an advent calendar tradition
I love traditions! They always make me feel so nostalgic. When Jesse and I got married though, I wanted to start a little tradition of our own and so… enter the advent calendar.
The goal was to make it an “advent activity calendar” and do Christmas-y things with each other all month long. QT but make it festive ya know? You could also say this was an insurance policy that Jesse couldn’t go full Grinch mode over the holiday season either lol.
Fast forward and this will be our 5th year doing it. It really has turned into such a tradition for us and we love it.
I start planning this thing early and thought I’d share a little more about how I plan mine because you should 10/10 do one with your fam. It is seriously SO FUN and worth the work beforehand to plan it out and make it special.
So here’s the scoop…
HOW I COME UP WITH IDEAS:
+ Think festive yet out of the box activities. Like the more random and spontaneous the better. One time Jesse got a tattoo. Another time we had friends over for dinner then I made everyone play a game of Chubby Bunny. Trust me, you can turn pretty much anything into an advent activity.
+ Plan activities that are big and small. Every day doesn’t have to be crazy elaborate!
+ Google holiday things to do in your area. A lot of places have tree lightings, concerts or pop up Christmas villages.
+ If you can swing it, weekend trips are always a fun surprise.
+ Sweat a little and throw in some exercise activities. Think: a Santa 5K or any kind of workout challenge!
+ Highly recommend advent activities that include some alcoholic bevvies—Christmas bars, going to Troegs for a Mad Elf, making a Christmas cocktail, drunk caroling with friends, you get it.
+ Include your friends and fam in activities! Everyone loves being included in this but another reason why you need to plan early— you need to pencil plans in their calendars on exact dates! So do it far enough in advance!
+ Don’t stress if you have to throw in some “filler” activities. If I’m struggling, this is when I’ll make the activity something I want to do. E.g. take me to get my ear pierced, buy fresh flowers for the house, repot one of my house plants, literally whatever I want it to be lol. Filler days are like a thank you to yourself for your advent planning efforts!
+ Every day doesn’t have to be holiday themed. The point of the advent calendar is to just do something together—whatever that is.
A LONG LIST OF IDEAS TO GET YOU STARTED:
Order take out, eat by candlelight and watch all the Christmas episodes of Friends — I listed our favorites ones to watch below!
Season 6, Episode 10: The One With The Routine
Season 7, Episode 10: The One With The Holiday Armadillo
Season 3, Episode 10: The One Where Rachel Quits
Season 4, Episode 10: The One With the Girl From Poughkeepsie
Season 2, Episode 9: The One With Phoebe’s Dad
Deliver holiday treats to friends (buy ‘em or make ‘em who cares, just show up on their front door and surprise them!)
Make your own DIY Christmas garland
Watch a classic holiday movie (or any really any holiday movie lol)
Bake Jesus a birthday cake
Write down your favorite memories/best moments from the year. Orrrr make next year’s resolutions/goals/things you wanna accomplish list
Decorate a gingerbread house or some gingerbread people.
Bake cookies (we love these pan banging choco chips cookies)
Set out Christmas goodies for your trash peeps, mailman, Amazon + UPS guys, etc.
Color Christmas cards and mail to grandparents (or anyone else for that matter)
Read your kiddo(s) a Christmas book wearing Santa hats
Set up a candy cane hunt around the house (or outside) for your kid. Or make this is an adult hunt and set up a Christmas inspired beers outside.
Make homemade pizza—go the whole 9 yards! Get a bunch of toppings, toss the dough in the air, cook it on the grill (or smoker)— just do it up extra and fun!
Take a family picture with sparklers, a Polaroid pic, with Santa…
Make a Christmas themed cocktail — or have friends over, everyone makes their own holiday themed drink and y’all vote on your favorite
Go to a Christmas bar (Miracle sets up Christmas pop up bars in a bunch of cities so check their website for locations—the one in Pittsburgh was so fun!)
Take a family pic by the tree (we’ve done a family polaroid every year!)
Do push ups to the tune of a holiday song
Play Chubby Bunny
Make a red + green themed dinner
Go outside ice skating
Get your friends together and go drunk caroling
Go on walk/drive to look at Christmas lights
Make hot chocolate or root beer floats and watch a holiday movie
Visit Santa
Go on a Christmas train ride (a lot of trains do Santa rides around the holidays!)
Go snowboarding… wearing Santa hats
Make a time capsule Christmas ornament
Give everyone $15-20 to come up with their best Christmas themed outfit from your local thrift shop… then go somewhere wearing your outfits OR have a contest + poll your social media audience on stories to vote for the best costume. You can honestly spin this a bunch of diff ways depending on what you wanna do! You can double the fun and do this with a big group of friends too!
Hang some mistletoe
Go out to eat at a boujee restaurant with a bunch of friends
Learn how to do the watermelon crawl, Texas two-step or literally any Tik Tok dance
Host a cookie exchange
Go on a nature hike
Buy your pup or cat some holiday presents + wrap them up together
Call someone (like your grandparents) + catch up with them
Go to a concert — Trans-Siberian Orchestra was f*ing AMAZING btw
Run a Santa 5K
Go to NYC to see it at Christmas time! DC is pretty cool too!
Buy Christmas gifts for a family in need
Make homemade doggy treats
Visit a Christmas market (any major city will have some!)
Visit Terrain — it’s own by Anthro and their holidays decorations are NEXT LEVEL. It’s worth a trip to one! My favorite one to visit is their Glen Mills location.
Visit a tree farm to cut down your tree / decorate your tree / hang the star on your tree, etc.
Wear matching family pajamas
Make homemade sticky buns
Seriously, the ideas are endless!
Then…
MAKE IT SPECIAL:
+ I love to go OTT with the advent calendar structure but it honestly serves as wall décor for the entire month of December so I want it to look pretty too. Try using dried flowers (I love Afloral), a birch branch, palm leaves, whatever! I usually find something on Pinterest to use as inspiration every year and go from there! If you aren’t super crafty, you can always buy something too! Even a garland would work. Here are some ideas if you wanna buy something that would work! Here, here, and here.
+ Write out all the activities in one place so you have a “master schedule” more or less. Trust me, you’ll refer back to this because you’ll forget what you planned lol.
+ Write out each advent activity and attach onto your “calendar” however you want. I usually write out the activity on a card and put it in envelopes and attach to the calendar with string or little paper clips but you can do whatever you want here. The sky is the limit- just make sure no one can see in advance what the activities are!
There you have it!! There are no rules—just have fun it! If you do your own, be sure to LMK how it goes and send me a pic of your calendar! Andddd any other ideas for advent activities, send them my way too so I add to our master list!!
HUGS! xx Natalie