Fillers for Advent Calendars with Drawers

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In a bid to reduce waste I bought my children reusable advent calendars - I bitterly regret it! I am having a nightmare trying to find bits to go in the drawers which are quite big and deep. I don’t want to buy loads of plastic tat but I feel like sticking a sweet in every drawer is a bit lacklustre. Could anyone give me a few ideas? If I can think of anything I’ll share (so far a small Lindt Father Christmas is as far as I’ve got!)

How old are they? I agree it gets a bit onerous but some days I just put in a couple of chocolate coins, sometimes a 50p piece (or £1 if it’s a weekend), a few stickers, Christmas stamps; if they are older then makeup bits (buy a giftset and split it up), cars, lego figures, that sort of thing.

I’ve got some marble sized bath bombs, malteaser truffles and a little poly bag Harry Potter lego art from Ebay which I’ll separate out. Also going to put a Christmas joke in each drawer.

Depends how old they are.

You could buy a kit that you split up so by Christmas Eve it makes something.

We’ve broken up gift sets before now, eg Duplo, Thomas the Tank mini engines, etc. We also usually stick a few favourite tree decorations in there which come out each year. I try to make chocolate Santas only appear once every three days but don’t always succeed.

You’re all a lot more imaginative than me! Thank you for the ideas, the DS is 11 and DD is 7 nearly 8. I thought a Lego blind bag for DS and a Sylvanian blind bag for DD and some tattoos.

Maybe a pretty semi precious stone like rose quartz or fools gold?

Key ring?

Treasure hunt clues for bigger gifts that won’t fit drawers.
Jokes
Tickets or clues for cinema/ Santa visit etc
Stickers
Novelty erasers
Hair accessories
Marbles
Small craft supplies like a mini tub of glitter or patterned washi tape
Small baking supplies like tubes of sprinkles
Cookie cutters to go with them

[santa]

When mine were younger I used to put notes in with things we were doing anyway. Decorating biscuits, a walk to see the local lights, school Christmas fair etc.

We also had lots of jokes, Google is your friend, I think I even found a sheet of 24 to print out one year.

I used to only fill each stocking the night before, so i had a good chance we could actually do whatever activities were in there.

Never did little presents, my aim was avoiding allergies so any others were filled with suitable sweets or chocolate.

Little notes for activities such as visiting Father Christmas, baking cookies, movie night, hot chocolate, carol service, pantomime... usually things we would be doing anyway!

Christmas cookie cutters, with a promise to make the cookies that afternoon, for one. Red, green and white icing on the same day for the other child.
Stick on tattoos.
Hair clips/bobbles/head band.
Funky computer mouse.
Lip balm.

I love the idea of notes with a surprise event later in the day, we have a few things booked so will keep quiet and do notes. Also love the idea of cookie cutters in one child’s and icing in the others. Thanks so much for all these ideas, I’m feeling much more positive!