Printable Advent Activities Calendar
This time of year is full of family traditions. From eating a big piece of Grandma’s pecan pie after a Thanksgiving feast, to Christmas caroling with your homeschool co-op, to attending mass on Christmas Eve, most families have a holiday tradition, or traditions, that they look forward to every year that makes the season extra special and memorable.
Get your copy of the printable Advent Activities calendar below.
One of the family traditions that our family enjoys every year is one that we have carried over from my childhood – counting down to Christmas with a needlepoint Advent calendar that my mother made.
My family now uses the very same calendar that I used when I was growing up. As our family grew, having one Advent calendar just wasn’t enough. As the number of kids in our family grew, so did the number of Advent calendars we had going each December – chocolate ones, Lego ones, nativity ones, ornament ones, just to name a few. Last year I decided that it was getting to be a little too much – keeping track of all the Advent calendars and remembering whose turn it was to do which calendar – so I decided to make an Advent calendar that was all about spending time together as a family, allowing us to make the tradition more meaningful and even more memorable.
I modified the Advent calendar a little bit for this year, making it fairly quick and simple to make, so that I could share it with my fellow, busy, homeschooling moms.
The calendar consists of 25 printable cards, with each card having a different activity on the back for you to do as a family. I have also included cards that are blank on the back so you can choose your own family activities and just write them in on the back (printing instructions are provided in the download).
The materials you’ll need to make the Printable Advent Activities Calendar are:
- cardstock
- color printer
- ribbon, string, or yarn
- hooks or large push pins
- small clothespins
- laminator (optional)
Instructions for making the Printable Advent Activities Calendar:
- print out cards as instructed in the download
- laminate (if desired)
- cut out cards
- hang ribbon with hooks or push pins
- clip the cards to the ribbon with clothespins
If you would like to add this Advent Activities Calendar to your family’s holiday traditions, simply,
Download the Printable Advent Activities Calendar
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The activities that I’ve included are:
-
- Make a gingerbread house
- Read your favorite Christmas storybook
- Watch your favorite Christmas movie (and don’t forget the popcorn)
- Make homemade ice cream
- Make paper snowflakes
- Have a family camp out in the living room
- Have a candy cane eating contest
- Go through your toys and donate ones you no longer play with
- Make homemade Christmas gifts
- Play outside
- Go to the local museum
- Make a Christmas craft
- Bake a birthday cake for Jesus
- Make and send Christmas cards
- Have family game night
- Enjoy hot chocolate with marshmallows
- Sing and play Christmas songs
- Perform a ‘Random Act of Kindness’
- Give a treat to the birds (make a bird feeder)
- Make Christmas ornaments
- Drive or walk around the neighborhood and look at Christmas lights
- Make Christmas cookies
- Act out the Christmas story
- Have a picnic dinner by the light of the Christmas tree
- Be Blessed! Enjoy and spend the day with family
We haven’t given up all of our other Advent calendars completely (we still do the one my mother made and each child has their own chocolate one, which are just 99 cents at Aldis), we just changed our focus to be more about spending quality, meaningful time together as a family.
You also may be interested in our Christmas Journal Writing prompts freebie! Click the picture below to go to that page!
What great ideas!
Thank you!!!!
Thank you! My children are going to love this!
Great list of ideas – I’ll definitely be using some of those!
What a super idea – and I love the simplicity of it! Thanks for sharing this.
I love the focus of doing things together as a family! Thank you.
This is lovely, Sarah! Thanks so much for generously sharing it! I featured your printable as a Free Printable of the Day at the Living Montessori Now Facebook page and on Pinterest. 🙂
Thanks so much Deb!
Just what I was looking for! Thank you!
Thank you so much for this inspiring calendar. You made my day and even Advent! Thank you.
Sanne
What size are the blocks when printed? Thanks so much for sharing!
Dawn – They are 3×5
Great ideas!! 🙂
Thank you for the lovely printable!
I love these ideas . This is the first year that we as a family will be starting traditions . We have always gone to other family members homes. But we now have our 9yr old , 2 1/2yr old and 3 month old twins. So it time to make our Christmas Day here at home . We have wrapped 24 Christmas books to read one a night together . Found an E book called “the truth in the tinsel” a Christian based crafty advent. And I think this advent will also be apart of our traditions . Thank you for putting this together . We are also homeschoolers and family is a very important focus for us 🙂
Kris – It’s always fun to start new family traditions. I can understand wanting to stay home and do your own thing; we have 7 kids (including 2 year old twins) and we stay home on Christmas Day now.
One of these years I want to do the wrapping of the books too. This year we are trying The Christmas Angel.
I am so grateful for these super cute printables and ideas! I have been looking for something like this. Thank you for sharing! God Bless!
I Love the Advent CAlendar! Since our family celbrates the season of advent (4th Sunday before Christmas), could you add matching numbers 26-30? Thank you!!!!!
Hi Melinda! We’re so glad you like the Advent calendar and activities! The mom who wrote this post is in the middle of a cross-country move right now, so she’s not available to add the extra dates for you. However, you might try printing extras of one or two other ones and changing the dates on them. Also, there are extra blank activity cards at the end of the download, so you can write in some activities that you and your family enjoy on those. We hope you have a wonderful Christmas season!!
I love these! Thank you so much for sharing, this is such a sweet and simple list full of some really fun ideas!
Hi,
We are following your blog from South Yorkshire over in England and we love your printable advent calendar idea! We’ve been looking to teach our (2 pre-school 1 baby) kids about the countdown to Christmas besides simply eating chocolate (although we will keep that tradition too!) We already have a birthday cake on Christmas day so it was cool to see your idea of making a birthday cake for Jesus 🙂
Thanks again for sharing
We are blessed and encouraged by what you have shared
The Edwards Family
We are so glad you enjoyed the article and that you follow the HHM blog! We love to hear from moms and dads who are blessed by what we do! Thanks so much for your comment. 🙂
Thank you Sarah! We did this same thing this year, but in a way less coordinated way. I think I’m going to be difficult and print them one sided so I can re-arrange the activities (change the dates) given our other commitments, etc. Just not sure how I’ll keep the cards from sliding around once laminated as each clothespin will hold 2 cards. I bet a little scotch tape will do the trick. Each year, we can rearrange the activities and reuse all of the cards. Thanks again!
Thank you !! This is lovely. My girls are going to love doing this with me!!
Thanks for your comment! We’re so glad you’re looking forward to doing this with your girls. 🙂
Thank you for sharing this! I was looking for simple and meaningful! My son and I can do this together… a month of favorite things!