advent activities
December 1st, 2011
Today is the first day of advent! Did you make your advent calendar yet? We are still using the string of lights advent calendar I made a few years ago. I put activities in each of the little bulbs and I love it. I write up the activity the night before (surprise your kids, not yourself!) and all the projects keep me on task for christmas. If cookies need to be made, or christmas cards written, or gifts wrapped it’s going to happen if it is in the advent calendar–the 4 and 6 year olds will demand it!
A friend of mine (hi Ellen!) asked me to write up a little list of activities she could use, so here they are! I divided them into effort needed, because sometimes you really need to drink some (spiked) eggnog while the kids watch a movie.
big projects
- make christmas cards
- pipe cleaner ornaments
- meringue snowmen
- bake cookies, cookies, cookies, and candy
- make a gingerbread house
- string cranberries and popcorn (or just cranberries, or dried cranberries and golden raisins, or whatever else is in your cupboard)
- borax snowflakes
- giant cardboard christmas trees
- make pine cone + peanut butter +bird seed feeders and watch the birds eat
- egg carton jingle bells
little projects
- make paper snowflakes (use coffee filters for easy cutting)
- write a letter to santa
- make gift tags
- make dried orange slices ornaments
- wrap presents
- deliver cookies to neighbors
- make jars of love
- make a gingerbread mobile (this is a quick project only if the cookies are already made, of course)
- make pomanders
- woven ornaments (these were a hit with my kids last year)
if it’s cold and snowy projects
- make snow angels
- go sledding (or have a whole sledding party!)
- make ice wreathes
- build a snow fort or a snowman
- have a picnic outside (with a thermos of hot chocolate and some cookies)
- go ice skating
- blow ice bubbles
phoning it in projects
- hot chocolate with marshmallows
- call grandma and grandpa
- dress up like an elf/santa/wise man/christmas tree
- dance to christmas music
- camp out under the tree (this may or may not be an easy one)
- color christmasy pictures–oh look I have a bunch right here
- look at pictures from christmases past
- I think one year I actually wrote down “eat christmas cookies” for an activity
for the whole family
- drive around looking at chrismtas lights
- dress up in your fanciest for dinner
- make popcorn and watch a christmas movie
- go see the nutcracker/christmas carol/holiday concert
- cut down a christmas tree/ put up your christmas tree
- decorate the tree!
- put up lights outside
- go for a evening walk
This list is my no means exhaustive. Some of these we do every year, some are new ones I’d like to try. Do you have any christmas activities or projects for advent? I’m always on the look out for good ones.
Brilliant, thanks so much for all the creative ideas!
Awesome list of ideas! Thank you & happy Advent season:)
Oh, I love these! I did not quite get my act together to do one of these this year, so I am making it my own advent project to get ready for next year.
[…] funny and that she shares what was frustrating or went wrong with her projects. Her post today is a list of advent activities that I’ll be printing out to have on hand in case I need to swap out one of the things […]
I’m hoping to start an advent calendar for my two daughters and you’ve given me so many great ideas. My favorite holiday crafts of all time is the geometric straw ornament that you have posted in your tutorials gallery. My husband is a science teacher (they remind me of DNA models) and I used to help bale straw when I was growing up on the farm, so besides being beautiful, they really make me smile. I have a couple of ideas you might like to try for your advent calendar as well:
cardboard antlers:
http://thecardboardcollective.com/2011/11/18/my-deer/
adding cardboard letters to your Christmas garlands:
http://thecardboardcollective.com/2011/11/08/alpha-beads-learning-to-read-in-english-or-japanese/
Merry Christmas from Japan and thanks for your amazing blog!
This year we have a mischievous gnome who hides around the house with our advent activity or goodies in his pocket. Our gnome is going to be well stocked thanks to you! This list is AMAZING. Thank you, thank you , thank you.
Wonderful list! I’ve already put up our advent calendar, but I’m thinking of extracting a couple of the chocolates (my husband will be grateful) to put in some of these ideas. I put in a few notes, including one ‘tidy your room’ haha, but I love the idea of more activities and less chocolate and little toys! Our advent calendar is a bunch of Xmas cracker inner tubes decorated with scrabooking paper and little cutouts and numbers, and I just wrap things up in tissue paper and stuff them in, with the ends of the paper fluffed out to hide the contents and to look a bit like wrapped sweets. Then each tube just gets paperclipped to the next and they hang in a row looking quite neat.
really nice,thank you!
This is a great list! I can’t wait to try those meringue snowmen and ice bubbles.
I posted our list here:
http://inthepurplehouse.blogspot.com/2011/11/long-awaited-advent-calendar.html
This is so inspiring. I love that some of the activities are very kids friendly. We love to try the snowmen, cookies, beading ornaments and pomanders. Much thanks!
I have learned to sit down with the kitchen calendar when I do the advent calendar activites to keep my sanity. If we are invited to a party, that is often that day’s activity. As is her chorus concert. Some days I really phone it in and just stick the dregs of the halloween candy in there and call it a day. Today was one of those….
Oh, goodness, THANK YOU for posting this. I had in mind to come up with a list last night but I just couldn’t get around to it, and now I don’t have to! You amaze me in all ways. My kids will have to make up for lost time. :)
Wow! I’d say this is a pretty exhastive list, you thought of everything! Thanks for the great ideas, I must say, the movie and eggnog suggestion is looking pretty good to me about now.
this list is really inspiring and i love that there are so many different ideas (not just 24) so you can pick and choose what works best for your family each year. brilliant! one more phoning it in idea–reading christmas books from the library! (although i’d recommend getting these books early in the season. by mid-december they’re likely to all be checked out.)
Your list looks so fun! Thanks for being so creative! :)
What an inspiring list of projects…I have been looking for more ideas–I knew I could count on you for them, Meg! Thank you!
OK, so I made the super-cute meringue snowmen, and they turned out super-cute, but…nearly INEDIBLE they were so sweet. I’ve only made meringue 2 times now…can you reduce the sugar with no effect on the results? Thanks. We really did have fun making them, and they are very sweet (in both senses)…