Create Your Own ‘24 Days To Christmas’ Advent Calendar

A few years ago, I read a blog post written by a fellow blogger friend, Andrea, which outlined her “25 Days of Christmas” tradition. In a nutshell, before December arrives, you brainstorm activities to do each day, leading up to Christmas day. The activities should all be fun, things that everyone involved will enjoy and things that you may not always get to do.

After reading Andrea’s post, I decided that this was something I wanted to do with my kids, who were still quite little at the time, but old enough to understand and take part. I brainstormed 24 activities that were age-appropriate, and off we went.

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Each day, the kids were so excited to see what the little piece of paper inside the envelope would say. Their eyes would light up when they heard what it was, and excitement built until the time they would get to do what the little piece of paper said. Seeing all of these things made me happy, and it still does, all these years later.

Ever since doing this activity for the first time, it has been an annual, must-do tradition, and we have created many special memories throughout the years.

If this is something you think your family would like to do as well, here’s how to get started. I’ve also included some activity ideas to get you thinking about your own, as well as some tips.

Activity Ideas

When figuring out what your family’s 24 activities will be, think of things that are age-appropriate for your kids. The activities can change each year but there will be some you’ll want to repeat each year because they were such a hit. Also think of some new things that you have never done before.

Depending on the activities you choose, you don’t need to spend any money at all, and based on how things go the first year, you can adjust the activities to suit your family in future years.

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Here are some ideas to get you started:

• write letters to Santa
• go to the library and borrow some Christmas books
• go to the Santa Claus parade
• make a special ornament for the Christmas tree
• decorate a gingerbread house
• write and mail Christmas cards to friends and family
• bake Christmas cookies
• watch Christmas specials before bed
• visit Santa at the mall
• make some homemade treats for teachers, family, and/or friends
• go Christmas shopping
• build a snowman
• have hot chocolate with supper
• buy a few food items at the grocery store to donate to the school or local food drive
• put up the Christmas tree and decorate the house
• read Christmas books for bedtime stories
• watch a Christmas movie before bed
• have a pizza picnic supper by the Christmas tree while watching a Christmas movie
• go tobogganing
• go skating
• make paper snowflakes and decorate windows
• wrap presents

The list can go on and on!

Tips:

1. Figure out how you want to make your advent calendar. Some use envelopes, others use paper bags, or even match boxes — it's totally up to you! If you would rather make your own envelopes, you can use this printable template.
2. If you don’t want to make individual envelopes for each day, you can decorate just one and use it as the “Christmas Activity Envelope".
3. Choose each activity the night before or in the morning. If you choose them all days beforehand, you can run into issues with not wanting or not being able to do a specific activity on the day you had planned for.

And finally, have fun! This activity is meant to be stress-free. Use it to build excitement for the holiday season, to do fun things together, as a family, and to create long-lasting memories.