Ideas on what to put in a fill your own advent calendar?

[peekaboopumpkin12]

Doing my own advent calendars this year for a 2 year old boy and a 7 year old boy.

I've got the chocolate items sorted but just wondering what else we can pop in?

@Myoldbear

you surely must be the most pa gift giver on the planet 🤣 🙉

Why?

@Myoldbear aren't harmonicas as noisy as drums/whistles etc? A parent's dream?

I hope you weren't offended, I was joking tbf.

Ha ha, I see, yes!
I was just thinking what's the right size?
But there are other considerations!

I still fill theirs, and they're teens (also got them My Protein calendars this year). I always put a small chocolate lindt bunny and a pound in each pocket, plus a joke from the previous years Christmas crackers.

I used to wrap things that wouldn’t fit in the pockets and put in a gift bag, then put a little card saying ‘lucky dip’ in the pocket and they could pick something out of the bag.
I also put experiences we were going to do anyway on a card in some of the pockets eg garden centre visit; drive round to see the lights; hot chocolate and a Christmas film etc. Just make a note of the dates you put experiences in in case you need to change them

Mine were given a Playmobil calendar one year by grandparent. I kept the bits, and now put a Christmas Playmobil character in each pocket.
Some days I put in an "experience" eg - decorating the Christmas cake, or tree, or film or whatever.

This is so lovely!

I do advent pockets for my two. Pretty much all of the days I just put a small chocolate or sweet in (i.e. a coin). Only exception is on the 1st they each get a decoration for the tree that represents something they've been into over the last year (lovely as it means over time you have a really personal collection that represents them). I save anything bigger for a stocking filler as otherwise I feel it takes something away from stockings. But then we don't do Elf on the Shelf or a Christmas Eve box so am aware I might be in the minority.

We use to have a Xmas tree shaped set of teeny drawers that was an advent calender.. drawer for each day… for oversized things I attached a piece of string or ribbon to the relevant door and tied it to the little toy etc that was the gift that day.