Do you know what activities you want to do with your child throughout December? If you celebrate Christmas, this is a perfect time to decide if you want to have an Advent calendar, Jesse tree, or some other type of activity throughout the month (unless, of course, you already have your month planned).
December Family Activities (Only 24 Gummi Days Till Christmas by Jackie at Flickr Creative Commons)
There are wonderful online sources for December holiday activities. Here are a few with ideas to help you get started. They’re great for homeschoolers, families who don’t homeschool, school teachers, and group leaders.
Sites with Many Holiday Activities
One of the best sites for holiday ideas is The Holiday Zone. It has numerous ideas for holidays throughout the year and has lots of ideas for Hanukkah as well as Christmas. Its Christmas activities are divided into Christian and secular Christmas activities.
DLTK’s Growing Together has holiday activities divided into Advent, Hanukkah, Christmas, and Kwanzaa.
Christian Christmas Activities
Here are some sites with December activities with a Christian emphasis:
Discover the Advent/Christmas Season from Spirit Home
All about Advent from ChurchYear.net
How to Make and Use an Advent Wreath from Rev. Ken Collins’ Web Site
Advent Conspiracy has ideas for making Christmas a “world-changing event again.”
St. Nicholas: Discovering the Truth about Santa Claus has a wealth of information and activities about the Christian saint who inspired the story of Santa Claus.
Free Christmas Printables and Downloads including Advent devotional paper chains from Spell Outloud
Try This! Advent from Thoughts from the Sheepfold
How to Use Godly Play at Home during Advent (my post)
Free Jesse Tree Advent Devotional Book with printable ornaments from A Holy Experience
Printable Jesse Tree Ornaments and Prayers 2009, 2010, and 2011 from Tired, Need Sleep
Jesse Tree Family Resources from Having Fun at Home
Daily Activities to Celebrate Christmas and the Birth of Christ from Hubbard’s Cupboard
Advent, a new tradition in our family (daily brown-bag Advent gifts) from A Mother of Action
Amazing Grace – A Christmas Unit Study by Cindy Downes from Okahoma Homeschool
Putting Jesus in the Creche – A Family Tradition from Catholic Icing
A GREAT Christmas Card Tradition from Some Girl’s Website (for each Christmas card your family receives throughout the Christmas season)
Daily December Activities with a Mixture of Christian and Secular Activities
25 Days of Christmas Books from Picky Apple and Counting Coconuts (Counting Coconuts has a lovely Advent calendar activity as well)
24 Advent Calendars to Make from The Crafty Crow
A Christmas Tree Advent Calendar from The Artful Parent
Activity Advent Countdowns from The Activity Mom
Secular Advent Calendar Ideas from Creekside Learning
Countdown to Track Santa from Norad Tracks Santa
Advent Calendar Goodness and Christmas with Autism from Stuff With Thing
Advent Calendar Ideas for Kids from Hobo Mama
Advent Origami Boxes from Kirsty Girl
Easy-to-use online Christmas Advent Calendar from Smile a Day.
Do you have a favorite holiday site or daily December activity?
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We are celebrating Advent (new to us) this year with a weekly meal with two other families. I am going to be using Godly Play and am in the process-as we speak- of making the materials. I am a little nervous about presenting to adults and children for the first time, but so excited that this will become a tradition!
Thanks for your comment, Nichole! How exciting that you’ll be using Godly Play! I absolutely love Godly Play as a way of making Advent a living religious experience for children. And what a great idea to share a weekly meal with other families!
What a great resource! I need to plan some fun things with my girls!
Thanks for your kind comment! Have fun!
I have a printable Advent chain on my blog. We will also be reading a special Christmas book each day in December.
http://www.spelloutloud.com/2010/11/free-christmas-printables-and-downloads.html
Thank you SO MUCH for letting me know about such wonderful Christmas printables, Maureen! What an awesome resource – I added the link to my post! We always loved to read a Christmas book each day through Christmas as well.
So many great ideas. We’ve got Advent this year planned out but I’m certainly going to be bookmarking this page when planning next years. Thank you Deb.
Thanks, Marita! You’re an inspiration with your Advent activities and ways of making Advent meaningful for your girls!
What a great collection of ideas for celebrating the season! I’m looking forward to doing some advent activities with my son now that he’s 3. We’ll still be doing the Christmas Book Countdown, a family favorite. Thanks so much for featuring my post on that!
Thanks, Cara! I love your Christmas Book Countdown – and I love that you rewrap and reuse the same books each year! Have fun doing Advent activities with your son this year – holidays with 3 year olds are wonderful!
Great list of resources!!! Thanks for listing them out — I’ll be using them.
Rachel
Thanks so much, Rachel! I hope you have a wonderful holiday season!
Thank you so much for all the resources! I wanted to include advent this year, and you have just helped me tremendously!! 🙂
Have a blessed CHRISTmas season!
Sherry
Thanks, Sherry! I’m so glad I was able to help! I’m a real lover of Advent activities and look forward to adding more links as I discover them. I hope you have a blessed CHRISTmas season, too!
Thanks for the link, Deb.
You’re welcome, Carol! I love the wonderful ideas in your article. I hope you’re having a very blessed First Day of Advent today!
can you helpp me deb please . i spent hours flipping through the links you provided and they all look wonderful , but for a beginner who will want to try to celebrate advent for the first time with a 2 and a 4.5 years old , all the information available was a bit overwhelming , i wouldn’t know where to start , can you help me start somewhere simple .
i want to do more this year than go crazy hunting for gifts and cooking christmas dinner . i want to prepare and live those days before christmas like all of you do .
blessings
viv
What a great question, Viv! I wanted to provide as many ideas as possible so that each family could choose the activities that were the most meaningful for their family. But how true that it’s overwhelming if you’re trying to figure out where to start.
When my children were very young, we used an Advent wreath. You could follow Rev. Ken Collins’ post on how to make and use an advent wreath. We purchased ours from a florist, and you could do something like that or make your own. Even though today is the First Sunday of Advent, you could light the first candle during the week. You could simplify the readings and prayer for your children.
We used an Advent calendar as well, but we did it very simply. We shopped for our Advent calendar together at a religious book store each year. That made it very simple yet still meaningful. Then we just opened the doors together and read the Bible verses each day until Christmas.
We read a Christmas book each day leading up to Christmas, but some families read a special Christmas book once each week. Do what feels best for your family.
A Jesse tree is a lovely tradition, but we only used one a couple of years. You could wait until another year to start it unless you want to use one this year. It is simpler now with the printable ornaments. If you want to use a Jesse tree, the link for the 2010 Jesse Tree Printables and Ornaments from Tired, Need Sleep might be the simplest. It already has the prayers and readings. You can just use a large branch in a pot of dirt or a miniature Christmas tree to put the ornaments on each day.
I’ve also asked for suggestions regarding your question on how to celebrate Advent simply but meaningfully with young children at the Living Montessori Now Blog Frog Community: http://bit.ly/e9KjVT There have been some lovely suggestions already! Just choose what you feel would be especially meaningful.
I was just told through my Blog Frog discussion about a brand new free Jesse Tree printable at A Holy Experience: http://www.aholyexperience.com/2010/11/free-jesse-tree-advent-devotional-book/. The book has complete devotions and printable ornaments. It’s beautiful, simple, and complete. If I had young children today, I think I would definitely use a Jesse Tree with the awesome printable ornaments and readings that are available. You could use a Jesse Tree instead of (or along with) an Advent calendar.
Thank you for linking back to my blog, Deb! I think it’s so wonderful you take the time to compile such a variety of links – Living Montessori Now is definitely a “one stop shop” kind of blog and is my go-to place for resources!
Thanks so much for your kind words, Mari-Ann! And thanks for always having such wonderful activities to link to!
We use a lot of the activities on Hubbardscupboard. Although I have to change it up a little for my little guys. The favorite activity here, though, is putting a baby Jesus doll into a shoe box. I filled a shoe box with “straw” (a cut up grass skirt) and then we wrap Baby Jesus up, put him in a box, and put a bow on top of him. I could plan a millon Christmas related activities but this is the one that my son wants to do over and over and over!!
Thanks for the great reminder, Jackie! I love that activity – I did it with my daughter one year (she absolutely loved it)! My parents have a farm, so we had real straw, but the grass skirt is a great idea if you don’t have straw available.
Thank you Deb!! I tweeted and FB this post!! 🙂 Happy December & MERRY CHRISTMAS!!
Thanks SO MUCH, Jessica! I really appreciate it! Happy December and Merry Christmas to you, too!
You always have such wonderful resources to share! Thank you, Deb! (and thanks for including my post!)
I’ll be back later to plan out our month with your help… Thank you! 🙂
You’re welcome, Michelle – and thanks for the wonderful idea!
Thank you so much for sharing a link to my advent origami boxes Deb! It’s greatly appreciated! I am excited to check out all the other ideas you’ve listed here too! What a wonderful resource!
You’re welcome, Kirsty – and thanks for adding your link to my Blog Frog discussion! I love being able to find out about great activities like yours!
Thanks Deb! It’s planning day at our preschool and I’m looking forward to sharing some of these ideas!
How great that you have a planning day, Betsy! Too often preschools tend to miss out on that part. Have fun!
Thanks for linking to me. You have created a great resource here. There is an advent calender (with nature based activities) at http://www.naturedetectives.org.uk/advent which I think is great and that I don’t think you have on your list.
You’re welcome, Catherine – thanks for sharing so many fun activities! And thanks for the link to the nature-based Advent calendar! I hadn’t seen that one before and just added the link to my post.
Deb- what a great list of activities. I am always so impressed at what a great resource your blog is!
Thanks so much for your kind words – and thanks for sharing my post on your Facebook page! 🙂
What a wonderful round up of holiday ideas. I love the gummi-bear Christmas trees- from the SS it looks like beads! So clever- Thank you for sharing your ideas with us on The Sunday Showcase
Thanks, Aimee! I thought the gummi-bear Christmas tree was really cool, too! I love that there are so many awesome ideas available online! Thanks for hosting The Sunday Showcase each week. I always find lots of wonderful ideas there! 🙂