12 Days of Christmas Countdown Activities for Kids and Adults

We've got an easy, DIY lineup of Christmas activities that kids and adults will enjoy. While it's fun to pop open a store bought Advent calendar and enjoy a piece of chocolate every day (or one day, if you're like certain people we know), this year more than ever we're on the lookout for fun activities that will keep kids entertained and get us out of the house safely. What better way to stay motivated than by creating a countdown to Christmas? We've made it super simple for you. Let's get going!

When to Start

Many people out there can muster up the energy for an entire month's worth of holiday activities, but that honestly feels really overwhelming to us right now. So we've stuck to the handy number twelve. The traditional Twelve Days of Christmas starts on Christmas Day itself. If you'd rather countdown to Christmas, start on December 13th in order to finish up on the 24th. 

Holiday Activity Ideas

We brainstormed lots of fun holiday activities. Many of them are special traditions our families do every year, and others are ones we're planning on trying. Obviously, you can adapt this to your calendar and add or take away where needed:

1. Make ornaments for the Christmas tree. 
2. Have a snowball fight with crumpled pieces of white paper.
3. Donate gifts the kids help pick out to a local toy or food drive.
4. Spruce up your wreath or garlands with some DIY embellishments (or use a wreath kit like the one from Lora Bloom).
5. Send a letter to Santa or cards to loved ones.
6. Watch a holiday movie or home videos of past holidays.
7. Take a night walk and look for light displays. Give neighbors "awards" for their light displays (most blow-ups, most cheerful, etc).
8. Wrap gifts, adding special bows and tags.
9. Make cookies to decorate and deliver to friends.
10. Cut out paper snowflakes to hang from the ceiling or in the windows.
11. Host a virtual ugly sweater competition.
12. Drink deluxe hot chocolate, complete with marshmallows, candy canes, cinnamon, etc.

How to Open Each Day

Kids love presents, so we recommend giving them something to open up for each day of the holiday countdown. This can be as simple as envelopes. Or you can use the same bag and tissue paper to hide a clue in each day, and turn it into a guessing game for the kids. If you have the bandwidth, you can create something a little fancier, which can be a fun way to hype the kids up for the countdown. Here are some DIY ideas:

Sources and tutorials:

Scandinavian style Advent calendar: One Mama's Daily Drama

Cardboard pillow boxes: Krysta French

Paper trees: Tell, Love, and Party

Share with Us!

We'd love to see what you create and do to countdown to the holidays! Join our Facebook group or tag us on Instagram @florafunbox. We hope these activity ideas make it easy to do something fun with your family this Christmas season. We're definitely going to enjoy the countdown! Happy holidays!