Cheap Homemade Advent Calendar Ideas For Kids

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This year I’m planning on making my daughter a homemade advent calendar. With lots of the usual Christmas activities cancelled, such as visiting Father Christmas and other kids activities likely severely limited, I thought it would be a great way to bring some extra festive cheer to our home. Here are some of homemade advent calendar ideas for kids.

Homemade Advent Calendar Ideas For Kids

While a homemade advent calendar may seem extravagant, I will be attempting to make mine on quite a tight budget, mostly by buying items second hand and even reusing some things we already have. It will also use up some money I had already put aside towards activities for December.

1. Book Advent Calendar

A book Advent calendar is great for several reasons. Firstly, I’m for encouraging children to read more and I think this a brilliant way to do that. It also works if you don’t want to give your children chocolate or if it needs to be avoided due to allergies.

While there is a small initial outlay of buying 24 books, it is something that can be put away each January and reused each Christmas. Books can then gradually be changed or replaced as children get older.

You could also include a couple of sticker books or colouring books too to mix things up a bit.

If you already have any children’s Christmas books now is the perfect time to hide them away ready for making an advent calendar. I would then start looking for Christmas books in charity shops and on Facebook marketplace. I recently picked up a Christmas sticker book and colouring for £1 from a local second-hand shop.

If you’d prefer to buy new books, then The Works often have 10 books for £10 or 3 for £5 or you could purchase their readymade book advent calendar for £24. You can also get book advent calendars for 7 or 10 days too.

10 Things To Do With The Works 10 Books For £10 Offer

2. Activity Advent Calendar

Making an Activity Advent calendar doesn’t necessarily have to be expensive, as lots of the activities you can add can be very cheap or even free.

These can be chosen in random order or numbered with the 24 days of advent. I think it’s worth planning ahead and looking at the days to make sure that days activity is going to be feasible. For example, baking, crafting and watching movies might be better for weekends.

Here are some ideas you could add to an activity advent calendar

1. Bake Christmas Biscuits
2. Write a letter to Father Christmas
3. Family Christmas Movie Day
4. Collect Pinecones to turn into Christmas Decorations
5. Make Homemade Christmas Wrapping paper
6. Make & Write Christmas Cards
7. Make Paper Chains
8. Have a Family Christmas photoshoot
9. Read a Christmas Story
10. Write a letter to a relative
11. Make Salt dough Christmas Decorations
12. Go on a walk looking for Christmas Lights
13. Make hot chocolate together
14. Bake Christmas Cupcakes
15. Donate old toys to charity
16. Go on a walk to count the Christmas trees in windows
17. Make Homemade Popcorn
18. Play Board Games
19. Make labels from old Christmas Cards
20. Christmas-themed colouring in
21. Build a gingerbread house
22. Decorate Christmas Cookie
23. Sing Christmas Carols
24. Tell The Nativity Story

Of course, the ideas above could be adapted to what you enjoy doing as a family and using what you already have available to help keep costs down.

Lots of places do Christmas-themed baking sets in the run-up to Christmas. I recently got the one pictured below from B7M for £1.29. Poundland is great for Christmas craft items.

There are also lots of different ways to present this type of calendar – the easiest is probably to envelopes numbered 1-24 with each activity written inside. However, you could also wrap any activities that you’ve bought such as books or Christmas DVS.

4. Homemade Advent Calendar Ideas For Kids: Advent Jar

Another way to create an advent calendar yourself would be to do an Advent Jar full of either activities, quotes or other prompts, such as things to be grateful for over the festive period. You could also include bible quotes if that’s something your family would enjoy.

5. Homemade Toy Advent Calendar

While a homemade toy advent calendar sounds like a great idea it is probably the most expensive and time-consuming idea listed here. Cost-wise, the best thing to do would probably be to buy larger packs of toys and split them into smaller packs.

That said, it may be cheaper and easier to buy a readymade toy advent calendar instead, depending on exactly what you’re looking for.

6. Homemade Beauty Advent Calendar

If you have an older child or a teenager then you could make them a beauty advent calendar. As with the toy advent calendar, the cheapest way to do this would probably be to buy packs of products and split them up.

This could be much cheaper than buying one of the more expensive beauty advent calendars which cost upwards of £50. Or you could make your own Bath Bombs.

Things you could include in a homemade beauty advent calendar:

• Bath Bombs
• Nail Polish
• Nail files
• Bubble Bath
• Soap
• Sleep Spray
• Make-up
• Hair ties/bobbles/clips

I hope you enjoyed these Homemade Advent Calendar Ideas For Kids!

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