Seasonal

Printable Advent Calendar Activities for Kids: 24 Days of Screen-Free December Fun

By JamSumStore

Printable advent calendar activities for kids turn December into something better than a daily piece of chocolate: a small moment the whole family actually looks forward to. The idea is simple. Instead of buying a calendar filled with sweets, you make one filled with things to do — one activity for each day from December 1 to Christmas Eve. Some days are quiet puzzles, some are family games, some are creative projects, and a few are kind deeds. The best part is that it costs almost nothing to set up, takes one evening of preparation, and gives you a ready answer to "what are we doing today?" for the entire month.

How to Set Up a Printable Advent Calendar at Home

You do not need a special kit. Pick a container you already have: 24 small envelopes pinned to a string, paper bags clipped to a ribbon, a muffin tin with a numbered card over each cup, or simply a jar with 24 folded slips of paper inside. Write the numbers 1 to 24 on the outside, and put one activity slip inside each. Print the activities in one sitting at the end of November — puzzles, game pages and coloring sheets print best on regular paper, and you can reuse the same pages year after year if you slip them into a folder once December is over. Keep the calendar where the kids will see it first thing in the morning, and let the day's activity be opened by a different child each day if you have more than one. The ritual matters more than the container: same time, same place, one little surprise.

24 Printable Advent Calendar Activities for Kids

The trick to a calendar that lasts all 24 days is variety. If every day is a craft, the table stays messy; if every day is a puzzle, the younger kids lose interest. Mix the days so a quiet day always follows a busy one, and put the biggest activities — the family game night, the baking day — on weekends when there is time to enjoy them. Here is a mix that works, using printable games and puzzles as the backbone:

Quiet puzzle days (December 1, 5, 9, 13, 17, 21). Hidden-object and word puzzles are perfect for slow mornings before school or calm evenings after dinner. Our Christmas I Spy game has 12 festive hidden-object puzzles, so one puzzle covers several quiet days, and our Christmas crossword puzzle pack gives older kids 15 printable puzzles with answer keys to work through at their own pace. A puzzle day needs nothing but a pencil — no setup, no cleanup, and a genuine sense of finishing something.

Family game days (December 3, 7, 12, 16, 20, 23). Save the loud, everybody-in games for days when the whole family is home. Pull a game from our Ultimate Christmas games mega bundle — a big collection of printable Christmas games and activities made for family gatherings — and play it at the table after dinner. One game night a week is enough; the calendar does the rest. Let the winner pick the next day's activity, and suddenly even losing a round feels like part of the fun.

Creative days (December 2, 6, 10, 14, 18, 22). These are the make-something days: draw a Christmas card for a grandparent, design a paper snowflake garland, decorate the gift tags for presents already bought, or build a paper chain one link at a time until it stretches across the room. Creative days work best with a clear finish line — one card, one garland, one decorated box — so kids feel done rather than half-finished.

Kindness and together days (December 4, 8, 11, 15, 19, 24). The days people remember most are rarely the ones with stuff in them. Put a kind deed on these slips: donate a toy, bake biscuits for a neighbor, write a thank-you note to a teacher, or read a Christmas story aloud together before bed. Christmas Eve itself deserves the simplest activity of all — a story, a song, and an early night, with the calendar empty and the month complete.

Tips That Keep the Calendar Fun All Month

Three small rules keep the whole thing working. First, never put an activity on a day you cannot actually do — a baking day on a school night will be skipped, and a skipped day breaks the streak. Second, repeat the favorites: if the I Spy puzzle was a hit on December 1, there is nothing wrong with putting another one on December 13; kids love a returning favorite. Third, keep the slips a surprise. If the kids can read ahead, the magic goes out of it — seal the envelopes, and let each morning bring its own small reveal. If a day goes wrong, swap it: the calendar is yours, and nobody is grading it.

For more in this style, browse our printables and party games collection — games, puzzles and activities for Christmas and every gathering after it, all instant download, all ready to print.

Twenty-four envelopes, one pencil, and a December that feels like it actually happened.