It’s 12 weeks till Christmas and 9 weeks till the beginning of December.

I tell myself every year that I will get more organized for Christmas before December arrives and usually I am pretty good at having half of my shopping done, but sometimes I do leave some things to the last minute… like organizing an advent calendar.

With three kids, buying 3 chocolate advent calendars doesn’t appeal to me.

I do love counting down to the big day though and an advent calendar is my favourite way to get into the Christmas spirit for the month of December.

One thing on my to-do-list for Christmas this year is to buy an advent calendar that I can bring out each year. Etsy have some great hand-made advent calendars as well as printables so you can make your own.

The best thing about these advent calendars is you can fill them with whatever you want.

If you’re look for ideas, we’ve come up with a list of 30 advent calendar filler ideas, which you can prepare for before the silly season arrives.

30 Filler Ideas for Advent Calendars

1. Pieces of Lego. Buy a small box of Lego and disperse each or a few pieces into each day
2. Puzzle pieces
3. Coloured Pencils
4. Cookie cutters and playdough
5. 24 acts of kindness – rather than the kids receiving something, maybe prompt them with 24 acts of kindness they can do for others.
6. Shopkins
7. Card games like UNO, SNAP etc
8. Matchbox cars
9. Make-up and/or beauty supplies – brushes, lip gloss, nail polish
10. Hair ties, clips and ribbons
11. Erasers
12. Bouncy balls
13. Bubbles
14. Jewellery – cheap jewellery like earrings, bracelets, etc
15. Socks and undies
16. Dominoes
17. Coins/money – teaching kids how a little can go a long way when saving
18. Christmas decorations – so kids can build their own Christmas decorations
19. Jokes
20. Uplifting notes of encouragement to your children
21. Barbie clothes/and or accessories
22. Home made biscuits or protein balls
23. Fridge magnets
24. Finger puppets
25. Back to school supplies – like erasers, pens, glue stick, scissors, post-it notes, sticky tape etc
26. Seeds for planting a vegetable garden
27. Glow Sticks
28. Temporary tattoos
29. Stickers and washi tape
30. Stamps

To make the advent calendar interesting, why not combine a few of the ideas so your kids are surprised by something different each day.

Are you a fan of advent calendars? What do you put in yours?

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