Reusable advent calendars. what do you put in them?

[Tortoise]

Got a lovely wooden advent house in charity shop.
DD1 8 and DD2 7 want to share it so each door will need 2 items in.
Other than chocolate, what do you put in? Or do I make life easy and just put chocolates in?

catsmamma i bought a choccy calenar for my team in work, and they were all arguing about who opened which day...i had to go and buy them one each from Lidl, they were like a bunch of tweenies.

They average 26 years of age!!!!

We have reusable felt ones which we have had for years, and I put a little chocolate santa in each day. Happy children.

All small cheap gifts go in the stocking from Father Christmas.

Catsmamma I was gutted when my Mum stopped buying me advent calendars. First time was the first Christmas I was at Uni. She said I was an adult Why do I still feel like I'm 16 though when Christmas rolls round?

We have a choc/sweet each, a bible verse - and a nativity character to make up a nativity scene. Then some days I add a piece of paper naming an activity - e.g. making mince pies, or making the Christmas presents (each of the boys makes presents for their relatives so they get to properly give presents too)

I put clues in. I succumbed and bought dd a revolting Christmas tree for her room which was the first present, after that she got a bauble every day.

I mainly do choccies or small bits of stationery ( novelty rubbers, highlighters etc ) or tree decorations once our tree is up.

A couple of years ago when DS2 was very into lego, I got a lego racers kit and put two or three pieces in each day. He got the instructions on day one then had the rest of the month to build it.

I do sweets and bit and bobs.

For the cheapest way, for those on a budget - buy a cheap advent calendar from Lidl (89p I think) and use those chocs in your reusable one.

My playmobil figures are the same every year - the nativity scene that they build up to are part of our Christmas decorations. So they're not 'new' toys in that respect. Otherwise, I would agree that it would be too expensive/ too many toys.

Hi

One year i bought a lot of novelty bits from Yellow Moon Catalogue. It did work out quite expensive.

I now put:-
Chocs

Money
Hair Bands
Novelty Stationery
Xmas Stickers

Xmas Decorations
They also have a treasure hunt on Xmas Eve .

My calender is a wooden one and for the larger items i put them in red bag and hang them at the side of the calender

Kids are only 4 & 1, normally I put in balloons to blow up, chocolates, stickers, stuff I've nicked off the front of the cbeebies magazine before DD sees it, last year I bought a set of the ikea finger puppets and that filled up 10 days - Santa arrived on Christmas eve, of course :o

Oh and Wilkos do tiny paint/felt tip/crayon sets for about 30p each, so they appear at some point too.

Silly question as I don't own one of these reusable ones yet
but
Do you fill your drawers before hand,
and if so, do your kids peek and open the drawers ??
I like the surprise element and with an advent calendar the doors are 'glued' shut but I know when I was little I would have looked in all the holes!!

We keep ours up on a high shelf where little kids can't reach it :o

I will fill it after they go to bed when they're a bit bigger though.

Thanks rude

brilliant tip, calendar sorted in 10 mins and Santa helped with stocking too!

Just little wooden German- type Christmas decorations. One in each little drawer and they take turns opening them and hang them on a separate little tree.

I The fairies have to remember to add one to the next day's drawer each evening.

I’m going to do this this year, you’ve given me some fab ideas

Rubbers/pencil sharpeners.
Bracelets/rings.
Marbles.
Temporary tattoos.
One of those fortune telling fish.
Lip balm.
£1 coin.
Individual hot chocolate sachet (the long, thin ones such as Malteasers would probably fit).

We do:

Finger puppets
Little rubbers
Husbands and hairclips
Balloon
Bubbles
Plastic animal or dinosaur
Glowstick
Stickers (sometimes I cut up a big sheet)
Temp tattoos
Badges
Toy rings or bracelets

Mainly it's stuff left over from party bags (either ones I made for my dcs parties or ones they were given and never looked at). And I'll supplement with a few cheap bits and bobs from the pound shop or similar.

We do normally have a couple of bigger things, like an Xmas book or DVD (which get wrapped in tissue paper and propped near the calendar with a date on). I give them as part of the calendar so they can get used during the season.

Ours is a home made quilted thing, made by my aunt I hasten to add, not by me. It hangs on a door in the hall (it's almost door sized) so it's the first thing you see when you come home, and the first Cristmas dec to go up. The pockets are mostly pretty dinky. I buy a net bag of chocolate Christmas puddings, supplement with maybe a few little Lindt teddies or whatever and possibly one lego minifig right at the end. I'll check out some of the links suggested - don't think I'll be creating a monster I have to live up to each year though!

Do you fill it each day? We have 24 tiny "stockings" on a string and I normally put coins for each child in.

4 yr old has raided it last few years, eats days at a time, and then tantrums when his more restrained older brother eats his each day. I let him tantrum of course but it's wearing.

I get nets of chocolates from places like Aldi or M&S, enough for each day.

Then some days have had a free printable colouring sheet from the internet, or a free printable activity sheet (there are lots of word searches, mazes, maths puzzles etc out there if you look!).

Some days I might organize notes for a treasure hunt around the house to get something small (like a lego mini-figure or the very small lego sets or a pack of Match Attax cards one year she was into those).

Some days, it might be a note about something we would do together later that day to prepare for Christmas. Making cookies, writing cards for her class, going to see the Live Crib, doing her present shopping....

And some days it really is just the chocolate. Christmas Eve has a slightly larger pocket, so I tend to get a Lindt baby bear or a Milky Way star or something that little bit special for that day.

I only fill it each night as I go to bed - and one year I had to buy very expensive chocolate toy soldiers in a deli as there were no other chocs left anywhere when DD found the stash about a week before Christmas!

HowAboutCleveland why are you resurrecting so many old threads?

Check my thread from a couple of years ago for more ideas x

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/Christmas/a1543655-Small-gifts-to-fit-inside-Wooden-Advent-calendar-ideas-needed-please