An Advent Calendar of Activities!

Inspired by my sister-in-law and by these bags that I found in Ikea today (apologies for the upside down photo, I am getting to grips with drop box and an android phone - bear with me!), I have put together an advent of activities for the children and us to enjoy throughout December. I downloaded printable Christmassy labels and edited them to show all of the activities that I have come up with. I have more than 24 as I plan to tweak both the order and the activity in the bag to suit the day and the circumstances! I think that I'm going to hang them down our beautiful banister rail so they will look really decorative as well as being their advent calendar. I'm not as organised as my sister-in-law as I haven't yet GOT all the ingredients and materials needed but there's plenty of time for that! This was very spur of the moment but I had no trouble thinking of things as we always do quite a few fun activities in December and I have been thinking about doing this for several years now! Events just collided to make me do it this year! Thanks Lorri and Ikea! Here is our list - some are specific to our area, and some are general!

• Shop for Christmas gifts for the children at The Haven
• Put up and decorate the tree (always on the 14th after Daddy's Birthday!!)
• Make mini gingerbread houses (a work in progress as we can't get graham crackers here and that was the idea that I saw....... watch this space!)
• Go Ice skating or to snow play, depending on deals and offers!
• Go for a walk to see the lighted houses near Granny and Grandpa's house
• Make marshmallows
• Make new ornaments for the tiny Christmas trees and decorate the trees
• Make ice-candles
• Make ice-cream cone Christmas trees to eat
• Treat the birds
• Decorate the Christmas cake
• m&m's Christmas story
• Christmas tree play dough
• Write letters to Santa (something for me, something for someone else, something for the world)
• Make reindeer food
• Learn a new Christmas carol
• Make hand print ornaments
• Make paper chains (we always do this, it's a tradition in our house!)
• Make lolly stick snowflakes for the walls
• Have a family pow-wow and say nice things about each other - write them down to keep!
• Make mince pies and give to the local people we know who are in need (Jack (92) is first on the list, he always carried a boneo in his pocket for our dog, and he was the only person she never barked at as she rushed out to sit and beg waiting for her treat then scuttled off again without a backward glance - pure cupboard love but we have come to love Jack and after a bout of pneumonia earlier this year, we no longer see him take his daily walk and we miss him!)
• Go to the Christmas tree festival at Church
• Make paper snowflakes
• Enjoy hot chocolate with all the trimmings!

I might pop the odd sweet or chocolate in there to make the children giggle, like red smarties for Rudolph's nose and chocolate coated raisins for reindeer poo! I'm really happy I did this this year and I'm looking forwards to it! Have fun making yours!