calendars, but every store we went to were all sold out of them by that time. Ammon, Jonah, and Micah were all extremely disappointed!
So, instead I just bought bags of chocolate bars, and told each boy that they could have one chocolate bar a day until Christmas, and they willingly accepted that! Although it wasn't as fun as opening the doors and finding cute-shaped chocolate, they still got their chocolate fix each day!!
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