I loved all of your advent activity suggestions on last week’s post. Thank you! Keep em coming. We are only halfway through advent. If you say it that way it feels like it’s a long time before Christmas :)

advent activities: week two

DAY 6: watch a Christmas Carol.

Friday is our movie night, so we watched an animated version of this Christmas classic.

DAY 7: go see the Christmas trains.

Does every city have this? Our Christmas train exhibit is in our local botanical garden. My husband took the kids, so I don’t have any pictures, but I hear the Christmas village was completely made out of candy!

DAY 8: make paper snowflakes

We make our paper snowflakes out of coffee filters. They are easier for little hands (and scissors) to cut. To make a coffee filter snowflake, first flatten the coffee filter, fold it in half, then in thirds, then in half again. Cut little triangles all over, or get fancy and look up patterns on Pinterest. I iron the snowflakes after we’re done making them. It sounds fussy, but they look so much nicer.  Then we fill up all our windows with snowflakes!

DAY 9: gumdrop sculptures

We did this last year and it was a bit hit. You have to brace yourself for the insane sugar high (and subsequent crash), but it is a lot of fun. There is a swing set in there somewhere and a dog and a booby trap. If you make gumdrop sculptures, be sure to look for short toothpicks. We had longer ones for some reason, and the sculptures were not very sturdy.

DAY 10: listen to Christmas records

Nothing better than listening to Bing Crosby sing I’ll be Home for Christmas.

DAY 11: make ice wreaths

The upside to living with sub-zero temperatures: ice wreaths. If you too live in painfully cold conditions, you can make this beautiful holiday decoration. Bundt pans work the best, but you can use any round cake pan. To make the hole in the middle weight an empty tin can down with rocks (or water). Don’t use glass! Ask me how I know.

DAY 12: dress up and go to the Christmas concert

We had two kids in the Christmas concert this year and my son even had a solo! All of us got our best clothes on and trudged through the cold and snow to hear adorable little kids sing adorable little songs.

Whew! That was our week in advent activities! Have you done anything Christmasy lately?

Every year we have an advent calendar–this string of lights advent calendar (that you could make too). Each day is filled with some sort of christmas-y activity. It’s super fun–for the kids–but it also can be a lot of work–for the mom. I was about to skip it this year and just get the chocolate advent calendars when my littlest said in the most adorable voice, “Remember that funny thing that had papers in it and told us what to do? That was the best.” Up went the advent calendar.

Do you do an advent activity calendar? If you have any good christmasy projects, please leave them in the comments! I’m always looking for new things to do. Here are our activities for the first week of advent.

advent activities: week one

DAY 1: go to the movies.

Okay, we took it easy the first day. Plus our kids wanted to see Frozen and it was a good day for a movie.

DAY 2: print out paper toys and make your mother glue them together

That’s not actually what it said to do, but that is what it turned into. This paper Santa was a lot harder than I anticipated and it seems paper craft is not my forte. They are so stinking cute though, it’s hard not to want to make them. I found these printable paper toys on pinterest, where else? After all the fussy cutting and folding and gluing, I really like these little guys and they are surprisingly sturdy.

DAY 3: take christmas photo

Taking the annual christmas photo is my annual christmas nightmare. There were at least a hundred shots like the one above and then Hallelujah! one decent one.

DAY 4: decorate the tree

I like em naked, maybe with a few lights. The kids have a much different idea of a christmas tree. More! More! More!

DAY 5: put shoes out for St. Nick

The shoes were left out last night and the kids woke up to oranges and chocolate coins and new slippers. Advent is more work, but it is magical too. Now what to do for day 6….

Today is the first day of advent! Did you make your advent calendar yet? We are still using the string of lights advent calendar I made a few years ago. I put activities in each of the little bulbs and I love it. I write up the activity the night before (surprise your kids, not yourself!) and all the projects keep me on task for christmas.  If cookies need to be made, or christmas cards written, or gifts wrapped it’s going to happen if it is in the advent calendar–the 4 and 6 year olds will demand it!

A friend of mine (hi Ellen!) asked me to write up a little list of activities she could use, so here they are! I divided them into effort needed, because sometimes you really need to drink some (spiked) eggnog while the kids watch a movie.

big projects

• make christmas cards
• pipe cleaner ornaments
• meringue snowmen
• bake cookies, cookies, cookies, and candy
• make a gingerbread house
• string cranberries and popcorn (or just cranberries, or dried cranberries and golden raisins, or whatever else is in your cupboard)
• borax snowflakes
• giant cardboard christmas trees
• make pine cone + peanut butter +bird seed feeders and watch the birds eat
• egg carton jingle bells

little projects

• make paper snowflakes (use coffee filters for easy cutting)
• write a letter to santa
• make gift tags
• make dried orange slices ornaments
• wrap presents
• deliver cookies to neighbors
• make jars of love
• make a gingerbread mobile (this is a quick project only if the cookies are already made, of course)
• make pomanders
• woven ornaments (these were a hit with my kids last year)

if it’s cold and snowy projects

• make snow angels
• go sledding (or have a whole sledding party!)
• make ice wreathes
• build a snow fort or a snowman
• have a picnic outside (with a thermos of hot chocolate and some cookies)
• go ice skating
• blow ice bubbles

phoning it in projects

• hot chocolate with marshmallows
• call grandma and grandpa
• dress up like an elf/santa/wise man/christmas tree
• dance to christmas music
• camp out under the tree (this may or may not be an easy one)
• color christmasy pictures–oh look I have a bunch right here
• look at pictures from christmases past
• I think one year I actually wrote down “eat christmas cookies” for an activity

for the whole family

• drive around looking at chrismtas lights
• dress up in your fanciest for dinner
• make popcorn and watch a christmas movie
• go see the nutcracker/christmas carol/holiday concert
• cut down a christmas tree/ put up your christmas tree
• decorate the tree!
• put up lights outside
• go for a evening walk

This list is my no means exhaustive. Some of these we do every year, some are new ones I’d like to try. Do you have any christmas activities or projects for advent? I’m always on the look out for good ones.

We are getting ready for lots of eating and merry making.  I hope you have lovely meals and lots of cookies in the coming days. I’m going to take a little break and I’ll see you all in the new yeat! Merry Christmas!

Download today’s coloring page here
See all the coloring pages so far here

I have one more present left to wrap and then I’m ready for all of them to be ripped open on christmas morn. Are you one of the crazy ones waiting to shop until tomorrow? I secretly wish I was, then all the hurrying would be stuffed into just one day and all of december could be about making and eating cookies and drinking glog. Then again maybe it’s a good thing I work on presents for most of the month, otherwise I’d be round and drunk.

Download today’s coloring page here
Check out all the coloring pages so far here
Buy the whole fancy advent calendar coloring book here
See everyone’s fancy coloring here