Advent-ures

We have been asked many times about what we have done for our Advent-ures so we thought we’d write a blog post with a list of the things we’ve done and a few of the photos before this year’s Advent-ures begin!

When Agnes’ first December came around we weren’t sure what to do for an advent calendar as she had only recently started weaning and hadn’t yet had any chocolate. We looked at a few toy calendars but nothing seemed quite right.

We eventually decided that we would do a different Christmas activity each day of Advent with her instead. And so Advent-ures were born! I won’t lie, coming up with ideas for a 7 month old baby for each day was sometimes a little challenging and we had to get creative but had so much fun taking her to new places and introducing her to activities that are now becoming our family traditions!

When her second Christmas came around we decided to do Advent-ures again as we’d had so much fun and our friends seemed to like the daily updates with a few people saying they’d been looking forward to seeing what she’d been up to each day! With her now being 19 months there were more activities we could do but I was now back at work full time so most of the week day activities had to be things we could do in an evening. Agnes was extra lucky this year and Grandma also bought her a chocolate Advent Calendar! We did a lot of the same activities as the previous year and found some new ones too. Friends and family joined us for quite a few of the trips out and it was a really lovely way to spend the build up to Christmas.

Here is a list of the Advent-ures we have had for the last 2 years:

Date	7 months	19 months
1st	Footprint Christmas cards	Reading Christmas Books
2nd	Lotherton Hall 12 days of Christmas Walk	Putting up the Christmas tree
3rd	Foodbank donation shopping	Middleton Railway Father Christmas
4th	Watching a Christmas movie	Playing with Felt Christmas Tree
5th	Wrapping Daddy’s presents	Bauble painting at Jack Rabbits
6th	Reading Daddy’s favourite Christmas book	Reading the Snowman
7th	Helping make presents (Baking jars)	Lantern Festival at Roundhay Park
8th	Received a letter from Santa	Watching a Christmas Movie
9th	Put the decorations up	Helping Auntie put her Christmas tree up
10th	German Christmas Market	Making a Samaritans purse Christmas box online
11th	Christmas Party with friends	Painting Christmas decorations
12th	Leeds Christmas lights	Visiting Father Christmas At Piglets Adventure Farm
13th	Watching big friends in school nativity	Taking a present to a Cash for Kids collection point
14th	Guiding Christmas evening with Mummy	Sundown Adventureland Christmas trip
15th	Made a handprint wreath	Writing a letter to Father Christmas
16th	Farmer Copley’s Charity lights	Posting the letter at Fountains Abbey Christmas post office
17th	Bolton Abbey Fairytale walk	NCT Christmas party-Boom Chikka Boom Christmas Rave
18th	NCT friends Christmas party	Lotherton Hall 12 days of Christmas walk
19th	Castle Howard Christmas decorations	Footprint Christmas Cards
20th	Singing Christmas Songs with friends	Receiving a letter from Father Christmas
21st	Reading the nativity	Eating Christmas treats
22nd	Visiting Father Christmas at Tong Garden Centre	Farmer Copley’s Charity lights
23rd	Visiting Family and friends to delivery presents	Visiting Friends to deliver presents
24th	Nativity at Church with Grandparents	Nativity at Church with Grandparents

 

Our Advent-ures are a mix of trips out to places with specific Christmas activities on, trips to see family and friends, making charity donations, crafts at home to make gifts, reading stories and watching films. The idea can be totally personalised to suit your family traditions, beliefs, schedule and budget.

We’ve already started planning this year and have one big surprise planned for her but still need lots of ideas, especially for evenings after work. We’ve been so pleased that other people have said they want to have their own Advent-ures and can’t wait to see what they get up to this December!