Alternative advent calendar

[StackOfFuckers]

Dd1 has been bought a chocolate advent calendar by my aunt which is lovely but I have a wooden advent calendar with little doors and compartments that I had planned to fill with sweets/ chocs.

i don't want to overdose her on chocs so have decided to make an alternative calendar with slips of paper setting out activities/ treats for her to do each day of advent.

Have thought of things like 'Go for a winter walk', 'curl up with a hot chocolate', 'watch a Christmassy DVD' but am running out of ideas!

Obviously can do some ideas more than once, but wondered if anyone had any ideas?

DD1 is 3.9 and also have DD2 who is 12mo so ideally things that she might be able to tag along on too

In advance!

visit santa, donate toys, bake cookies for neighbours, make paper chains, build/decorate a gingerbread house, decorate xmas tree, go to carol service,

Make mince pies (or jam tarts if DC don't like mine pies)
Christingle or crib service

make Christmas angels
snowmen out of cardboard tube and cotton wool
make snowflakes

-call Nana/Grandad/overseas rellies.
-Are you going to panto or any Xmas shows? Put the tickets in there.

• I downloaded some Xmas jokes for ours - 5yo style jokes.
• Make room for Santa - challenge to box up any unwanted/outgrown toys for charity?
• decorate tree
• write Xmas cards today?
• sing Xmas carols/play Xmas music all day today

Go to visit reindeer at your local garden centre (if they are there, lol). Most garden centres do have decent grottos and Christmas displays, which you could go and visit.

Make Christmas cards.

Write a Christmas list.

Go out to buy a special bauble for the tree.

Include things that you are doing anyway, like putting up decorations (this can be spread out over a few days, if you do making some of the decorations or going shopping for them first) writing cards- obviously 3.9 is a bit young, but she could lick the envelopes maybe :) go shopping to buy a gift for X.

also stuff like reading a Christmas story or drawing a Christmas picture is quite easy to do and free if you already have the books, colouring pictures can be printed off the internet. My Dc love making anything edible so baking cookies, cakes, mince pies. We do chocolate logs by buying the ready made value swiss rolls and covering in melted chocolate and icing sugar- they ain't pretty but the DC scoff them all the same

my favourite one I read on MN was the Christmas tree safari. Its basically going for a walk and counting how many trees you can spot. Have done this loads in the past, but never realised it had a name!

sign ( scrawl) name in cards
stick stamps on envelopes
walk to post box and post cards 3 activities.

Just seen on another thread....

'plant' a tic-tac seed in sugar to grow overnight into a candy cane

Home Bargains have some build and decorate a biscuit christmas tree kits in for £1.49, I picked one up to do on Sunday for us all to eat after Sunday dinner.

bumping

Ooh can I join in too. I've just made an advent calendar out of organza bags (pound land!) and sewn on numbers from a felt-style material from a coat I was chucking out.

I will tie them up the stairs as the stairs always get left out!

We're going to have a new tradition of dh and I looking at how the days fall over December so putting things in the calendar that we can do each day.

Baking / visiting Santa / carol service etc. dd is only 10 months so we'll have a couple of practice years!

Thank you for the bumps 70

Im going to read through all the threads when ive settled dd.

We have a wooden advent calender - in each draw I put a coin each and a clue. The clue leads them to a something that I'm actually setting up to launch for this year (website / product available from Sep) so don't think I can mention it here. Kids loved it though!

Ooh sounds interesting telephone

What does this do?

oops sorry…IT trouble!