This year we are doing, not one, but two advent calendars. A beautiful quilted advent calendar from the kids’ memere filled with cute little toys and treats to open each day. We open this in the mornings after breakfast typically.

Here are some of the cute things they’ve opened so far:

What I love about this calendar is that we can reuse it every year instead of having to buy or craft a new one each year. And we can fill it with small toys and treats or make activity cards instead for a less materialistic and perhaps more memorable holiday? We did an activity advent calendar (er box) last year and the kids really enjoyed it.

I thought about doing it again this year but decided to focus my attention on a different advent activity that I read about a million times last year, an advent book box:

The first step was to gather my 24 holiday themed books: some from our book collection, some from thrift stores or Amazon, some from my son’s school book fair. Next I had to decide how to present the books. I went back and forth on this one. I considered wrapping the books individually and numbering them, but that sounded like a lot of work and I didn’t want to burn myself out on wrapping before I even got to the Christmas presents.

Instead I decided to put them all into a large cardboard box, put a little sign on top and number the books with pretty post-it notes. I found some cute star shaped ones on sale that were perfect.

Here are some of the books they’ll find inside:

So the kids get to open this box at night and we read the book inside as a bedtime story that night. This has been a big hit and the best part is, now I own all these books I won’t necessarily have to buy anymore if I want to do this again next year. I could choose to buy a few new books just to mix things up – or not. Or not do it at all and just bring out all the books at the beginning of the season.

Do you do an advent calendar / activity with your kids? What’s your favorite kind?