Christmas Activity Advent Calendar

The holidays have been crazy for us so far!  We took a last minute trip to Utah to be with family and to celebrate my grandma's life after her passing.  It was wonderful to be with family during such a time, and during the holidays, especially since we hadn't planned on going home at all this year.  So, I'm really glad we made the trek back to the states, and luckily most of our Christmas shopping was done before we left, but it's been a pretty hectic few weeks.

One thing that has been put on the back burner has been my blog!  And, although we're only just over a week away from Christmas, I wanted to share our family's Christmas activities that have filled our advent calendar this year.  Last year, I made a simple, retro-inspired advent calendar for our family.  And, last year, we filled it with small treats and trinkets.  But I just didn't love it.  I felt like the kids were getting plenty of sweets and gifts during this time of year, so I didn't feel like we needed to add to all of that by giving them more each day.  So, this year, instead of treats, I filled our advent calendar with Christmastime activities!  And, so far, I love it so much more!  Plus, I think the kids enjoy it more as well.  It makes each day's surprise last longer and is more meaningful.

If you're interested in creating a Christmas activity advent calendar, or if you're just looking for some new ideas of things to do over the next week to get into the Christmas spirit, here's the list of activities that we've been doing!  (There's not quite 24 on this list because a few, like "reading Christmas books" and "Christmas movie night" were repeated a couple of times!)

Christmas Activities

-Read a Christmas book

-Have a Christmas movie night

-Decorate Daddy's office

-Make a Christmas ornament

-Make gingerbread houses

-Drive around looking at Christmas lights

-Go see the lights at Temple Square

-Make gingerbread nativity scenes

-Do a service project 

-Make cookies and deliver them to neighbors

-Visit Santa Claus

-Make a Christmas scene out of Legos

-Light candles, drink hot chocolate, and sing Christmas songs

-String popcorn garland for the tree
-Make Christmas aprons

-Light candles, drink hot chocolate, and read a Christmas book

-Build a snowman (and if there's no snow, build it out of marshmallows or cotton balls!)

-Dress up in Santa hats and go take pictures in a photo booth at the mall (or on your computer!)
-Make Christmas cards to send to grandmas and cousins
-Deliver neighbor gifts
-Wear Santa hats and go bowling

-Read the account from Luke 2 in the Bible (save this one for Christmas Eve!)

Have a fun and very merry Christmas season!