60+ Activity Advent Calendar Ideas

This year we are making a big deal out of Advent. I am totally overcompensating for the fact that there are no cousins, no nieces and nephews, no aunts, no uncles and no grandparents around, and on as tight a budget as possible, I’m trying to make every day of Advent special in one way or another.

In order to do this we are starting each day with a toy advent calendar, a book advent calendar and an activity advent calendar. We try to marry up the book advent with the activity advent, so if the characters in the book make biscuits, we make biscuits. If they decorate their tree, we decorate ours, and so on. Sometimes the link is only a tenuous one, but a link none the less. It’s more about the togetherness than the actual activity really.

To make our activity calendar as fun as possible, I start by making a list of everything that’s happening around us. Friends are having a Christmas party? There’s a community candlelight walk? There’s a community carols by candlelight? The cathedral in town has a Christingle ceremony? Christmas market? Santa cruises? All these things go on my list and in the calendar. That way I can pre-buy tickets to make December a little less costly. I can also look through the Christmas books and see which stories would marry up with what’s happening in the area, then I number those books with the date of the activity – A ‘Jack Frost’ matinee show at the theatre on 10 December would mean I label the Jack Frost book Number 10.

It’s a fair bit of work and planning and it’s a good idea to have backups like craft activities in case weather, sickness or just not feeling like it change the plans.

Act out the nativity story with a nativity scene
Attend “Carols by Candlelight”
Attend a Christmas concert
Attend a Christmas parade (or watch on TV/YouTube)
Attend a Christmas market

Attend Christmas Eve Mass at a beautiful cathedral
Build a snowman together
Bundle up and go on a sleigh ride
Buy bargain events and activities on websites like Wowcher, Groupon, Living Social, and Little Bird
Buy easy and ready made craft kits – for example Lidl and various Pound shops have small Christmas craft kits, and Baker Ross too
Clean out your toy boxes and donate good quality items to a charity shop
Colour a Christmas picture or make a Christmas craft
Create Christmas messages and videos using Portable North Pole – one for the day you post a letter to Santa, one for a few days before Christmas, one for Christmas eve… loads to choose from
Cut or pick up a Christmas tree
Deck the halls with boughs of holly
Decorate a gingerbread house
Decorate a wreath together
Decorate the tree
Donate tinned food to a food bank
Dress up for dinner one night
Drive around to look at the Christmas lights
Fill a shoe box for Operation Christmas Child or similar shoe box appeal
Go ice skating

Go sledding
Go to a Christingle church service
Go to a tree-lighting ceremony
Hang some mistletoe and give out kisses
Have a candle lit bubble bath and pretend it’s snow!
Have a Christmas party
Have a snowball fight
Have hot chocolate with candy canes
Invite a few friends over for a cookie decorating party
Make (or draw inside) thank you cards that are ready to be filled out after Christmas
Make a magic elf door
Make a snow scene with fake snow and ice crystals
Make a family bed by the Christmas tree
Make a handmade Christmas ornament for someone else in the family
Make a paper garland to hang on the tree, over a door, or in the kids bedroom
Make a photo album of your year and look through it together
Make a silly Christmas message to send out on Christmas day
Make Christmas cookies
Make Christmas trees out of ice cream cones, green frosting, and sprinkles
Make eggnog
Make gingerbread cookies

Make glitter snow globes out of baby food jars
Make hot apple cider
Make paper crowns and talk about the wise men and the gifts they brought Jesus
Make paper snowflakes to hang from the ceiling
Make play dough snowmen
Make sand angels
Make snow angel biscuits
Make sugar crystals on a stick
Make thumbprint snowmen
Make reindeer food
Participate in a local toy drive
Read the Christmas story in the Bible
Roast chestnuts
Roast marshmallows inside over a flame
Subscribe to Weekend Box (Code for free box: Luschka690) or Toucan Box (Code for free box: A1014) for the winter months. First box is free if you use those links and codes
Visit a local farm or donkey sanctuary and talk about Mary and Joseph in the stable
Visit Santa for photos
Visit NORAD to track Santa
Visit a Santa Grotto
Watch the Nutcracker Ballet
Write (or colour on) Christmas cards
Write letters to Santa