Today I’m pleased to have the lovely and talented Amber joining us for a guest post about an advent calender of holiday activities. A good friend of mine from the twitters, she is the mother of an adorable toddler and one on the way. I’m really excited about this idea because it’s as easy on the budget as you want it to be. I can’t wait to put something like this together for Isobel. Be sure to check her out on Pinterest as she pinned tons of fantastic resources.
The Thrifty Advent Calendar
I’ve never celebrated the Christmas season with an advent calendar. Sure we noted the time until the holiday but there was never a formalized way to count down each of the days in December leading up to the main event. I’ve always thought they looked like a lot of fun to make and use. Since my daughter is at the age where she’s starting to really “get” Christmas I’ve decided to make a commitment to this particular tradition.
I touched on this idea on Miss A when I wrote about a toddler friendly holiday. I plan to wrap up 24 holiday themed children’s books to create a Christmas Book Advent Calendar. You and your child open one book a night to countdown the days in December left until Christmas. In my version each book will be numbered, but the tag will also list an activity to do during the day.
Photo via BABYCCINO KIDS
I’ve been collecting TONS of kid friendly Christmas ideas on Pinterest. There are endless ways that you can enjoy something holiday related each and every day. Some of the daily activity ideas I have so far are:
- decorate the Christmas tree
- take a walk to see holiday lights at night
- make a gingerbread house
- go caroling
- visit Santa for photos
- ride the town’s Polar Express
- go see the Nutcracker
- make a paper-plate snowman
- watch Charlie Brown’s Christmas
- wrap a gift to donate to a child in need
- make cookies for Santa
It’s seriously cheap and easy to do. Eventually maybe we’ll own enough Christmasy books to have 24 on hand, but for now we’re utilizing our public library for most of them. Many of the daytime activities will be free or close to it since I’m participating in township programs and using craft supplies I tend to keep on hand. There’s almost no real prep time. All that needs to be done is to wrap 24 books and write up their coordinating tags. I may try to plan everything out on a calendar so the activity for some specific days match up with things that are already scheduled. I do wish we had a lovely mantle to display them on, like in the photo above, but I’ll most likely find a cute basket to file them in. Either way, these books will look like lovely presents that add to our holiday decor. That’s it…easy peasy!
I’d love to hear of some ways that you and your loved ones celebrate the holiday season. Sometimes the anticipation of the big day is the best part.
Amber is a NJ native with Southern roots. She is a recovering mommy blogger with recently acquired journalistic dreams that are being explored on Miss A’s fantastical website. She enjoys long naps, but with a toddler and another on the way, who are we kidding? Amber has way too many interests to pick one as a career or a blog genre, so she writes about everything; from parenting to organizational projects. Please visit her Backwards Life and watch as the world flips upside down and inside out time and time again.
Little Big 