Because I refused to pay $48.95 for it....

While looking on Garnet Hill's website, I found this adorable advent calendar of sorts that used small buckets.   I thought it was cute.  A great idea.  But for $50?  Nope.  I can buy too many boxes of Krispy Kremes with that much cash. :)

So I decided to get crafty and make our own little buckets of joy advent calendar. When the kids were really younger, T5's Mimi, would always send us one of those Advent calendars with the little paper doors or windows that you could punch out each day and find a little chocolate treat inside.  Did y'all have those?  Or do you get them for your kids?  It's just so fun to count down the days until Christmas!!

Of course, after several rounds with the hot glue gun (because I know not how to sew) I was ready to call it quits!  Let's just say if I had a cuss jar set up in the kitchen nearby, we could have all retired by now.  I could have paid for my kids plus the Duggar kids (all 18 of them) to attend college.  At an Ivy League school, no less.

See these nice little balls of dried up glue mixed with charred flesh?  Yep....I'm telling you, the hot glue gun is of the devil. Luckily, I survived, and no one heard the nasty words that spewed forth during the making of the buckets of JOY. And I promptly packed the glue gun away.  No more crafty projects for me without a glass of vino before, during and after.   

Of course there has been much drama with the decision to see who would get to start with the first bucket.  Middle Boy was chosen.  As he is usually always in the second spot whether we go from youngest to oldest or oldest to youngest....hence the name Middle Boy. He deserved it.  I also had to inform the kids that I wouldn't be filling the buckets all up until the accounted for day, because they are kids....who peek....and would topple the buckets on day one just to see what would fall from all 24.  Life at House of Bowling is never dull....just ask the lady with the hot glue still stuck to her fingers.

Here's hoping you have BUCKETS OF JOY this Christmas season.