How to Plan a Holiday Activity Advent Calendar | Holiday Advent Calendar Activity Ideas 2022 🎄

It’s almost December!! What, how did that happen?!! It’s been our family’s tradition for the past few years in the days leading up to Christmas to complete a Holiday Activity Advent Calendar!

This is my favorite holiday tradition. I look forward to planning it for my children and our family every year. 

Benefits of the Holiday Activity Advent Calendar

🎁Organization

It helps me remember all the things I want to do with my kids for the Holidays. 

🎄Fun and Festivity

It adds a little jolt of fun and festivity to our mornings as the kids love the anticipation of what the activity will be for the day. 

🎁Intentionality

By planning in advance and seeing everything all laid out in front of me, I am intentional with how we spend our time and money during the Holiday season. 

Here is How I plan our Holiday Activity Advent Calendar 🎄🗓

Make a List

The first thing I do is make a list of Holiday Activity Advent Calendar ideas. I divide this list into three categories. Physical Objects, Events and Activities. 

Physical Objects

Physical objects are things. We limit these, as this calendar is about activities; however, for the most part our physical objects are still activities. For example the kids always get a Holiday Sticker book.  They then spend a significant amount of time playing with their sticker books together. Another physical object is a new Holiday book. This is a physical object that the kids and I will then spend time reading together over and over for years. 

Events 

Events are anything that happen at a particular day and time without any flexibility in the scheduling. For example this year we  bought tickets to go see the Nutcracker and tickets to go to a Holiday show at the Planetarium. 

Activities

Activities are things we want to do and have flexibility about when we do them. Some examples include decorate gingerbread houses, go on a holiday lights drive and go shopping for Christmas gifts. 

Print off a Calendar

After I make my list that includes at least 24 ideas Holiday Activity Advent Calendar I print off a December 2022 calendar online. I like these free ones from printabull. 

Fill it in

I start by filing in the events in the calendar, since these have to happen at a certain day and time. Then I start to add things and activities based on what works best for our family. For example new Christmas pajamas are usually December 1st because I want the kids to wear them as much as possible ( even though they wear Christmas pajamas year round) it’s still the most fun to wear them during the holiday season. I make sure to fill this out in pencil because life happens and things and plans are always subject to change. 

Create Holiday Activity Advent Calendar Labels

I then usually type our Holiday Activity Advent Calendar ideas out and cut them out into slips of paper that I can slip into each pocket of the calendar. I purchased ours from Target a few years ago but here’s a similar one.

This Advent Calendar from Amazon is cute too!

Here is a list of our Holiday Advent Calendar Activity Ideas 2022 🎁🗓

New Holiday Pajama’s 

New Holiday Book

Holiday Sticker Book

Go watch the Nutcracker 

Go watch the Holiday Show at the Planetarium 

Go to the Home Depot Kids Workshop Holiday Craft

Decorate a gingerbread house

Go on a Holiday Lights Drive

Go to the Polar express

Go to the Botanical Gardens lights show

Go to the Riverwalk lights 

Go Paint Holiday pottery 

Have a Holiday movie night 

Holiday Mad Libs

Holiday Christmas Puzzle

Decorate Cookies

Complete a Holiday Scavenger Hunt

Get a Holiday Themed Donut and pay for someone’s coffee

Do a Holiday Craft

Put up our Holiday decorations outside

Have a Holiday themed breakfast

Go Christmas shopping

Go on a Candy Cane Hunt

Buy a gift for a child in need

Etsy Holiday Activity Advent Calendar

If a Holiday Activity Advent Calendar is a tradition you might want to start with your family but you don’t have the time or energy to plan, check out my Etsy store! You can purchase just the printable and do the rest of the planning yourself or if you are really short on time I also offer the full kit that includes everything you need for 24 fun Holiday Activities.