Christmas Card Boxes (and Advent Calendar!)

I always keep my Nativity themed Christmas cards because the children, especially at our school lunchtime club, love to look at them and talk about the Nativity story.

I learned to make boxes out of cards a few years ago and I often make boxes out of my Christmas cards and put little gifts in them.  It struck me that if I made 25 boxes, I could turn them into an Advent Calendar that could contain sweets or little gifts for each day but would be very rooted in the Nativity story and would provoke thoughts each day about the characters portrayed on each box.  Here's how I made it if you fancy having a go yourself!

 Collect last year's Christmas cards (Nativity themed only!)

 Separate the front and back of the cards.  The front will be the top of your box and the back will be the bottom of the box.  Slightly trim the back piece along one length and one width so it is a tiny bit smaller than the front piece.

 With a ruler or length of card, rule off sides of equal depth. Cut four slits as shown. Fold the pieces inwards to make a box shape and secure with sellotape.  

 Do this for front and back pieces

 Hopefully the box top will fit over the bottom piece quite snugly...

Now make 25 boxes, number and arrange!  It takes a while to do, but hopefully you'll be able to keep it for more than one year!