Chocolate for breakfast? 25 days in a row?

So Christmas is about treats, right? Well.... yes, but chocolate before breakfast every day from December 1st right up until Christmas Day? Where they’ll then be numerous sweet options in huge tins that would normally last you a year but we end up consuming on one day!

Therefore to keep parents (and dentists!) happy we’ve put together a selection of adorable advent calendar ideas, minus the sweets & chocolate. Hooray for DFE!

We’ll kick off with our first one which is cheating a little as it’s not really a calendar but as you know we like to be a bit different. This activity card idea is brilliant for early readers and of course we’d suggest the children make their own cards and use this example from www.addapinch.com as their inspiration.

Our second idea we think will be a big hit! You’ll need loo roll/kitchen roll tubes, wrapping paper, stickers & pens. This upcycled DIY calendar looks brilliant and children will love bursting through the wrapping paper each day to find their hidden prize. As an alternative to sweets, young children might like to fill theirs with little toys and older children could choose to make their own Christmas jokes to pop inside each tube.

Our third and probably our favourite option is Santa’s cotton wool beard calendar. (We’re rather tempted to make these ourselves, after all adults need advent calendars too!) Simply stick on another bit of beard (cotton wool ball) each day onto the correct number and hey presto when the beard is complete it’s Christmas day!

This is a rather ingenious idea and so it has to feature as one of our favourites. You’ll need a little parent contribution, unless you’re friendly with your local kitchen suppliers and they’d like to give you 30 muffin tins as an early Christmas present! Thank you to www.sumossweetstuff.com for this idea.

The last two are ideal for utilising children’s fine motor skills. An advent calendar Santa clock which involves cutting, colouring and moving the clock hands to the correct number each day. And an easy peasey cheap and simple but effective design ­ ‘Give Santa’s beard a trim’ calendar! Children will need to cut in a straight line to avoid chopping off too much of his beard! Ouch!