It was December 1st, 2019. I had cooked up the brilliant idea (truth: I totally stole the idea from my friend, Jenny Rusby) to do an activity advent calendar for my kids.

The very first activity?

A sing along bus.

I was JACKED.

I knew they’d love it.

That afternoon, the very first day of the advent, we were going to climb aboard a double decker bus and drive around Sherwood Park singing carols at Senior Citizen lodges.

So. It was about 6:42 am and my kids were wide awake ready to start their advent and find out the first activity.

I was pretty sure I’d win mom of the year as this activity was SO up their alley.

They opened the little sheet of paper and big sister read the activity to little sister.

GO CAROLLING ON A DOUBLE DECKER BUS.

Then.

They started crying.

Not tears of joy.

“We have to sing in front of people? NO WAY. Never. Not going.”

It was like Kanye West ripping away my Mom of The Year award. Gone. Given to Beyonce.

What happened? I thought I was winning. I misjudged.

Thankfully my very calm husband eventually got everyone on board. He promised the kids we could just ride the bus and if they didn’t want to ever get out and sing that was fine.

You can probably guess how it goes from here. Just like most things, the kids eventually came around. In the end, they ended up having the BEST time and are so, so bummed they can’t bus-sing again this year.

But! After the VERY rocky start, the activity advent was one of the highlights of our year. The kids looked forward to discovering the activity each morning and it gave us something to do each afternoon after school – to gather as a family (even if it was for 5 minutes) and do something together. It also allowed me to relax because the planning was done. I wasn’t feeling guilty and like my kids deserved more Christmas spirit – I knew we had plans and could relax a bit.

Why am I telling you all this?

Because I’m just about done planning the COVID edition of the Marleau Family Christmas Activity Advent and wanted to share ideas with you in case you’d like to embark on an activity advent for your family too.

My biggest recommendation is to KEEP IT SIMPLE! The set up doesn’t need to be complicated or extravagant. And, truly, kids don’t care if you spend 5 hours or 5 minutes planning an activity.

For the actual calendar, I use clothes pins with numbers written on them and then hung them on ribbon. Then I wrote the activity on a little sheet of paper and put it in the numbered clothes pin. Doing it this way allowed me to switch things around really easy if needed. For example, if sledding is an activity on a -40C day, I’d just switch the papers in the clothes pins.

TOP TIPS

• Print out a blank December calendar page first and write each activity on it. This way, it’s easy to reference your activities, see if you need to buy anything, or to look if activities need to be switched around. Once it’s mostly organized, then write the activities on the slips of paper.
• As you make up your activities, keep a running list of things you might have to buy.
• If you’re feeling rushed or like you don’t know what your kids will like, just put some blank pieces of paper in the clothes pins – you can fill them in later!
• Set a time the advent can be opened (this goes for all advent calendars – I’ve learned this the hard way!). We tell our kids they can open after breakfast. This stops them from waking up at 4:30 am so excited to find out what’s happening that day.
• Given that it’s COVID, be prepared with a few in-home backup ideas in case activities get cancelled or we all have to stay home.
• Take a photo each day. It does not have to be fancy at all, but in the end, it’s really fun to put all of the photos in a little book (like a Chat Book) to look back on over the years.
• Look at what you have going on each day (laughable these days) and make sure that day’s activities are super simple or something you’d be doing already.

Activity Ideas

• cut paper snowflakes and decorate around the house
• Christmas colouring sheets
• go to the library and choose new Christmas books
• outdoor holiday decoration scavenger hunt (we did this one)
• make Christmas cards for friends
• do some Christmas drawings from Art for Kids Hub
• bubble milk (One of the biggest hits last year. Put milk [has to be cow’s milk to work really well] in a short glass. Add food colouring. Put it on a plate. Give your kid a straw. Tell them to blow bubbles. It is the simplest, most fun activity. Probably best to not drink the coloured milk!)

• buy red and green food for the food bank
• wrap teacher gifts
• make a paper or popcorn garlands
• make baby food jar snow globes
• decorate cookies
• write letters to Santa
• read books by candle light

• have a red and green dinner
• have snowman pancakes (complete with a bacon scarf and whipped cream snow)
• fancy dress up zoom dinner party with friends
• watch a holiday movie
• go sledding
• drive around and look at lights (or do Castrol Raceways or the Winter Wonder Forest)
• book a Zoom call with Santa
• have a sleepover in the basement, in your big bed, in the living room, under the Christmas tree, etc.
• have a Christmas bubble bath (get holiday bath bombs/soaps). Bonus – have popsicles or ice cream in the bath.

• make a LEGO Christmas village
• donate to a Salvation Army bell ringer
• pay for the person behind you in the drive through
• construct a gingerbread house (this can be 2 days – one day to built and one day to decorate)
• collect and paint pinecones
• have a dance party to Christmas music
• hot chocolate party
• make reindeer food (oatmeal and glitter) and sprinkle in the yard (perfect for Christmas Eve)
• make cookies for Santa

• make a snowman
• glow stick bath
• holiday themed charades
• make toilet paper roll or pinecone bird feeds (coat in peanut butter and roll in bird seed then hang from trees)
• make wrapping paper
• make ice lanterns
• make a 2021 jar of things to do
• have a kid ‘yes’ evening (Where you say “yes” to anything they want. Experience here has taught me to set a few ground rules – like it must be in the house.)
• go skating

Whatever you decide to do this holiday season, I hope you have the best holiday at home that you can!

If you do decide to do an activity advent I’d love to hear about it! Hit reply and show me a few photos or send me ideas that I haven’t included in the list above.