Miniature Christmas tree and snowman as advent calendar

thingiverse

This little Advent calendar is an extraordinary gift I designed specifically for my beloved girlfriend. She had asked for something exciting to collect during early Christmas time, rather than just sweets. After considerable thought, I decided to order a 24-piece puzzle (32x25cm) for her, so she can gather one piece each day and attempt to make sense of the unfolding picture until Christmas Eve. Inside this miniature Christmas tree are 24 slots, each designed for one day's puzzle piece. The cute little snowman serves not only as decoration but also pushes the puzzle pieces into the tree. Since the slots are only 20mm deep, the puzzle pieces will fall out when pushed in, dropping from the open bottom of the tree. The primary challenge with this design was achieving stability while ensuring the Christmas tree could fit all the puzzle pieces without consuming excessive filament. I believe my solution was quite effective. Most importantly, my girlfriend loves it! The front is constructed from three separate pieces that need to be glued together (hot melt glue works well for me on PETG, and super glue is a suitable choice for PLA). If your printer can handle the complete front, feel free to print it in one piece. Faster experimentation with the puzzle piece holder was also a reason I chose to use separate pieces. The snowman design is generic; you'll need to scale it according to your preference. I opted for an 8cm height, which resulted in a 2mm thickness that provides a perfect snap into the base plate, eliminating the need for glue. One note on the screw holes: I'm not perfectly satisfied with the diameters I chose for the M3 screw holes. For the free holes (where the screws should not have grip), I selected 3.2mm in diameter. However, 3.5mm would have been a better choice; the screws don't fit easily, but it's not a significant problem. The holes designed for gripping have an inner diameter of 2.6mm, which has always worked for me. Simply forcing a screw into place heats it up from friction, allowing it to melt into the plastic and create a nice thread. In this design, the wall thickness of the little blocks for the screws is relatively low, so I recommend squeezing them into a vise while forcing in the screw for the first time, or using an M3 thread cutter, which worked perfectly well for me. All screws required are M3x6. Happy Christmas and happy crafting!