Since my twins were tiny (they're now the grand old age of 16), I have always made them a handmade Advent calendar. Rather than fill it full of gifts or sweets, I decided to give each day of December its own special activity or treat. And I promise this alternative advent calendar idea is not as much hard-work as it sounds!
The first activities that I plan in are those that are fixed in the diary already. These might be pre-booked events such as the pantomime or tickets to ice-skating or a festive lights display, but I also include key calendar events like the school nativity play, or school Christmas dinner day.
Pre-booked activity suggestions
- Celebrate Christmas jumper day
- Take part in the school nativity play
- Enjoy your school Christmas dinner
- Go to the Pantomime
- Attend a festive lights event
- Visit Father Christmas
- Go ice skating
For my 2022 Advent calendar, I wrapped the activities around candles.
Pre-planned activities
Once those calendar commitments are locked into the advent activities list, I then come up with other activities to fit the remaining days, depending on what else we have planned. This is where you can get creative, and mix easy wins with others that require a bit more thought, pre-planning or you need to source some materials for them.
Some involve being out and about, others are quiet things that the kids can do at home after a busy day at school. It’s an organic list – I’m often to be found late the night before (or bleary-eyed first thing in the morning), hurriedly trying to swap that day’s activity because I’m missing a vital ingredient (due to poor planning on my part) or the weather outside is too atrocious to attempt to venture out so we need a home-based activity instead.
- Make a gingerbread house
- Bake Christmas biscuits
- Decorate the Christmas tree
- Do Christmas colouring
- Have a Christmas movie marathon
- Go for hot chocolates after school (or set up a hot chocolate station at home with a Chocolatier)
- Make a Lego festive set (we re-build the same one every year) like this alpine lodge
- Complete a Christmas jigsaw
- Wear Christmas socks
- Do Christmas puzzles (I buy a book like this from Amazon or look for free printables)
For this advent calendar I tucked the activities into thin tubes hanging up on the wall.
Easy filler activities
The last set are what I call 'filler' activities and these are your no-hassle options for when life is super busy. I essentially take everyday tasks that have to happen no matter what, and give them a festive twist. Anything – from breakfast to bath time – feels magical if you just do it by candlelight!
- Put sprinkles on your cereal
- Eat dinner by candlelight
- Have a candlelit bath (I often throw in some glowsticks too!)
- Enjoy a kitchen disco (this year I'm planning to use our portable karaoke machine for a Christmas sing-along!)
- Read a Christmas story
How to assemble your calendar
I use a spreadsheet to plan out the whole month's activities in advance. Then it's a case of creating the physical calendar to unveil on 1 December. Whether you want to go all-out crafting a masterpiece, or keep thing is simple is totally up to you. There are loads of creative ways to make your own (or you can buy kits or advent sets), but ultimately all you need is each activity written down to be opened on the relevant day.
I actually love crafting, so I've created a fair few different calendars over the years – most of which have been used more than once. There was one year when I carefully printed all the activities out, but usually I just write them down on slips of paper. This year, I'm planning to pop them in these mini envelopes from Amazon which I'll number and then hang from a winter branch along with a few other Christmas baubles.
I started this advent tradition when my twins were four years old, and over the years they really bought into the idea, and would always get so excited about finding out what the calendar held in store for the day. For the first couple of years they were young enough to be oblivious to the existence of chocolate calendars, and then I did manage to withstand the pester-power until they went to secondary school.
At that point, in the interests of keeping the activity advent alive, I compromised and gave into their demands for chocolate by keeping a jar of Christmas choccies next to the calendar so they could pick out one a day, along with their activity.
Our advent calendar tradition is now firmly woven into our countdown to Christmas, and there are certain days – such as 'decorate the tree' or 'make a gingerbread house' that are real highlights of everyone's December. We've continued with it even now my twins are in their teens, although I have had to adapt the concept a little given I can't control their social schedule quite as well as I could when they were small!
I buy myself a bit of flexibility with a lucky dip bag of little presents, so if I can't find a suitable advent activity that suits everyone's various schedules, I swap in one that says 'Pick from the lucky dip bag.'
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