I am the kind of person who loves to have something to count down to. Whether it’s a family vacation, Christmas, or Friday.

I LOVE advent activity calendars as a way to countdown to Christmas and have fun along the way. We’ve done a themed advent a couple of times. One year we did a different Christmas book every day. Another year we did 25 acts of service.

But sometimes it’s nice to just put a bunch of different activities together to make a whole month of fun family activities leading up to Christmas.

Some of my favorites involve pajamas and hot chocolate. Or waking up my kids really early for a surprise to drive around and look at Christmas lights before they go off for the day. If you’re not an early riser you could do that in the evening before bed with warm slippers, robes and a thermos of hot chocolate and marshmallows. Bringing along Stonyfield Yogurt snack packs as a yummy breakfast to-go.

These things are brand new and seriously a great snack that make the holiday season easier. Whether you’re hopping on a plane or hitting the road. It’s a healthy option that’s easy to take anywhere.

Now take a look at this list and see if there are some you can add to your advent calendar activity list. You can do remarkable things with a bit of planning. Or you can ball up all of these ideas and pull a random one out of a Santa hat each day. The important thing to remember is you’re making time to do things together. So have fun with it.

And please share if you have more ideas. I’ll add it to the list so it can grow year after year.

Advent Calendar Activity Ideas

• Put up your Christmas tree
• Have a game night
• Do an act of service, this can be in the home, or for someone outside of your family.
• Read a Christmas book
• Watch a holiday movie
• Stay up late
• Set up a nativity
• Wake up early and visit drive-through Christmas lights in PJs. Stonyfield Yogurt snack packs are the perfect breakfast to-go
• Read a Christmas book.
• Make a treat for someone else
• Decorate your bedroom door for Christmas
• Write a thank-you note
• Make hot chocolate
• Drive around and listen to Christmas music
• Take holiday pictures
• Collect toys to donate to charity
• Have breakfast for dinner
• Learn about another holiday in December
• Color a Christmas coloring page
• Go caroling
• Write a letter to Santa
• Do a random act of kindness
• Go on a train ride (see if there’s a Polar Express near you!)
• Have a movie night
• Bundle up and go outside to look for shooting stars
• Bake holiday cookies
• Act out a Nativity
• Have a pajama party
• Eat a red and green dinner
• Write and illustrate a holiday book
• Make gifts for a teacher
• Collect cans to donate to a food bank
• Go ice skating
• Make a snowman (be creative if you don’t have snow)
• Make popcorn balls
• Host a scavenger hunt
• Have a Christmas music dance party
• Wrap presents
• Build a gingerbread house
• Make paper snowflakes
• Attend a local holiday celebration
• Make a Christmas ornament
• Have an indoor snowball fight (with paper balls)
• Play a board game
• Make reindeer handprints
• Make holiday pancakes
• Host a holiday “tea party”
• Make a holiday craft
• Camp in the living room
• Visit Santa
• Make a birdfeeder with pine cones, peanut butter and bird seeds
• Make marshmallow snowmen
• Craft a paper chain

There are so many more family activity ideas for your advent calendar but hopefully this will get you going. For all those activities that get you going around town, make sure you bring along some Stonyfield Organic yogurt pouches or snack packs for yummy snacking while on the go.

Tags: advent calendar, christmas, family activities, stonyfield