What sort of advent calendar do you do for DC?

[HollySizer]

I have a DD aged 2.

I can’t decide whether to buy a felt hanging advent calendar to fill myself each year (perhaps a little chocolate and a small gift) or whether to just stick with the £2 cadburys advent calendars we had growing up! I also have lots of Christmas books and like the idea of wrapping them all up for her to open one each evening for her bedtime story.

What does everyone else do for young DC?

I do "Advent pockets" which is like the felt ones you describe, so they get a small sweet or something in each one. I also occasionally get them a picture one (which is what I had growing up!) but they seem to be harder to find these days.
I think DH would happily just buy them a chocolate one, but I quite like their surprise every day at not knowing what will be in the pocket. (Plus I fill them when they're at school, so no risk of choccy for breakfast).

Do you do each day as it comes, or fill the whole thing at once? ☺️

My daughter gets 2 - a hanging material one with pockets that we fill with toys (small ones - Maileg mice, sylvanian set split in to a few pockets, a purse, lip balm etc), some sweets, some experiences - go see Santa, make christmas cookies etc and a choc one from her gran!

Filling the advent calender is one of my fav things along with the stockings!

Sounds lovely.

I think I’ve already been persuaded into the ones I can fill!

Any ideas on what to put in for a 2 year old DD?

I was thinking perhaps:
hairclips
lipbalm (she’s obsessed with putting on lip balm)
Happyland characters
Mini Christmas chocolates

but that doesn’t fill 25 spaces!

There was a Playmobil bath toy advent calendar that was very fun .
Other ideas:
Play doh calendar
Sticker calendar

You could get a Duplo set and split it up in different pockets

Scrunchies? tiny bath bomb, small crayons or chalks (split up pack) bubbles if pockets big enough.

Ds gets 2, one chocolate one and one 1 make up. I get a lego set (last year was santa and his sleigh, and she builds it a bit each day. Takes quite some time to prepare but go through the instructions booklet and separate the peices into small boxes for each day

A few years ago DSIS bought a set of colouring pencils and a Christmas colouring and activity book quite cheaply and essentially ripped out the pages and have one or 2 every few days in the advent calendar.
It was mixed with chocolate coins and some Christmas books but that seemed to work well.

I’m team “just chocolate” for my kids. I love Christmas but MORE toys in the run up just feels like too much. And you get yourself into a pickle when they hit the teen years and still want the calendar but the little pocket money toys don’t cut it anymore!

This was my reservation with it! Is it just creating more work along with Christmas Eve boxes etc…

When mine were little I made big felt advent calendars with pockets that I popped a mixture of Christmas hair bands, chocolate, candy canes when older, little badges, pens, pencils etc

Now they're bigger they get more chocolate things, maybe a sachet of not chocolate etc as well as pens and little useful bits and bobs...

I love it. I just count it as part of the Christmas present - I always feel like it adds a little excitement to get a tiny little gift/choc/note every day.

I also feel like it is kind of a waste to wait to Christmas day to give things like Christmas socks or a wooden santa etc. I always feel like if i give them throughout it is more relevant, if that makes sense?

I have done one of the calendars every year for 6 years and it really does bring my kid joy so I don't mind!

I only have one kid so it definitely doesn't feel like work. I can assume doing it 2/3 times would be much more intensive especially for a range of ages.

I am looking forward to doing it with my daughter until she leaves home although I suspect she will know by then it is not from the elves!

We have both. They get a toy type each, playmobil/schleich/lego etc and then we have one I fill with stuff. Tends to be a mix of sweets, a clue to small gift hidden somewhere or a treat. Day 1 is always a new Christmas related book each. Day 4 is socks. Other gifts include hot chocolate & marshmallows, the promise of making the gingerbread house, a christmas decoration for their trees and so on.

Definitely each day as it comes!

It helps our youngest (3) to find things as she can't read numbers yet, it also means they can't accidentally get more than one day's worth and finally means if I'm feeling disorganised I don't have to get all fillers before 1st December! 😅

I would do edibles. Unless you are skipping a Christmas stocking, 24 toys before Christmas is a bit excessive!

Chocolate all the way. I don’t want to add loads more tiny toys and bits and bobs and make loads of extra work for myself with 2 kids every year 😂 all their friends have chocolate so they don’t expect any different. I always had chocolate too. It gets a bit mad if they get a gift every day of December and an Xmas eve box all before all the presents of Xmas day too imo

Ah, so we avoid Christmas Eve boxes and Elf on the Shelf etc so it's 'just' advent, stocking and Christmas day gifts for us.

We have a felt one with pockets. Ds17 still asks for it, he says it is Christmas to him! The elves fill it each night, this was mainly because elder ds would have eaten them in one go! They spend much time now trying to find the hidden stash of advent chocolate, not sure they realise that I have to buy double each year as i scoff them on the sly!

I do a book one for my 2 to share. You can get bundles of kids Christmas books on Vinted very reasonably. Then have them out under the tree through December and they get read tons of times!

I had a felt embroidered thingy that my mum put beautiful thoughtful gifts in for us that she collected throughout the year. I still have the little enamel-handled nail clippers with little frogs on them. My grandmother used to have a Cadbury’s one at her house and whichever grandchild was there got to open the door. Guess which enchanted me more!? I still remember the feverish excitement of the waft of Cadbury’s Dairy Milk as I punched the door open! Do the felt one if you’d enjoy it but feel no guilt if you can’t afford it/ be bothered! Children are normally 50/50 on these things.

We have a wooden one with little drawers (from hobbycraft).
Both children share it.
I do a few days of a paper inside with an activity written on it (decorate the tree, write/make cards, bake gingerbread, make a tree decoration, watch a Christmas film etc). Then there might be Christmas socks/T-shirts which go in a festive bag and a note goes in the calendar to say go look in x place for a bag. Then some days little gifts like stickers, temporary tattoos, hair clips, jigsaw puzzles - Party bag filler type things.
Then any gaps get filled in with chocolate coins/Christmas shapes (Aldi do great ones).

I do sit down and write out a plan at the end of November so that ‘watch a film’ is planned for a weekend day and the Christmas top is ready for Christmas clothes day at school. Plus then if we’ve booked any events I can include that, or if we have visitors due I can put ‘grandmas coming tonight - tidy your room’ 😂 on the note.

Oh, and our Christmas books live in a special box and come out and sit under the tree in December so anyone can read them rather than wrapping them all and wasting the paper.

Part of our ritual every year is buying one of the wooden advent calendars - sometimes a house, tree, just boxes, and painting/decorating it together. Then I fill it with chocolates/christmas hairslides/small baubles for the Christmas tree. She has just started secondary so hope she still wants to do it this year!

My two are 16 and 14 now but we still use the personalised embroidered ones I got when they were little. A Lindt Santa or similar and a pound coin in each pocket. I also save Christmas cracker jokes and put those in too.