Are you looking for a new way to celebrate Advent as a family this Christmas? Join us as we countdown our 10 favorite ways to celebrate this holiday season.
Top 10 ways to celebrate Advent at home this Christmas.
1. Make your own advent calendar. You could sew small pockets from fabric and number them onto bunting or recycle old tins, decorate them and number them. Plenty of opportunities to be creative and use recycled items, the more creative the better! Make your advent countdowns for others and put some candy, a joke, a handmade gift or some words of encouragement into each day.
2. Make cardboard ornaments. This is a fun activity for children ; each day design and made a new ornament to hang and decorate your house or tree with. You could make paper icicles, 3D cardboard Christmas trees, learn some festive origami and more. Use crayons, pens, paint to make them as colorful as possible.
3. Create a nativity scene. Use recycled items, Play-doh, papier-mâché, found objects in nature - anything you can think of.
4. Design Christmas cards. Each day pick a family member or friend and design them a special Christmas card. Make it personal to them and write them a special message inside.
5. Advent Activity Cards. Create your own activity cards and include them in your advent calendar this year. Ideas include baking cookies for friends, driving to look at Christmas lights, donating toys, a day off all chores, an extra book for bed, watching a Christmas movie and more. Lacking time, our collection of 40 cards is available for instant download.
6. 25 Acts of Kindness. As a family write a list of 25 acts of kindness to complete together over Advent ; it could be something small like helping a neighbor with a chore to donating toys or giving to charity.
7. Reverse Advent Calendar. Add a food or an essential item to an empty box each day. On Christmas Eve, when the box is full, donate it to your local food bank, homeless shelter, church, charity, family or friends in need. This wonderful idea reinforces in children the idea that Christmas is for giving.
8. Puzzle Advent Cards. Add a little extra fun and challenge to your advent calendar by including some puzzles and riddles to solve - great for older children and adults. You could use quiz questions, family trivia, picture quizzes, newspaper cuttings, sudoko or more.
9. Create an Advent Playlist. Each day add a song you love to a family Christmas playlist. On Christmas day play the playlist over dinner and chat about why your choices were important to you. Eat, dance and have fun!
10. Donate Items. Fill a shoebox of toys and stationary items for a child in need.
Bonus - 11. Christmas Movie Marathon. Take it in turns to pick a Christmas film you love and watch them together as a family over Advent. Some of our favs are Elf, Santa Claus and The Snowman.
Wishing you all a wonderful Advent!
