Se7en’s Natural Treasures Advent Calendar, Activities and Books…

And so Advent begins, I can hardly believe that it is December – but it is and we are as ready as we will ever be… today we we got ready for a month of fun times. The father person is going to be taking a break from work and blogging will slow down as we get into the swing of the lazy days of summer.

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Advent Calendar

After all our hiking and really embracing the great outdoors this past year, we decided to capture our natural treasures in our advent calendar. So we set up a hanging tree with drift wood we have found, and each day until Christmas we will be adding a natural treasure to our tree.

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Previously we have learnt about Christmas Around the World and A Cause a Day for Advent.

Twenty Four Easy Advent Activities

We really try to make the most of our 24 days building up to Christmas… we divide our activities between fun family times and Christmas preparations… The first week we concentrate on getting our Christmas Cards and letters done, the next week we create gifts for our friends and extended family. The third week we do all sorts of Christmas crafting… there will be glitter and coloured papers and lots of it. And in the final week before Christmas… Baking and then there is lots of secret making and creating as there kids make each other’s Christmas gifts. It isn’t all about Christmas though, it is about family time together and we will try and play one of our best games each day, we will head head out for evening walks to the beach…

In no particular order:

  1. Bedtime stories in the great outdoors.
  2. Brainstorm gift ideas while drinking cocoa.
  3. Sing Carols with Friends.
  4. Create Christmas Letters.
  5. Have a massive Spring clean Day
  6. Dress up for a Nativity Play.
  7. Invite friends over to share the biggest watermelon.
  8. Walk down to the Post Office and Post all the Christmas letters.
  9. Make a pile of gift wrap.
  10. Let’s head into the city to see the Christmas lights.
  11. Bake Christmas treats for neighbours and adopted grannies.
  12. Go on a picnic and fill the ice-box with ice-cream… nothing like ice-cream cones in the great out doors.
  13. Make a new Nativity scene.
  14. Have a garden clean-up, reward yourself with ice-lollies.
  15. Make Christmas Cookies Dough.
  16. Bake and decorate Christmas Cookies.
  17. Have a dress-up candlelight dinner.
  18. Walk down to the beach after bedtime for ice-creams.
  19. Make a memory jar for the past year.
  20. Have a sleepover, camp out in the same room and tell stories as you drift off to sleep.
  21. Create new bunting and decorations.
  22. Have a massive Gift Wrap frenzy – reward yourselves with a movie.
  23. Make sibling gifts.
  24. Put up the tree and decorate.

Advent Books

We do have traditions and books play a huge part of ours… here are our se7en + 1 favourite Christmas books…

  1. The Christmas Carol: We love this edition and the illustrations by Quentin Blake, make this book magical.
  2. One Wintry Night: We have read it every single Christmas that we have had children, it is a family fave and just expected!!!
  3. The Jesse Tree: This is a great read, a little bit longer than a picture book… but you only read a short section everyday.
  4. Mick Inkpen’s Nativity Play: In true Mick Inpen style, adorable kids getting ready for their school nativity… you will spot little personalities that you know and live with.
  5. This is the Star by Joyce Dunbar: Love the wandering poem that tells the story of the Nativity as it wanders through beautiful realistic illustrations.
  6. The Grinch: Needs no introduction.
  7. The Fourth King: Is the story of a king who missed the departure of the three kings and spends the rest of the story racing to catch up, he keeps getting distracted along the way and doing good deeds. Will he be too late, well it appears he may have missed the whole event, or did he?
  8. And the se7en + 1 th…

  9. And we won’t miss Christmas at Bullerby by Astrid Lindgren

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4 Replies to “Se7en’s Natural Treasures Advent Calendar, Activities and Books…”

  1. Started the advent calender that I made from tp rolls and my almost 2 year old seems to be enjoying it. Tried to look for a nice Christmas story in the library, just Bible simplified, but they all seem to feel that King James version must be used and I wanted something short and simple with interesting illustrations.

  2. Sanna, Our toddler section isn’t great at bible stories and I have done much better looking in the older kids section. Take a look there… we have heaps of picture book bibles in the main reference section of our children’s library. Otherwise the Jesus Storybook Bible is a great one… All the best!!!

  3. Hay Marcia, we just have to get to the end of this week… one more work day and we are ready for a break!!! This guy rarely takes leave, but it is time for a break!!! Hope you have had a good week!!!

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