Last year in Monkey’s advent calendar I wanted to add a Christmas activity for each day, as well as a small piece of chocolate and a plastic fish! The fish were to go with his Underwater Play Mat which he was given on Christmas Eve. At two and a half I wanted to make sure that the activities were suitable for his age group. I also wanted to incorporate some family traditions from when I was a child. I wrote each activity on a Christmas sticker and used green and red card for the backing. Here was our list for 2014:
- Drive around and see the Christmas lights in your home town
- Decorate Christmas cards for family and friends
- Choose a new Christmas tree ornament or room decoration
- Learn and sing Christmas tunes
- Visit a Christmas market and stay overnight in a hotel
- Pick out and cut down the Christmas Tree
- Visit Father Christmas on the Polar Express
- Go on a big wheel and see some ice sculptures
- Decorate the mini Christmas tree for Monkey’s room
- Make reindeer food
- Decorate a gingerbread houseMake Christmas ornaments for grandparents out of salt dough
- Visit the circus and wrap presents
- Go to a pantomime and eat popcorn
- Open one present early on Christmas Eve – this is Monkey’s Christmas Eve Box
- Write a letter to Father Christmas
- Make a Winter snow globe
- Make Christmas crackers
- Set out the nativity scene and read the nativity story
- Put together a time capsule ornament for the tree
- Bake some mince pies and eat them with ice cream
- Family dancing session to Christmas music
- Make a Christmas wreath for the front door
- Put the angel on top of the tree
- Visit the Coca Cola Lorry
We got lucky with the Coca Cola Lorry as it was visiting a town nearby. I am also secretly hoping that his little reindeer suit will still fit him this year! I suspect that many of our advent activities this Christmas will be similar, although we have some different excursions planned so they will feature, including a Pantomime on Christmas Eve.
Do you have any Christmas traditions or activities which will make it into your kiddies advent calendars this year?
Love these ideas, and will add them to our December Bucket list for sure! Love the idea of making reindeer food, the kiddies will love that xxx
Aw thank you x
I do like this idea. My mum made a fabric advent calendar for my daughter so we could add something other than chocolate and I think cards would be perfect.
What a lovely keepsake and future heirloom xx
Our holidays are coming! I did something similar for Baby last year, we did an activity each day and it really added to the excitement for both of us! x
Aw lovely – keeps me organised too!
Some lovely ideas. We like making and scattering reindeer foot outside the front door on Christmas Eve.
It’s such a great Christmas tradition X
Lovely ideas, nice to have a list made to make sure you get through them all! Christmas is so lovely when babies grow into toddlers and finally get it, makes it all the more exciting!
Last year was very special and I am sure this year will be the same 🙂 x
These are some great ideas Clare. I love the pantomine and gingerbread decorating! I’m going to make a list for my family!
Angela
Aw lovely be great to see it when it’s done xx
I am so excited for Christmas and for my daughter’s 2nd birthday too! These are some great ideas and I am sure we will be borrowing a few!
Aw thank you, hope she has a fantastic birthday X
Wow I’d love to see the coca cola lorry! Some great ideas, thanks for sharing. #fartglitter
These are so lovely. I’m starting to get really excited about Christmas now. My 3 year old totally gets what’s happening and I’m just looking forward to my 11 month old being more into playing and exploring than he did as a newborn last year.
We are going to see The Tiger that came to Tea at the theatre with my daughter in December. As much as I do want to take her to a pantomime, she gets a bit overwhelmed by loud noises and I think the shouting at a pantomime could worry her. Hopefully next year we could do that too!
Vix x
#fartglitter
I love these ideas! So excited for Christmas this year and now November is here so we can get planning! #fartglitter
Love these ideas, we’re going to do an activity advent calendar and are trying to find some activities suitable for a 20 month old!
#fartglitter
What a great list. Tin Box Tot is turning three in February so this year we are going big on Christmas. I might be pinching a few of your ideas! #fartglitter
I love these ideas, we do some of these already but I especially think we’ll try the reindeer food and my little’s (who aren’t so little anymore!) really would love to visit the coca cola truck this year 🙂 Lovely post. xx
That’s such a fab idea. We haven’t started any yet but I would like too. Someone else mentioned a Christmas Eve box with new pjs, hot chocolate ingredients and a movie- I want to start doing that when our tot is a little older.
Thanks so much for linking up to #fartglitter x
definitely visit the coca cola truck!! great list. #twinklytuesday
Such lovely ideas – we haven’t seen the Coca Cola lorry but that would be great #twinklytuesday
I love these so much! Some of these are already on our list from last year, but there are lots of new ones we’ve never done. I LOVE CHRISTMAS SO MUCH!!!! I can’t wait to start the festivities already. This is a fab post. xxx #twinklytuesday
Some great ideas here. We always read “The Night Before Christmas” every Christmas eve. But we’re looking to build up some new traditions s the girls get older. Becky #TwinklyTuesday
This post makes me feel very Christmas like! #TAT
Being my daughter’s first Christmas I’ve been looking into what would make it one to remember. I think I’m going to have to write an action plan and take loads of pics for her.#fartglitter
Are you going to see the Coca Cola truck in Winchester or Reading? 🙂 Great activity list! #TwinklyTuesday
These are some great ideas! I’ve got a wooden advent calendar that I painted last year so I was just trying to think of things to go in it! #ToddlerApprovedTuesday
Ooo I love this and going to try and do a few of these myself. Thank you for inspiring me X
What a gorgeous idea – so lovely. How lucky that the coca cola lorry was visiting too! Thanks for linking up with #TwinklyTuesday
Lovely list. I’m going to Pin this so I can come back and do some of this stuff as December reaches closer! #TheList
Wow you’ve got loads of ideas! Certainly going to be a busy Christmas! We’re going to a Christmas market this weekend, very excited! x
#toddlerapprovedtuesday
What a fab list – way better than a bit of chocolate 😉 #TheList
Lots of fun ideas. Need to work on creating a list for my children this year. Thank you for sharing! #TheList
We have a similar list of activities that I put in the boys advent calendar, A was too small last year, but this year they can both do the activities. Fab that the coca-cola lorry came nearby as well! #toddlerapproved
Unfortunately I hate mince pies but we could just bake normal biscuits. We did that last year too. Our Christmas markets in Germany are amazing and I would love to bring the kids to my home country some day. We open half of our presents Xmas Eve and the other half the next day. #thelist
This makes me so excited for Christmas, I cant believe how quickly it has come around! We havent done our Christmas bucket list yet but lots of these shall be appearing! Thakns for linking up to #ToddlerApprovedTuesday
Feeling very christmassy now … love the idea of staying in a hotel overnight after the christmas market 🙂
Wow you’ve put loads of thought into this! So far we have 2 trips to the theatre planned, and we might go to a locally organised party and ice skating…I don’t have as much planned school gets in the way! Crafts in the evening perhaps – I shall have to revisit this 🙂 Thanks for linking xx
These are so clever!