“The Nightmare Before Christmas” Pop-Up Advent Calendar

Celebrate Christmas by mixing in some Halloween fun with the “Nightmare Before Christmas” pop-up advent calendar. It’s a fun way to count down the days to Christmas, but I have a couple of ways to make it a little more festive.

The Contents

Opening the large “book,” the Christmas tree unfolds from between the covers and stands upright. It is printed with decorations, some of which are little jack-‘o-lanterns, and it is made of good, sturdy cardstock.

As with any pop-up book, you’ll want to be careful when closing it so that the tree doesn’t get bent.

The book’s two large panels are made of thick, dense chip board. That means that the advent calendar can certainly be used over and over for years to come. There are 26 compartments for storage, 25 of them containing a decoration for the Christmas tree.

Each day, beginning December 1, a numbered compartment is opened to reveal a new ornament to hang on the tree. Each ornament features either a character or an object from the stop-motion animated film.

The ornaments could have been better made; they are just flat cardstock prints. I think they would have been far superior as semi-three-dimensional pendants. Plastic or metal, they definitely would have looked better. But, that doesn’t take too much away from the fun.

When completed, the tree doesn’t look all that festive. But, with all of the hook-like branch tips, the tree could easily be embellished with some festive Christmas beaded garland. For added fun, I think a strand of battery-operated fairy lights would also go a long way toward adding some holiday cheer!

Inside one of the large compartments is a small booklet, which is divided into 2 parts.

Part 1 contains a brief story of the movie, supplemented with still images captured straight from the film. For such a small booklet, the images are impressively crisp and clear.

Part 2 of the booklet describes all 24 ornaments, and each is numbered so that you know which compartment to put them back into. The 25th ornament, which is the tree topper, is not listed.

Making It More Festive

Just for fun, I wrapped the tree with battery-operated lights and home-made “pumpkin” garland.

The garland was made by stringing putka pods, the dried fruit of an Australian tree. I used a pin vise & micro drill bits to carefully drill holes into each putka pod, and then I strung them with black crochet thread (I think it was size 10, but don’t quote me on that).

The tree definitely looks more festive.

Overview

Overall, the “Nightmare Before Christmas” pop-up advent calendar is a fun holiday piece for any fan of the film/holidays. It does have some room for improvement, but that’s nothing that some mini decorations can’t fix.

Whether I decorate it one day at a time or all at once, I look forward to digging the advent calendar out of the dusty boxes of Christmas decorations each year.

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