As holidays go, we’re most accustomed to seeing countdowns at Christmastime.  However, the days between Early* and Latter Firstfruits (Shavuot) are known as the “Counting of the Omer”  (Omer is an old Hebrew word for “sheaves,” so it’s the “counting of the sheaves.”) and we’re meant to count these days!  The Bible says, in Leviticus 23:15-16:

“And you shall count for yourselves from the day after the Sabbath, from the day that you brought the sheaf of the wave offering: seven Sabbaths shall be completed.  Count fifty days to the day after the seventh Sabbath; then you shall offer a new grain offering to the LORD.”

In honor of the Counting of the Omer, today I’m sharing a list of ways to celebrate by marking a countdown.  These are fairly general, in order to keep them applicable to any holiday or event you want to count down to.  Just change the specifics to match the occasion.

Do keep in mind that although some of these methods can be used by either adding or subtracting some element, things that “disappear” are especially good for young kids, as this enables them to visualize the dwindling time.

Ways to Mark a Countdown

1. Make paper chains.
   To mark a countdown with a paper chain, you create a chain with as many links as there are days in your countdown, and remove/discard a link each day.  I’ve seen some pretty creative variations on this one!  Some Pinners have made heart-shaped links, and this Martha Stewart Crafts video shows how to make a gorgeous lacy punched chain.   If you don’t want something disposable, you can even make a similar chain with fabric and buttons or velcro.
2. Trim something.
   The original idea I saw used an image of Santa with a very long beard.  The beard was divided into numbered “stripes,” and one strip was intended to be cut off each day.  The same principle can be used with other motifs, too, though.  For instance, one could slice a loaf of (paper) bread for this time of year.
3. Use an Advent-style calendar.
   There are numerous variations on this concept, but the idea is the same in all of them: users open numbered doors/pouches/pockets/envelopes each day to find something inside, whether that something is verses, activities, treats, etc.
4. Fill something up.
   This only really works if you use predetermined amounts and/or designate “fill lines” for each day, because you have to know when the thing is full!  You could fill a jar with candy or colored water.  You could create layered sand art.  (Use a designated quantity of sand each day, and when all the colors are gone, you’re done.)  You could add pebbles or beans to a special container.  You get the idea.
5. Or empty it out.
   Alternatively, start by filling something up, and count down by removing the contents day by day.  (One way to really maximize this option would be to give away whatever is in the jar.  Of course, you’d want to determine that ahead of time so you plan to fill the jar with something gift-worthy.  It doesn’t necessarily have to be big or fancy, but you probably don’t want to be gifting people individual rocks or dry beans!)
6. Mark the dates on a calendar.
   This is a very simple method – but it works.  Cross of the dates on the calendar as they pass (and be sure the date of the “big event” is marked so children can identify it).
7. Make a pennant-style banner.
   Either add a pennant each day, or remove one each day.
8. Use a sign to indicate the remaining number of days.
   A chalkboard or white board is a great option for this.  Just write something like, “______ days until [your event/holiday],” then fill in the number and change it daily.  You can either write the whole thing in an erasable medium, or you can create a permanent piece of décor with the phrase incorporated and just change the number itself.  (You might be surprised by how excited kids can get over something this simple!)
9. Build something with a set number of pieces.
   This can vary considerably, and could get very creative.  It could be something like a nativity scene that has the right number of pieces to correspond with your days to count down – you could add a piece each day to the display.  Or you could build something from blocks.  Or Legos.  Or complete some craft made from an odd assortment of pieces.  The tricky aspect to this one is finding something that uses the right number of pieces (or adapting it so it does).
10. Uncover/unwrap something in layers.
    Try wrapping a surprise for the kids, and wrap it in as many layers as there are days.  (I’d recommend making the alternate layers look very different from one another so it’s easy to tell if you’ve removed just a single layer, and removed it completely.)  You could also uncover something by degrees.  Our Advent calendar works this way.  We remove a large tag each day to uncover a nativity scene by Christmas.
11. Pop balloons.
    The kids might enjoy the energetic nature of this one, although it might not be as good an idea for those with crawling babies or inquisitive pets who could potentially get into broken balloon pieces.  Blow up a balloon for each day at the beginning, and pop one every day.  Variations on this would include placing something inside the balloons so it’s revealed when you pop them.
12. Color sections of an image.
    This would take some advanced planning, but has the advantage of being simple and not very messy come implementation time.  The idea here is to create a coloring page with as many segments as days, and color one each day.  Alternatively, you could do a color-by-number-type thing, and color all the spaces with a given number in them each day.
13. Or add an embellishment daily.
    If you don’t want to color a page, you could also start with a designated image and add some sort of embellishment to it daily.  Again, the typical example here is Santa’s beard: people will print/draw an image of Santa with a large beard containing 25 circles.  Each day the kids glue a cotton ball to a circle until the beard is full.  But just as the beard-trimming idea can be adapted, so can this.  A sheep could be covered in cottonballs.  A bell could be adorned with sequins.  Diamonds could be added to a crown.  Heads of decorative wheat could be added to a sheaf.  Of course there are many more possibilities!
14. Use an abacus (or abacus-style counter).
    Start with all the beads at the right and move them to the left day by day, or vice versa.
15. Create art by filling in an inchie a day.
    An “inchie” is simply a one-inch-square piece of art.  You can create it however you like: doodle, draw, paint, collage, cut it from larger art – whatever you want.  Create a grid of 1-inch squares for your countdown, and add an inchie a day.  (This one would work best, I think, when counting down days that are easily divisible, so you get a nice squared grid.)
16. Make a game board-style countdown.
    The idea here is to show something progressing toward the goal at the end.  The simplest way to do this is merely a variation of the calendar method: you make a board, banner, image, or whatever with the proper number of spaces and mark one off each day so the “filled” portion progresses along a path.  (The difference between this and the calendar option is that this would not “jump back” to the left each week, like the resetting of a typewriter.)  For a more fun option, actually move a figure along the path.  You could use an actual game board for this, or just use the concept of a game board to inspire a decoration created specifically for this purpose.  (Think in terms of the countdown widgets you sometimes see online, but in an offline format.)

    

17. Use Bible Quilt Journaling to journal the predetermined number of verses (or keywords/ideas/themes).
    Dianna Mills, the creator of Bible Quilt Journaling, has done that here with a page for Advent:

    

Do you have other ideas for marking a countdown – or specific ideas these prompted for counting down to particular holidays or events?  I’d love to hear your feedback in the comments!  (And if any of these inspire you to make a countdown and you blog about it, I’d love to see a link your finished product!)

*There is a little bit of disagreement here.  Within a discussion of Passover, the Bible says to count seven sevens from the Sabbath (and then the following day is the 50th day).  The majority opinion among Jews is that this first Sabbath is the “special Sabbath” which is Passover itself.  Among other things, this would mean that Early and Latter Firstfruits would fall on a different day of the week each year, as does our Christmas.  However, one particular segment of Jews believes – and our family believes this is the proper reading of Scripture, as well – that the passage refers to the regular weekly Sabbath that falls within the week of Unleavened Bread.  This would mean that Firsfruits always falls on Sunday.

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