Christmas, we love it. But as much as I love Christmas and the build up to it, it is important to me to focus on my family and not just on the commercial aspect of just Christmas Day. Part of the way we do this is by having advent activities that we do. It helps me to focus on my family each day in this busy busy period of the year. So here is our ultimate advent activity list for kids.

Now there is no way that we do all of these, nor do I actually have a set activity for each day now the boys are older. When they were younger, I would print the activities out and place one in each day of the advent calendar.

Ultimate advent activity list for Kids

Write and post your letter to Father Christmas
Help ice the Christmas cake
Make Christmas cards
Make shapes with the cookie cutters and playdough
Make Christmas shrinky dinks
Make paper snowflakes
Go to Carol Service
Colour in some Christmas pictures
Make some Christmas fairy cakes
Make paper chains
Collect Pinecones
Make christmas popcorn
Make gingerbread men
Make a snow globe
Help dry orange slices
Make peppermint creams
Make up a Christmas board game
Put your PJ’s on and watch the Polar Express
Start reading about the nativity
Learn a new carol
Write your Christmas cards and deliver local ones
Make salt dough ornaments
String popcorn to go on the tree
Make a bird feeder
Sing and dance to Christmas songs
Make white pom poms and have a indoor snowball fight
Make an indoor snowman
Make reindeer cookies
Make decorations with dried orange slices
Make some Christmas cookies
Watch a Christmas movie
Make reindeer food
Read a Christmas Story from our advent box
Make air dry clay ornaments
Make up a Christmas story
Take a walk in the dark to look at the Christmas lights
Have a picnic under the light from the christmas tree
Attend crib service in church
Make a Christmas video
Make a christmas wreath
Help trim the tree
Make mince pies
Make spiced cider
Find Mistletoe, hang it in our house and kiss under it – If you can not find any then make some felt mistletoe
Make Thick Hot Chocolate and Homemade Marshmallows
Go on an christmas light scavenger hunt
Put up a wreath
Decorate our gingerbread house
Make a family traditional dessert
Dip candy canes in Hot Coco
Sing Christmas carols
Roast marshmallows over a fire
Make christmas flavored ice cream in a bag
Make a nativity out of LEGO
Write a Christmas poem
Make a christingle
Make candy as a gift
Do a craft with jingle bells
Donate canned food to a food bank
Make an angel for the top of the Christmas tree.
Choose three of your toys and give them away to a charity shop.
Write a Christmas Wish and hang it on your tree.
Hang up your Christmas stocking
Make a snow globe
Make Jelly Baby Jesus Cakes
Make orange and clove pomanders
Go ice skating
Make a lantern
Go Ice Skating
Make wrapping paper
Help wrap presents
Research christmas jokes
Make some crackers
Visit Father Christmas
Make peppermint bark
Make your own decoration
Make fingerprint robin cards

Ultimate advent activity list. Focus on the build up to Christmas with our 75 family activities for advent. There are many low cost or no cost activities for kids of all ages here.

We are still using the advent calendar that I made four years ago. Do you have a family advent calendar? If not you might want to take a look at 24 homemade advent calendars which might give you inspiration for your own.

Last year we also started doing an act of kindness each day of advent too, with our advent acts of kindness. I also love the idea of a Christmas Movie advent calendar.

17 thoughts on “Ultimate advent activity list”

angela hamilton November 5, 2015 at 11:40 am

some fantastic ideas here will need to try a few over the next few weeks

Sonia November 5, 2015 at 12:41 pm

Some brilliant ideas thanks Jen, I have fav’d this so I can come back to it a bit nearer 😉

Joe Cohen November 5, 2015 at 3:36 pm

Some really great ideas, and i like that you can use it like kind of a tick list and have enough choices to keep the kids busy till Santa comes 🙂

Sarah Bailey November 5, 2015 at 6:29 pm

What some absolutely fantastic sounding advent ideas 🙂 x

oana79 November 6, 2015 at 12:23 pm

Pinned, Jen, we will have a Lego advent calendar this year and the Elf on the shelf, of course, but I will come back to this list for the days we want to actually engage in a creative activity in December!xx

Kara November 6, 2015 at 2:11 pm

what a comprehensive list – we are attempting a home made christmas this year so will certainly be referring back to this post

Jess @ Catch A Single Thought November 6, 2015 at 2:37 pm

What a brilliant idea! We have something called the Kindness Elves which we use and each day they bring a little task for the kids to do to help someone else which I think is so important, as you’ve said to not just focus on the commercial aspect of it all. Thanks for sharing, I will definitely be borrowing some of your fab ideas!

Lucy Dorrington November 8, 2015 at 10:17 am

I love this list! I, like most people, probably, am always trying to fight the commercial nature of Christmas and was getting increasingly despondent about it. This was exactly what I needed. Perfect!