What do you put in your home-filled advent calendar?

[HappySquid]

If you have a calendar of the sort which you can fill with your own treats, what do you put inside? We were gifted one last year so this year is the first year I'll be filling it for our DS aged 2. I thought about a mixture of 'activity vouchers' for things we can do together (e.g. crafty things, baking and so on) and some small sweets or chocolates but I'd love to hear what others do for inspiration.

For a 2 year old? I'd just shove a jelly baby in each one.

I wouldn't give jelly babies to a 2 year old.

Stickers
Mini cars
Finger puppets
Socks
Crayons
Wind up toy
Small animal figures
Bubbles
Bath squirter or bath toy
Chocolate coin

When mine were little I used to go the whole hog and put little rhyming notes from their own elves in each drawer in a sort of treasure hunt to find little toys or treats. These days they still have the advent calendar but I put money or a sweet in each drawer

Same as other posters
Stickers from the Pound shop cut smaller to fit, my DS loves stickers but my furniture doesn't.
Little chocolate coins.
Miniature/ hero chocs.

We started doing advent activities when DD was 3ish, maybe 4. I put my list of things we've done over the years in another thread, I'll paste it here too, some things on there would work for a 2 year old. We've also given her a chocolate and/or a little toy. One year it was a pokemon mini figure, one year it was a lego kit broken into a couple of pieces a day, last year it was crystals

I think maybe at two he's too little for small things like that. Maybe stickers or crayons?

What about a spoon in each box and a jar of chocolate spread on a very high shelf, or is it just me that thinks a daily spoon of Nutella sounds like bliss? 😁

My activity list....
Paper snowflakes
Paper chains
Popcorn garlands
Cut up old Xmas cards to make bunting
Xmas themed craft kits
Christmas disco bath (Xmas music and glowsticks in the water and underwater lights)
Going on a walk to collect holly and greenery to decorate with
Xmas singstar
Xmas disco in the sitting room
Xmas film night
Donate to local foodbank
Donate to local toy charity
Donate ££ to charity of DD's choice
Decorating her room
Panto
Ice skating
Crib service
Carol service
Christingle service
Making Xmas cards for family
Making marzipan sweets and rum truffles for family gifts
Baking sausage rolls, mince pies etc
Drying orange slices with cloves in the oven for tree decorations
Making a snowglobe with a jam jar and liquid glucose
Christmas light hunt
Chocolate and sweets for breakfast
Making elf doughnuts from cheerios
Decorating pinecone to make little mice
Makeing gingerbread men or a house
Making mulled apple juice
Potato print brown paper to make wrapping paper

He might be a bit young but we've done pieces of jigsaw in the past, that gradually build up the picture over the month (do it yourself first, then arrange it so they get bits that are next to each other).

Or maybe you could get a
wooden train set, then split it so he can add a few bit to the track or accessories each day. Then at the end he has a toy he can keep, not 24 pieces of tat.

Thanks so much all of you, there are some great ideas here. We were supposed to move house last month and it now looks like it'll be December (we hope!) so I'm paring Christmas right back and am going to do the advent calendar next year when he'll probably be a bit more likely to understand it anyway. I'll save this thread for then! I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas season.

Usually just chocolate but last year did make up/beauty stuff for eldest dd and squishees for youngest.

I started oyrceyen ds was 4yo. It contained a chocolate coin or some such. Never toys. Now 9 years on it has a chocolate (this year mini tobletones), a joke and a note about how lovely he is, how proud we are of him, notes written by the dog etc. They then get posted in a notebook which he reads when he's had a bad day or is feeling down about something. It's one of his favourite things about Christmas. Which reminds me, I'd better get a move on writing his notes 😲

Chocolate coins. Can even recycle the foil.

I'm not keen on small gifts or daily chocolate so we do advent activities which my kids (now teenagers) still love. We have done lots of the things on @Christingly list, we also do some of the following which may be suitable for a 2yo.

Indoor snowball fight
Making Pomanders (bit hard for a 2yo but as long as you are happy to do the bulk of it it smells gorgeous)
Penguin bowling (we got a set years ago as a gift and play it every year)
Wind up santa race (they came out of crackers years ago)
Candy cane hunt (inside! Very popular)
Christmas books (I bought a few every year when they were little)
Christmas Jigsaw (done as a family)
Feed the birds
Drink hot chocolate
Make a Christmas decoration, now they often do origami but when they were little we'd do salt dough decs or pom pom robins or something else simple.
Star Walk

I'd also include anything they were doing at nursery like the nativity or Xmas Jumper Day or a Carol Service. For days when you are working keep it very simple, the crafty days should be kept for the weekend or non-working days. Keep it flexible, I had 'go sledging' as a potential option for years and we finally did it last year, I had to sneak down and swap around the options when I realised it had snowed. I'd also say don't do any expensive activities like a light trail until they are much older and can enjoy it properly. See if your local city or town do any community activities, we have an ice sculpture trail in our town which is fun and then you can warm up in a cafe.

I am in awe of everyone's activity based calendars. We have a chocolate and a Christmas carol (the lyrics of) in each drawer so we have a good sing song each day. I wrote out the lyrics about 8 years ago. They have now been folded and unfolded by little hands so many times I think they are in need of a refresh. But one of the best parts of Christmas for me is when the children open a song and say "yay, I've been looking forward to this one" because they remember it from all the previous years.

@Candlesonthetable that is so cute.

I got 2 sets of 12 small wooden Christmas decorations, put one in each pocket along with a sweet/chocolate for each child.

We then have a tree of some sort (various over the years) to hang the decorations on.

I didn't get it out last year and my then nearly 18yo asked where is was!