Beyond Advent Calendars: Activites to Count Down Christmas

Instead of a store bought Advent calendar counting down the days until Christmas with a small piece of candy for each day, why not create a Christmas tradition that your family will remember for years to come?

An Advent Calendar is a calendar of twenty five days that begins the first day of December and counts down to Christmas Day. Typically, there are little boxes or compartments that open to reveal a little treat or piece of candy. On the day you are counting down, you would open the compartment, eat the candy and be done for the day with your advent calendar. With these ideas you can truly make counting down to Christmas a family tradition that will be remembered lovingly in your family.

It is easy and inexpensive, but the results will create a lovely tradition. To create the calendar, simply attach a long piece of thick ribbon (gold, silver, green, red) across your fireplace or on the wall with finishing nails. Then, with small, colorful clothespins, attach 25 folded pieces of cardstock in holiday colors numbering from 25-1 across. Each day leading up to Christmas, you allow the children to open one card and the family does the activity on the card leading up to Christmas.

Here are some ideas of what you can put on the cards:

Write a letter to santa

Bake holiday cookies for the neighbors (and a few for yourself!)

Make hot cocoa and watch the snowfall

Watch a favorite holiday movie together with popcorn, snuggled under a blanket

Play in the snow at night

Have a present wrapping night where the family wraps gifts and listens to Christmas music

Decorate a gingerbread house or make gingerbread cookies to decorate

Make pinecone bird feeders (pine cones smeared with peanut butter rolled in birdseed) to hang outside for the winter birds

Make paper chains and paper snowflakes to decorate the kids' rooms with

Drive around a neighborhood who "does it up" for the holidays and admire all the lights and decorations

Go pick out, cut down, or put up your Christmas tree and decorate it together.

Go to your town's tree lighting ceremony together,

Go sledding as a family at a local park.

Plan with friends to go carolling around the neighborhood, or even have a small intimate get-together with singing and snacking.

Then, every day leading up to Christmas will be building a memory that you and your children will cherish. Merry Christmas!