What do you all put inside your advent calenders other than ..

[spookysal]

Chocolate, tree decorations and ideas for an activity.

Really need suggestions as I have one to fill and have nothing inside it.

Please help!

We always have an activity. Might be decorate the Christmas tree, might be watch a particular Christmas film, might be eat mince pies or drink hot chocolate. Some of them are a bit more involved, like make paper chains or do some Christmas baking.

Partly because the pockets on mine are reall small and nothing else fits in them! So slips of paper it is.

sorry should say really

I just don't think we are organised enough for activities. I could write 'make cards after school' for example but then dd1 could come home from school exhausted or dd2 could be having a bad day and then we'd fall behind and I know we'd never catch up.

The drawers on mine are really small as well so that doesn't help!

lego/playmobil figures? Mini Father Christmas/ Snowman etc figures if you can find them.

Am watching with interest...

ooohh, ooooh... a slip of paper with a clue about where a larger present is!

(or is that a bit of a cheat?)

I bought a little set of 12 lovely mini tree decorations from sainsbury's today for £5. I have two to do so that's six days sorted. Then I have various other chocolates like the little Lindt reindeers and penguin smarties but will keep those for weekends as a bit big for before school! Also got a keyring each, a stretchy man, a bouncy ball, a lip balm, novelty rubber, still got a few more to buy but was thinking of getting a cheap chocolate advent calender and using the chocs from that. I was also thinking a 50p piece or pound coin one day with a little message saying to spend in sweet shop after school.

I've decided not to use the advent calender this year as it cost a bloody fortune to fill for 2 DDs.
Boring chocolate calender this year i'm afraid.

Toy cars, Lego minifigures, Pokemon figures and chocolates. Once I managed to get some Christmas socks in!

We have candles on the table at dinnertime - it's nice and cosy, and DS gets to light them and learn about fire safety! He's mad about numbers, so imagine my joy when I spotted a set of advent tealights for about £8 or £9 at Lakeland. You get 24 tealights with numbers outlined in red. Not bad. So I too was wondering what to put in his advent calender when (duh) it struck me to put a little tea light in each one, to be lit that evening at dinnner time. Just to break up the predictability of this idea, I'll put a teeny tiny chocolate or 20p, etc in some of the pockets for a thrill.

Marks and sparks usually do little bags of santa chocs, I was going to get some of them. I bought some finger puppets off ebay, some self inking christmas stamps from baker ross, a cheap set of wooden bead bracelets. Was going to get some tattoos too.

I buy a small lego set and then break it up putting the pieces for each stage of the build in order in a pocket of the advent calendar alongwith a piece of chocolate. Each day you go to the advent calendar and take out the pieces to build until on Christmas Eve you have a complete set. I keep the instructions safely hidden so that I can tell what goes where but they do not know. If you choose seasonal lego then you can also build up a little Christmas scene.

There's some great ideas on here. Thank you.

Last year, as DD was old enough to enjoy it, I put something else with the choc every day (but only putting it in the night before). Some days it was colouring or acrtivity sheets. Other days it was a note to say we'd have a walk in the park to collect pine cones (dry day), while a later one said we'd use those cones to make decorations (paint and glitter fest - suited to a wet day). Or other things "to do" (make clove covered oranges, write Santa letter, clean toys to make room for new ones, help Mum make Christmas cookies, watch a Christmas dvd, learn a joke to tell Dad, practise carols...). The day of the Santa party in my office, the note was about that, and another day I had a "do your Christmas shopping with Mum today" note. A few days I had a mini treasure hunt through the house (now she can read) to find either the activity note or a small toy at the end of it. I think I gave her about 5/6 little presents during the 24 days.

I like the idea of a lego piece every day - might try that instead of chocs this year...

I'm putting in

Little plastic animals
Finger puppets from Ikea
Stickers
Badges
Tiny pot of bubbles
A balloon
A few bigger presents (mainly Xmas books) where I will tie a piece of wool from the advent calendar to the present.

Money

I put a clue to find something hidden about the house, sometimes just a chocolate, sometimes a DVD to watch and sometimes things that are needed for the festive season: cards for friends, small Christmas tree that reappears from FC every year; party outfit and the special pjs (I don't do a Christmas Eve hamper, so all the sort of things that people put in that but spread out across advent).
My girls are 11 and 13 now and this is still much enjoyed and expected. One word of warning, it is not a good feeling to wake up at 5 after the office paerty realising that you have forgotten to prepare the calendar clue for the next day and having to locate, then hide said present, and worse, compose a rhyming couplet clue - all in that blurry phase between room spinning and hangover kicking in. Maybe best not to set a precedant with the rhyming couplet!

We've got a collection of small schleich animals and mini playdoh presses (bought a tub of number ones in asda), paperchase have some lovely glittery mini decorations that I intend to get too.

Hair clips? ( must look in H&m tommorrow)