Today began my very favorite tradition – the 25 Days of Christmas! (If you missed my introductory post – you can catch it here: Chasing Supermom’s 25 Days of Christmas!) Every day in December, my kids pull a slip from my DIY Advent Calendar, and discover a fun family/holiday activity we’ll do that day. We all look forward to the slips all year long -and were so excited to begin today.
Our first day is almost always advent calendars! (Because why not begin an advent calendar tradition with more advent calendars?!)
Each of my kids got a chocolate advent calendar. These are getting a bit harder to find, but we found ours at Winco, Fred Meyer, and Hobby Lobby.
Next, each of the kids got a special advent calendar. While this isn’t something I do every year, I’ve become more and more aware that this special tradition’s time is limited. With one of my kids already in high school and another entering next year, I know our days of enjoying Christmas activity-filled afternoons are numbered. So, with that in mind, I decided to go for the extra calendars this year.
Hannah got a sock calendar. These are found at Target, although you CAN find them on Amazon as well.
Harper got a 12 Days of Crafts Advent. Each day contains the materials you need to create a Christmas ornament! She loved it! It was right up her alley. We found the version she received at Michael’s. While the calendar pictured below is not on Amazon, I found a variety of options you can purchase online. Check out Amazon’s Craft Advent Calendars.
The boys are sharing a Marvel LEGO Advent Calendar. There are a bunch of 2021 LEGO Advent Calendars on Amazon. We found ours at Costco. The LEGO calendars contain a variety of minifigs and other accessories. We’ve done these several times before and the kids have always really been happy with what they’ve found each day.
If you are wanting to create an advent calendar without spending extra money (and trust me – we have been there!), we’ve also done a few crafty advent calendars over the years with supplies we had on hand. You do NOT need to spend extra money to have fun and enjoy the season with your kids.
Last year, we created a Prayer Advent Chain. We took 24 slips of paper and wrote down the name of a person or organization we cared about on each slip. We turned the slips of paper into a chain. Each day in December, we pulled off one link of the chain and stopped to pray for the person on the slip.
You could also take the same paper chain concept and instead of prayer requests, create an acts of kindness chain! Each day could contain things like, “Do one of my sibling’s chores” or “Take the dog for a walk.”
When my kids were smaller, I created a Handprint Advent Calendar one year.
Another favorite advent tradition is the Christmas Book Advent! Find and wrap 24 books. Let your child choose a book to unwrap each night of December, and enjoy the story together. (If you already have Christmas books – or even regular picture books that have perhaps been forgotten, you can use those! No need to spend more money!)
Find out more about the book advent by reading my post: Christmas Book Advent. (This post contains some of my favorite Christmas books for kids too!)
Have fun and don’t forget to keep checking in here on the blog or on my Facebook page, or on my Instagram page. See you here for Day 2! Merry Christmas!!
