Cheap / free / meaningful things to do with family for advent

[nanbread]

Looking for ideas on what to do to feel festive that cost little to no money / didn't require booking it back in August to get a ticket.

Anything from Christmas crafts, treating neighbours, doing things for charity, fun activities, suitable for primary age kids, I know you have brilliant ideas so please share them!

How about making ice lanterns? (It's blooming snowy and cold here )

littlegreenexplorers.com/make-ice-lanterns-nature-activity-for-kids/

The Church of England website has an Advent calendar of activities- you might want to pick some of those even if you don’t do them all?

www.churchofengland.org/our-faith/what-we-believe/advent-and-christmas/family-activities-advent-calendar

Some people do a “reverse” Advent calendar, so every day you put something in a box and give it to charity after Christmas.

Or have a look at the websites for your local churches- many of them will be holding Christingle or other children’s services that give you the Christmas buzz for free and without further commitment! (But you may need to sign up for them if they’re limiting numbers for covid reasons)

We like to take a little tour of the neighbourhood at night to admire everyone's outdoor Christmas lights.

Oh yes, and if it snows we make miniature snowmen and keep them in the freezer .

Is there any deer parks near you where you can visit. Eg, knowle park in Sevenoaks, or Woburn?

A lot of garden centres have lovely Christmas displays.

Buy some paper chains and make them.

Make and decorate a gingerbread house together. Or make peppermint creams/chocolate fridge cake. Or mince pies.

We take a tour of the local garden centres to look at their decorations, then choose one decoration each for the tree.

YY to paper chains- if you can't find/don't like the ones you can buy, you can cut strips of wrapping paper and glue those together.

Snowflake decorations- white paper, cut with scissors.

Collect twigs or small branches and spray or paint them white or silver. Put in a vase or jar - you can even hang little ornaments on, if you have any.

Donate to the food bank - many supermarkets have donation points.

Donate any unwanted items at home to the charity shop, church or school fair.

Movie night with Xmas movie and snacks.

Decorate a gingerbread house or cookie.

Decorate your home while listening to Christmas music.

Have a Christmas quiz (you can find questions online) and have some small prizes.

Christingle service
Send a Christmas card via postpals www.postpals.co.uk
Give to a food bank
Make gingerbread s’mores
Christmas Tree festival www.christmastreefestivals.org
Get a Krispy Kreme Christmas doughnut

Our school has just sent us a link to an active advent calendar which is free.
It looks good fun so we are going to give it a go

[ imoves.com/active-advent-calendar-2021 ]

[quote MadMadMadamMim]How about making ice lanterns? (It's blooming snowy and cold here )

littlegreenexplorers.com/make-ice-lanterns-nature-activity-for-kids/[/quote]
Love this! Not quite cold enough here atm but will save it x

[quote Toofaroutallmylife]The Church of England website has an Advent calendar of activities- you might want to pick some of those even if you don’t do them all?

www.churchofengland.org/our-faith/what-we-believe/advent-and-christmas/family-activities-advent-calendar[/quote]
Some lovely ideas here,thanks

@Riverlee

Is there any deer parks near you where you can visit. Eg, knowle park in Sevenoaks, or Woburn?

A lot of garden centres have lovely Christmas displays.

Buy some paper chains and make them.

Definitely doing all of these in some form, lovely! There's a garden centre near us with mad displays but unfortunately they also have reindeer in a cage and I find it upsetting

Donating to food bank - do you get DC to use their pocket money to do this? They don't get much but could easily afford a packet of biscuits or similar.

This is a list of ideas
Drive through to see the lights
Arts and craft session
Mince pie eating competition
Do a Christmas baking workshop
Donate to the food bank
Snowflake creation contest
Christmas supper etc
Christmas posters
Candy cane
Film and wine night
Pine cones- easy to decorate and paint