Home filled advent calendars

[Cuwins]

Can anyone who has an advent calendar you fill yourself- like one with the little drawers etc tell me what you have put in it?
Just looking for some ideas.

If you can sew or get someone to make you one, these pre printed panels are great.
example plushaddict.co.uk/dashwood-studio-partytime-advent-calendar-60cm-panel-with-option-for-a-kit.html

We have one with little houses - been going about 5 years now.
My 2 take in turn to open the house, but share the loot. Tend to wrap 2 Cadbury festive friends biscuits (in a small bit of kitchen roll) the night before so they don't go stale. House 2 is bigger, so lindt ball each for tomorrow. If want to give something bigger, then do as pp said and put a note in the box leading to the item. That said, we mostly just do the biscuits, or maybe a celebration chocolate as cant be bothered with much else!

I put in parts of a coded message leading to the secret location of a Lindt chocolate figure to be discovered on the 24th.

My Dc are teens and I've been doing it for a few years - hardest part is coming up with a new code every year!

The drawers are usually too small for much more than sweets but I bought one with hessian bags pegged on to a line and we put in paper strips for making chains, chocolate biscuits (club etc), puzzles, little diary, torch, perfume, socks: small but useful or nice things.

TrueGrit54 you may have over thought that . But you are a hero for trying!

I do one for dd, random stuff like malteasers reindeers, face masks and stationary, it can work out expensive and as she gets older more difficult! I wrap them individually and pop them in a box that's wrapped in Christmas paper with a hole in the top so she can't rummage

I put little piece of paper, and pic n mix in ours.

Did it yesterday so got a £2 pic n mix, enough for a sweet each on around 2/3 of the days, twisted them up in little bits of tissue paper to be festive.

The other days the paper tells them where to find the treat, so it doesn’t have to fit in the calendar. And sometimes it’s something to do (eg having hot chocolate, watching a film, putting up the tree)

Depends who you're making it for
I did one for DD with random bits. Charms for bracelet make up wipes make up chocs
Toiletries

I no have one with tiny drawers. Anything that can't fit I just leave a note saying to ask mummy for your surprise or I hide it and the note says look in the sink etc etc.

So far this year I have

Chocolate coins - today
Cheap silver earrings from eBay, 2 pairs which were £3 each.
Baby elf that she's been asking for for weeks
Girl elf - as above
Pound coins
Ferraro roches - these for in perfect so when I am stuck For something I use one of these
Notes with activities on - film night of your choice etc
Lip balms
Face packs
Nail varnish

We have one and put a slip of paper in with something christmassy, today we're watching a film, tomorrow we'll be having mince pies etc.

We have one that I do every year - but the drawers are always smaller than I remember! I tend to make my life hard have a theme for each year:
bracelet charms and bits to make a few different bracelets
squooshie animals (like stress balls but tiny)
'Santa' handwritten appreciation notes alternated with chocolates
badges and guitar picks
fidget toys - the small ones like the pea popper and stretchy things
lego

and when she was much younger, vitamin gummies

The chocolates that I find to fit are usually from Lidl with their small round boxes of christmas teddy chocolates.

Its a faff, but does look lovely lit up and she really loves it each year.

Oh yes, I forgot the one year as per the PP, we wrote little notes with activities - christmas film, chocolate with marshmallows, going to a christmas fair etc

I do Lanka kade Christmas toys, been using those for three years but my DS is only

1. I also put Christmas socks in, little toys like those polystyrene gliders, bouncy ball, stickers, magic flannels, spinning top, letter to Santa kit. Our advent calendar is little pouches which are pegged up on a string so if it doesn’t fit we wrap the item in a “bag” and peg it up behind the pouch.

I saved my beauty ones to make ones for my dds. Dd1 has a Liberty one, the drawers are all the same square size, it’s a bit annoying as some of the things I had to go inside don’t fit! Dd2 has a cult Beaty one, drawers vary in shape and size so everything can be wiggled and manoeuvred into the right box for it.
They have a mixture of makeup and skincare bits made up from previous GWPs from a couple of big spends at space NK and cult beauty. In each box they also have either a lindor Santa/reindeer (the ones they come in the cardboard pack of 5, not full sized ones!), a mini malteser reindeer or a lindor ball.
If you added up the value it would be big but because I regularly order pricey things from those websites anyway I get the GWP goody bags as a bonus and they are always interested in the bits that come in them!
And like a PP the items are all individually wrapped to stop them opening them all at once and having a peek

I'd never get one with the tiny box-like drawers because a lot of them are only about 1.5cm square and I think a jellybean every day would wear a bit thin after a few weeks.

We have two fabric panel calendars that I sewed, for the DC. The pockets are small but gusseted (oo-er) and therefore can take a fairly bulky small object - also open on top, unlike drawers. One of them has lego items that I source from ebay, the other just sweets (tailored according to needs and desires!). DH and I have posh chocolates that I buy in no-frills packaging and wrap in chocolate foils (ebay) and those go in a string of hanging mittens (Lidl!) and a contraption with hanging fabric pouches (Amazon, decorated by me) hanging off a bit of tree.

I think if I had DC who were remotely bothered about a) fun and cute stationery items b) hair accessories or c) good deeds written on little notes left by the bloody Elves, filling the calendars would be a bit more creative!

I’ve done lego sets and jigsaws in the last few years

FERRERO ROCHER

Have tried so many things in the past, notes for events that day, decorations, random tat but all they want is a piece of chocolate for breakfast so now I just buy Christmas choc and put them in

We have done lego figures (but a cheap shop version), mini animal erasers and pokemon cards (they were too big to go in the drawers so they were in numbered envelopes. This year I bought tiny Christmas tree decorations for them to add to the tree each day. Might just recycle those every year from now on!

Oh god just chocolate coins! I’ve got enough to do!

We have one with pockets and each one contains a small figure (or animal) which are arranged to make a nativity scene - so no need to replace the contents each year.

@Flev

We have one with pockets and each one contains a small figure (or animal) which are arranged to make a nativity scene - so no need to replace the contents each year.

This is nice.

We stopped with the annual gifts as it felt a bit wasteful, both in terms of money and stuff.

Chocolate coins, 50p pieces, Christmas jokes, candy canes, tickets or clues to activities we are doing later (eg cinema tickets, panto tickets). I sometimes put a recipe in for something like stained glass or gingerbread that we will make together that day. Once it was a clue that started a treasure hunt round the house that led to costumes for us doing a play together. When they were little I used to make things - like painting a couple of monkey nuts up as nativity figures, or snowmen made out of craft foam balls.

Two DC here and we have only ever done the refillable advent calendars. They both get a chocolate every day and then there is a piece of paper in one calendar with the words of a Christmas song (carol or pop song) that we sing, and in the other calendar is a question or poem. Questions are things like "what is your favourite Christmas food" or "what's your favourite Christmas joke". The bits of paper are the same every year as I usually only remember about the calendars on the 30th November! I did think about putting activities in, but I can't guarantee we will have hot chocolate in, or that we will be able to go and look at Christmas lights - I need to keep things easy!