Lots of Little Ideas for Your Kid’s Advent Calendars.
It seems to be increasing in popularity to have a reusable Christmas advent calendar for our children. Not only can it be a more planet friendly option, you can have better control over the goodies that your children get each day and it can be so much more personal and fun! Whether you buy a calendar or make one, there are lots of fun options; from little bags to wrapped packages or mini stockings or old baby socks hanging on a line. Etsy and Not on the High Street have lots of beautiful and personalised options.
The biggest challenge is thinking of what to put into the little bag, box or stocking, which will fit and will also be of some value and not put in the bin straight away. For starters you can find lots of ideas of little gifts in my blogs on Children’s Party Bag Fillers, Eco-Friendly Party Bag Fillers and Handmade Party Bag Fillers.
You can of course put chocolates and sweets in each box, or you could put pieces of Lego or a puzzle piece in each day and by day 24 they have all the pieces to build the model or complete the puzzle. How about some Christmas themed crayons from The Crayon Bug or The Natural Crayon Company. You can find some other great ideas for advent calendars on Five Minute Mum, Twinkl and the Redcross kindness calendar. If you and your children love the outdoors you could also look at the Little Wood Walkers free activity sheets and the 1000 hours outside free advent calendar. Alternatively, collect up all the Christmas jokes from your crackers and pop them in next years advent calendar for a little laugh each day.
You could also individually wrap 24 books – your local Usborne book rep might be offering this service, so it’s all done for you, or you may want to consider buying the books secondhand to be a little more friendly to our planet.
One year I did a mix of advent calendar gifts (things that I could find that were small enough to fit inside the little boxes) and then some slightly bigger gifts, for which I put a clue in the advent calendar on where to find the gift, so it was like a scavenger hunt for my daughter.
For an easy, eco-friendly and cute advent calendar, you could peg up all your old baby socks on a line and number them with a fabric pen.
If you want a more hassle free option and would prefer to buy an advent calendar already made up, how about these Bobble hat advent calendars, where you scratch to reveal a fun and festive craft or activity to do each day. I love these beautiful advent calendars from Meri Meri. You could of course opt for an ‘old fashioned’ cardboard one with pictures behind each door, the WWF often do a nice one with animals. Alternatively you could opt for a plastic free chocolate one from Tony’s Chocoloney.
You may want to get your hands on a copy of the book ‘How Winston Delivered Christmas’, a story of a mouse over 24 (and a bit) chapters, so you can read a chapter each day of advent and each chapter has a festive activity to complete.
I also love the idea of a reverse advent calendar where each day of advent your children put something in a box and at the end of advent the box is donated to charity or a food bank (depending on the type of items that have been put in the box). You could donate tinned or dried foods, old toys, babies clothes etc. If you want to give back, you could also consider this charity advent calendar, where each day you find out the name of a charity that you have contributed to when buying the calendar.
Activity Calendar
If you are hoping to avoid having to buy any little advent gifts, then it might be worth considering writing challenges, activities or random acts of kindness for your children to carry out. Here are some examples of things you could include:
Make a Christmas decoration for the tree
Forage for natural decorations for the house/tree
Learn a Christmas joke
Wear something Christmassy today
Make a Christmas tree out of Lego
Make a Christmas card
Make some Christmas wrapping paper
Write Christmas story
Decorate the Christmas tree
Write a letter to Santa
Make some Reindeer food
Wrap a Christmas present
Learn a Christmas song
Make some gingerbread men or Christmas cookies
Donate something to charity
Watch a Christmas movie
Make your own nativity set
Decorate your own Christmas jumper
Visit an elderly neighbour
Make a Christmas wreath
Write your Christmas cards
Make some festive paper chains
Make some mince pies
Read a Christmas story
Take a walk to spot the Christmas lights
Do something nice for your sibling today
Make a snack for Santa (on 24th)
Elf on the Shelf
Of course, you may also want to do Elf on the Shelf! I started this last year with my daughter and while it’s a big commitment to keep it up for the month, it’s a lot of fun. I really enjoyed making little props for the elf for each day of advent too. He now has some little boots and a hand knitted jumper (courtesy of granny), an apron, a front door and a stocking .
I hope this has given you lots of ideas for your children’s advent calendar fillers. I’m always happy for new ideas, so feel free to drop me an email if you have any of your own suggestions!
