Our Christmas Activity Advent Calendar for 2025

Hi beauties! Today I am sharing the advent calendar I made for my two year old daughter! I absolutely love how this turned out and I think every parent with young children (that want to avoid the traditional chocolate advent calendars) should definitely make a countdown calendar!

When December rolls around, one of my favorite traditions is counting down the days to Christmas with something special every day. Instead of chocolates or trinkets, I love creating a Christmas activity advent calendar filled with fun, festive things to do together as a family. It's a meaningful way to slow down, make memories, and truly embrace the joy of the holiday season-without adding extra clutter. From baking cookies to driving around to see Christmas lights, every little activity brings its own sparkle to the countdown.

In this post, I'm sharing how I created our own DIY activity advent calendar and how you can easily make one too. Whether you're crafting it for toddlers, kids, or the whole family, this non-chocolate advent idea keeps the focus on quality time, creativity, and connection. It's simple to personalize, affordable to make, and guaranteed to become one of your favorite Christmas traditions year after year.

What Is a Christmas Activity Advent Calendar?

A Christmas activity advent calendar is a fun twist on the traditional advent calendar - instead of opening a window to find candy or a toy, each day reveals a festive activity to enjoy as a family. It's all about celebrating the season through meaningful moments rather than material gifts. Every card or envelope holds a simple holiday-inspired idea, like baking cookies, watching a Christmas movie, or making homemade ornaments.

What makes this type of advent calendar so special is that it encourages togetherness and creativity. It's perfect for families with kids, couples, or even individuals who want to slow down and savor the little joys of December. Whether you plan one big activity or something small each day, it's a lovely way to build excitement, create lasting memories, and make the countdown to Christmas truly magical.

Supplies You'll Need

• Vintage frame
• Black Spray Paint
• Chicken Wire
• Staple Gun
• Small Clothes Pins
• CardStock (I used kraft but you can use any colour)
• White Paint Pen
• Single Hole Puncher
• Twine or Festive String/Ribbon
• Christmas Bow
• Faux Garland

How to Make Your DIY Advent Calendar

Ok so I will admit, I had this frame already saved from our wedding. We used it as our seating chart! So glad I saved it because it came in handy for this DIY advent activity calendar.

How we made it was super simple. We went to the thrift store and found an old vintage frame. I think it cost us around $10. We popped out the glass so it was only the frame. Then we spray painted chicken wire black, and stapled it to the back. I then hot glued a faux garland to the top and finished it with a beautiful Christmas bow!

To make the actual advent calendar portion is what took me a while. I cut out 25 different sized cards from Kraft Cardstock. I then single hole punched the top left corner of each card. Once all the cards we completed, I wrote numbers on the front used the white paint marker. I tried to make them all look somewhat like calligraphy but I failed miserably haha at least they turned out half decent!

Once the paint numbers dried, I started working on the inside. You can find the list of toddler friendly activities I chose below. I wrote them all in basic black permanent marker but you could also use the white paint marker to make it consistent.

With each card, comes something for the activity. I may have hung an ornament to hang on the tree, or a festive cookie cutter. I also have a little Christmas sack sitting under the advent calendar that I will fill each night with the object for that day. So for example, day 1 is new Christmas PJs, so I will have the PJs in that sack for her to open.

I took a piece of twine to hang each card on the chicken wire using a mini clothes pin. If you cant find clothes pins you can also just tie them right to the chicken wire. Or you could skip the twine or ribbon all together and just pin the cards right to the chicken wire.

Have fun with this project, make it personal, add family traditions and design it to fit your home decor so it doesn't stick out like a sore thumb! I have seen this done on antique ladders or hanging from a branch on the wall. Use what you have around the house or get creative if you have the time to make something new!

The Toddler Friendly Activities:

The activities I chose for our advent calendar range from full day adventures to small little things. I wanted to mix them up because I knew somedays we wouldn't be able to go on a crazy wild adventure.. life gets busy and I also didn't want our December revolving around this advent calendar haha

I wrote a post earlier about 50 ACTIVITIES TO DO WITH SMALL KIDS THIS HOLIDAY SEASON. I wrote this while I was coming up with our list of advent calendar activities, so if you are needing some inspiration, head to that post to see other activities other then the ones I chose!Get Christmas tree

PLEASE NOTE: these are not in any specific order, so you can rearrange them based on your schedule. For example, you may want to choose the larger activities for the weekend rather then a week night.

1. Christmas PJs - I bought the girls matching Christmas pajamas that they will get on the first day of December to wear frequently throughout the month! We are also doing family pajamas for Christmas eve and Christmas morning. We will open one present Christmas eve and it will be all matching pajamas and a new Christmas book to read.
2. Make Homemade Hot Chocolate - I thought it would be fun to make some hot chocolate after our usual afternoon walk outside. It is getting so cold out so hot chocolate sounds real nice, especially after playing in the snow, sledding, ice skating or building a snowman!
3. DIY Christmas hand ornament - I bought two of these little do it yourself hand ornaments to make with the girls to hang on the tree this year. It will be fun to look back at these ornaments each year to come!
4. Drive to look at Christmas lights - Our city does a Christmas light festival every year so we will hopefully be able to drive around and look at these lights one night! Its hard with younger kids because bedtime is 7pm in our house, so it doesn't leave much time to look at lights after dark!
5. Christmas Tree Craft - I thought this Christmas craft would be fun for our daughter and also one that we could hang on her mini Christmas tree in her room!
6. Make Paper SnowFlakes - These are such an easy craft to do. I also think it would be cute to tape them to our windows. My daughter LOVES displaying her art work around the house so she will LOVE this.
7. Make a Gift and Card for Teacher - Our daughter is in nursery school and I thought she would have fun making a card and gift for her teacher for Christmas. I am still trying to figure out some cute ideas for this one, so I have been hitting Pinterest for some ideas!
8. Bake Cookies - Baking is one of our favourite things do to! We plan on baking LOTS of Christmas cookies this month for all our friends and family! Everyone loves holiday treats!
9. Deliver Baked Cookies - We need to share all our baked goods so they don't go to mamas hips! We will probably do little tins of cookies and give them to friends and family!
10. Decorate Gingerbread House - This is a must for Christmas traditions! I definitely wont have time to bake our own, but sometimes store bought kits are just as handy!
11. Deliver Christmas Cards - A lot of our friends and family live near by, so we might drive around and personally deliver some of our Christmas cards instead of mailing them. We like to go for drives, it gets us out of the house for a bit! Christmas music + hot chocolate for the road! Also, incase you were wondering, we ordered our cards from Minted. My all time favourite stationary website EVER!
12. Write a Letter to Santa - Obviously our two year old daughter doesn't know how to write or even what to wish for but I will help her write a card to Santa and mail it! Visit Santa would have been on this list but we already did that at the end of November!
13. Make Cotton Ball Snowmen - Another simple craft idea for young children!
14. Read a New Christmas Book - Reading a new Christmas book is always a fun activity! Even if you don't have a new book, you can always read an old one or even write your own!
15. Christmas Tree Waffles - Making a fun Christmas inspired breakfast is a must this month! Or even every day leading up to Christmas hehe I also bought a cute candy cane mold for pancakes.. oh the Christmas things we will get into this month! So excited!!
16. Wrap Presents - Wrapping presents and gifts together is always fun for kids and really sparks the Christmas spirit! Play some Christmas music and dance around while wrapping your gifts!
17. Make Concrete Hand Prints Stepping Stones - I saw this gift idea and thought it was SO cute, so we are going to try and recreate it for the grandparents this year. We will see how it goes!
18. Make and Deliver Candy Bags to Neighbours - We are going to make little gift bags to put in a few of our neighbours mailboxes this year! Still have to decide what candy or goodies we will be putting in the baggies..
19. Make a Paper Chain Garland - This is another SUPER easy craft idea for young children. I think my daughter will be able to handle this craft no problem, and we can hang them along the railing of our staircase! She will love having it on display. We just need to pick up some green and red construction paper! DIY Christmas decorations are so fun!
20. Visit Library To Read Christmas Books - We love going to the library so why not make it our visit Christmas themed! She will love reading these books and even checking one our two out to bring home!
21. Donate to Local Food Bank - This day we will go through our pantry and collect some food, an old toy (or multiple) and household items to bring to our food bank and salvation army to help those in need. I want to teach our daughter at a young age what it means to help others and give back to the community. An act of kindness is a must this time of the year.
22. Watch Christmas Movies All Day - Sometimes you need a down day, especially if it is a snowy cold day.. nothing feels better then getting cozy in your sweats and watching Christmas movies all day.. so I made sure to schedule this into our activities! How the Grinch Stole Christmas, A Christmas Story, Polar Express and Elf are a few of our favourites!!
23. Bake Cookies for Santa - getting close to the big day we will need to bake some more cookies for Santa! These cookies will be ones that our daughter can fully decorate for fun too. She can get creative, messy and covered in green + red icing!
24. Christmas Eve Mass - Every year we go to Christmas Eve mass in the evening before Christmas. Our daughter loves church and will be excited to know she gets to go before bed one day too!

Final Thoughts On This Christmas Activity Advent Calendar

Creating your own Christmas activity advent calendar is such a fun and meaningful way to make the holiday season extra special. It's not about the gifts or treats-it's about the memories you make along the way. Each little activity brings a spark of joy and gives your family something to look forward to every single day in December. Whether you're sipping hot cocoa by the tree, baking cookies, or going on a neighborhood light tour, these simple moments are what truly make Christmas magical.

So gather your supplies, pick out your favorite festive activities, and start crafting your own countdown to Christmas! This tradition is one that grows sweeter every year, especially as your family adds new ideas and memories to the mix. With a little creativity and planning, your activity advent calendar will become a cherished part of your holiday season-something your kids (and you!) will look forward to year after year.

Merry Christmas!