3 year old's advent ideas: non-chocolate, very cheap, small!

[LivingOnAPrayerYes]

Thinking of getting one of those Advent calendars that you can put something small into a little box or pouch for each day. Don't really want it to be sweets or chocolate (will probably do a few that are, but would rather not all of them). Happy for items to be repeated so I can by multi-packs of things to keep the costs down.

But thinking of 24 things is a bit beyond me right now!

Any ideas?

So far I've though of:
Party poppers (loved them at a party we went to- supervised obviously)
Cress seeds, or something we can plant now and he can actually see grow
Small cars...
... And I'm out!

Help please!

Christmas themed colouring sheet
Christmas themed easy craft
bedtime stories that are Christmas themed

Stickers
other stationery

Bubbles
A little pot of Playdough or slime.
A special tree ornament
Stickers
A toy animal
Crayons
Finger puppet
Bouncy ball

Miniature snowglobe
Kazoo
Mini slinky
Bath crayon or bath bomb

When mine were little, I used to put a little activity written on a piece of paper for each day. It was things like play a board game or make a Christmas card or bake cookies. Sometimes it was very simple stuff like at dinner, tell the best thing about your day. They loved it.

Cute eraser
Washi tape
Marbles
One of those toy animal things that flops when you press the base.

A lot of kids jigsaw puzzles have 24 pieces, maybe you could do that?

Christmas temporary tattoos
Christmas stickers
christmas socks
Christmas snap bracelet
tiny biscuit cutter and bake that day. Or a tube of sprinkles.
little marshmallows and make hot chocolate that day.
I also write activities on a bit of paper to put into it eg today we’re making Christmas cards!

I find eBay has plenty of ideas - search advent calendar filler or Christmas stocking filler.

Just a simple picture advent calendar?

Little decorations that she can hang on her own little tree. Last time I got some from Paperchase but lots of places have them.

Jigsaw is a good idea. Or you could cut up a Christmas picture into 24 parts. A simple cardboard advent calendar with pictures behind the doors is really nice, though not what you asked for.

Balloons, rubber pencil toppers, mini pencils/pens. I found a set of mini notebook, pens and pencils and rubbers in the party bag section of Tesco last year.

Mini kaleidoscope
Mini rubber duck
Special bath soap

Biscuit recipe and you bake them together

Stickers, crayons, bubbles.

I used to love Baker Ross when my two were little. They have great craft packs. You could get a couple of those and split them up to cover a number of days.

Ooh I found a set of glow in the dark stars in Tesco too.

I agree just a picture advent calendar will suffice. We used to love seeing what was behind the door each day.
Or an advent candle?

The Works have some nice little pocket money toys though I'm not sure I'd recommend the Peaky Blinders cards that they also have listed under pocket money toys for little ones. B&M, Home Bargains and Flying Tiger will have some too.

It might also be worth looking in the party sections of supermarkets as they should have some small toys intended for party bags for very little.

Why not save your ideas you’ve thought of for a Christmas stocking- they’re great ideas? If you start now having to think of 24 things, you’ll have to do the same next year and for evermore.

I always put some 'challenges' and some 'tickets' in ours. Challenges are things like- Sing a Christmas song or make a toilet roll snow man.
Tickets are for things that I was going to do anyway but it adds to the excitement e.g. visit Santa, go to the light switch on, make biscuits.

Asda have some mini dinosaurs at £1 for 5 and some other bits in the party bag section too.

We put tree decorations in. We use the same ones every year, they don’t seem to mind. Each day they get to hang a new decoration. Odd chocolate day thrown in for a treat.

OP, be kind to your future self and don’t start an onerous tradition that you will come to dread. Three-year-olds are delighted by picture advent calendars. Take the easy win!

We do Xmas books (the works do an advent selection) books go away in January and then repeat it every year.

Can I ask why no chocolate?
At 3 a little tiny chocolate every day would be their dream! Maybe I'm a little laid back on that front but I'm all for not banning much (except salt!)

Yeah, I might just go with the picture calendars - that was actually my original idea, but I've not even been able to find one and thought I might put a bit of effort into one with a little gift each day.

Thanks for the ideas everyone, I might see if I have time. Or might save these for next year!

@janie85 no problem at all with chocolate- I do try to limit some sugar in normal every day, like we have the no added sugar jam and yoghurts, but that's only because I know he'll get plenty of treats most days throughout the week. My main reason is that like lots of 3 year olds he's absolutely sugar obsessed (cake, ice-cream and chocolate) and he's also very very routine driven. So I worry that I'd be setting us up for a nightmare when we take away the one chocolate a day. Another reason is that if I'm going down that road, I may as well just get a cheap chocolate calendar and save myself a lot of hassle! I guess I was just looking for something more, as at 3 years old it's the first year he 'gets' Christmas and I'm just excited and enthusiastic for that.