I bought this iron advent calendar on sale after Christmas last year, from Pottery Barn. Then I used printable gift tags (easy to find if you search on pinterest) and shopped my craft drawer to fill it in. Trenton, our four-year-old, eagerly asks to pick an activity first thing when he wakes up. Want to see what we’ve been up to so far this month?
- Go see Santa arrive by helicopter! (This is a wonderful local tradition for us!)
- Open one wrapped gift. (A copy of “Twas the Night Before Christmas”)
- Make a Christmas craft. Snowballs glued onto to paper to make snowmen!
- Choose an ornament from the tree to take to preschool Show and Tell.
- Have a snowball fight with snowballs made out of newspaper. (The boys ate this one up!)
- Go to the store and pick out a poinsettia.
- Make candy cane cookies. (Love these!)
- Read Christmas books under the glow of the tree before bed.
- Make wassail.
- Watch The Nativity (or other Christmas video) for family night.
- Have a Christmas music dance party.
- Cut out paper snowflakes.
- Introduce the reindeer cam! You can watch a video feed on a couple of Santa’s reindeer, and be sure to check out the FAQ page where it tells you what time Santa feeds the reindeer in your time zone!
- Before bed, pop popcorn and watch an episode of anything Christmasy on Netflix.
- Attend the church Christmas party and see Santa!
- Visit Gladys in her assisted living facility.
- Eat a “fancy” dinner by candlelight, at home.
- Take children’s Christmas portraits by the tree. (Totally informal, but I’m hoping if I play it up enough, the boys will actually go for it!)
- Make Santa beards with bubbles in the bath.
- Pack for Grandma’s!
Days 21 – 25 are free days, since we’ll be in Utah then! I cannot wait!
I made sure most of my activities were pretty easy, and it’s good thing, too—because I think I would have gone batty if I had done anything more elaborate! Are you guys doing an advent calendar this year?
These are such cute, low key ideas! And I like that they’re mostly free.
I didn’t even think about how most of them were basically free, but thank goodness they were easy! I bet Henry will be a great age for it next year!
What a fantastic list of holiday activities to do with your boys! I’m sure they were going nuts over most of these!! I’m going to keep this list in mind for next year, when A will be better able to appreciate them. And your advent calendar format? So creative and fun!