Advent calendars are one of our favourite parts of Christmas – it really is one of the first true signs that Santa is coming soon! Not many parents want to be filling their little rascal’s bellies with chocolate or candy every day, so have you thought of switching up tradition? Here’s a few fun ideas that you can easily put together yourself – take a look!
- A book advent calendar! Instead of having a new candy or chocolate every day, try opening up a brand new (or gently loved) book for a new bedtime story every night! You can choose to stick to a holiday theme with all of the Christmas books your heart desires, or just stockpile some books you know they’ll love all year long.
- An activity advent calendar! Take some scrap pieces of paper and write down some activities you know your kiddo will love. It doesn’t have to be extravagant – think of things like build a snowman, have a snowball fight or even bake a batch of Christmas cookies! Your imagination can run wild with this one so have as much fun as possible with this one.
- A movie advent calendar! There are SO many amazing holiday movies so this one can be pretty easy to do too. Keep in mind – an advent calendar doesn’t need to run all month long. You can keep it going for a few weeks or the whole month if you’d like. Put together a list of all your favorite movies you’d like to watch before the end of the season; we love Home Alone, Elf and the Santa Claus (just to name a few) – the sky is the limit!
- A sock advent calendar! We did this one a few years ago and it was a huge hit with my 5-year-old. A different pair of socks everyday and we opened them first thing in the morning, so he had a fresh new pair to put on for school. It sounds so simple, but it was a blast! He was so excited to wake up every morning to see what was in store for him.
- A joke advent calendar! Similar to the activity a day idea, starting every day off with a funny joke is sure to get the whole family giggling. Mix it up with some longer jokes and some knock knock jokes thrown in, your little rascal is sure to love this fun idea instead of getting a daily chocolate!
We hope you loved these ideas for how to make your own DIY Advent Calendar’s this year! If you haven’t done this tradition in the past due to the sugary contents of most grocery store calendar’s, these ideas are for you! If you’ve ever done your own DIY advent calendar we’d love to hear about it over on our Instagram page!