The Creative Kids' Corner

My kids look forward to opening an advent calendar each day of December to count down the days until Christmas. I usually just get the simple advent calendars that have a single piece of chocolate for each of the days. Those are great! However, this year I wanted to make my own advent calendar with fun family activities for each day. I love doing fun family bonding activities that brings my family together while making some great memories. So, I created a free printable PDF with 25 Christmas activities that can be used to create your own advent calendar. Keep reading to see how to make your own family bonding advent calendar.

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How to Make Your Own Family Bonding Advent Calendar

1. Decide the type of fillable advent calendar holder that you’re going to use to display your family bonding Christmas activities. There are so many great ways to display an advent calendar that can either be made or purchased. I usually prefer to make mine. So I used a bunch of empty toilet paper rolls that I stacked to create an advent calendar in the shape of a Christmas tree. Check out my blog post below on how to make a Christmas Tree Advent Calendar. If you’re not wanting to tackle a DIY project, that’s totally fine! I’ve linked the cutest gingerbread houses advent calendar boxes below. I’ve also linked so really cute hanging advent calendar and a wooden advent calendar that are pretty awesome too. Those are great for holding our family bonding Christmas activities.

2. Next download and print off our chart of 25 family bonding activities for Christmas. This is a free printable that we have linked at the bottom of this post.

3. Cut along the green lines to make individual squares for each of the family bonding activities. Tip: I used a paper cutter to quickly cut all the squares. I’ve linked the paper cutter that I always use and trust

3. Next choose 24 of the activities that work best for your family. There are 25 activities listed plus 5 blank squares to make your own activities. Some of the activities, like going sledding, might not work for the area you live in. So just don’t use that one and write a different activity in one of the 5 blank squares.

4. Next fill each of the 24 openings on your advent calendar with one of the family bonding activity squares.

• Optional: you could also add another treat or small toy into each of the advent pouches to go with the activity. For example: you could add a hot cocoa bomb to go with the activity square that says “Make hot chocolate.”

5. Then set your family bonding advent calendar in an area that is easily seen. So that starting on December 1st, the kids can open the #1 pouch and so on for each day afterwards. When they open the 24th pouch, then they know that Christmas is the next morning!

Alright, linked below is the free printable family bonding Christmas activity sheet. Click download and print off your free copy.