There are all sorts of advent calendars for children (including our unique handcrafted and personalised Advent Calendar for children – Elfie’s Christmas Letters) we have a funny little wooden advent calendar house thing with numbered drawers. We make sure all the drawers are in a right old jumble and critically, only fill one at a time!
Magical Advent Calendar 2024 – Personalised Christmas Elf Letters
If you’re someone who doesn’t want to buy a chocolate advent calendar for children due to the inevitable fights over who gets the chocolate, the annual question is ‘what shall we put in our advent calendar this year then?’ I’ve seen all sorts of good ideas, so I thought I would jot down what I can remember and then hopefully that will help others struggling to decide.
For those of you who are new to the International Elf Service and Elfie’s Christmas Letters, we put a clue in each drawer of our advent calendar for our kids for them to ‘solve’ and find their letter from Elfie each day. Judging by the shrieking, they love hearing the latest news from the North Pole. I also put in a lowish denomination coin and/or a sweet in the drawer each day.
In previous years I’ve had so little time as I’ve been busy scribbling the letters or trying to draw doodles on them that December has always been a bit of a rush for me. This year I can ENJOY ENJOY ENJOY! My December is going to be full of Christmas, shopping, having fun with the kids and no doubt doing 93 Christmas crafts a day with them, which they then stick to our windows with blu-tac.
So other things that you can ‘do’ with your advent calendar / Elfie’s Christmas Letter envelope are:
- Put in a raffle ticket that corresponds with a new (or new to them) book to read each day. This also works well as a pile of 24 wrapped books (secondhand is good too!), so no need for an extra advent calendar…
- Jokes
- Little treats – e.g. balloons, stickers, ‘squinkies’ or other little very cheap rubber creatures, various plastic tat from the pound shop..!
- Figures to make up a nativity scene
- An activity to do each day
- e.g. baking, present wrapping, craft idea,
- An act of kindness to do each day, either to each other or a friend or neighbour
- A positive comment about your children
- The name of someone to write a Christmas card to
Now I am absolutely certain that there are hundreds of other ideas for Christmas advent calendars that I haven’t come across. Please post anything else you can think of below so we can all have a peek!
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If your child believes in Father Christmas and you want to keep the magic for as long as possible, come and have a browse through our Christmas Elf Letter Bundles and our other Christmas Elf Letters in the shop.
Come and join us on Facebook for non Christmassy posts until much later in the year, or find us over on Christmas Traditions & Magic For Children for all year round festive chat.
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