Firstly, an apology - and a warning! A few weeks ago I fell ill with the swine flu and (as an asthmatic) almost immediately went down with a severe chest infection, too. I was in bed and completely incapable for the first week, and not much better for the second. I had worried about my children falling ill, but really hadn't thought what would happen if I did. Please, if you are looking after little children, make sure your cupboards are full, your freezer is stocked, and you have contingency plans worked out with family, friends and neighbours. My children are old enough to look after themselves now, and my husband was also able to help, but if the same thing had happened to me 10 year's ago, I simply don't know how I would have coped. Be prepared, just in case!

OK, that's the warning out of the way! As you can imagine with two weeks in bed, I got very behind with everything, and unfortunately this Advent Calendar message is going out much later than I had originally planned. It gives everyone only the weekend to prepare for all the exciting things we have coming up in our Online Advent Calendar - but please do read on, because we have some great things planned!




Online Advent Calendar

Last year's Online Advent Calendar was hugely popular, but we think this year's is even better! Firstly, we are really excited to be providing a Colouring Advent Calendar this year. We've never seen anything like it before, either on the internet or for sale. We will be providing a mini-colouring page every day which we hope you'll put together into a fantastic Advent Calendar Banner (ours looks so pretty!) or Advent Colouring Book during December. Get more details at the link below.



In addition we'll have a special activity every day - sometimes a craft, sometimes a printable, sometimes a cooking activity - and on top of that we will have games to play, activity suggestions, videos to watch, jokes to enjoy, fun facts and more!




Find out how to get ready for the Colouring Advent Calendar here:http://www.activityvillage.co.uk/coloring_advent_calendar.htm

Links to the Online Advent Calendar

Here are the links for the various Online Advent Calendars:

Advent Calendar 2009 - UK and Europe
Advent Calendar 2009 - Australasia
Advent Calendar 2009 - US and Canada

Crafty Bits And Pieces Needed For The First Week

If you'd like to take part in the craft activities in the first week of the online Advent Calendar, you will need to assemble a few bits and pieces:

Red, white and green pipe cleaners; a yogurt pot and a small jar; gold tissue paper; tracing paper, decorations such as sequins and glitter; ribbon or yarn in Christmas colours; metallic pens; glue and double sided tape.

We have one recipe planned on Tuesday 1st December, for which you will need:Plain flour, caster sugar, butter, vanilla extract, salt, icing sugar (confectioners).

We hope you'll join in the fun with the online Advent Calendar, and tell your friends and family about it!