A toddler advent calendar is one of those December traditions that can go either brilliantly or chaotically, often in the same morning. The commercially available options are mostly chocolate or tiny toys, which are fine but add up to a lot of sugar and plastic over 24 days. The alternatives, activity-based or experience-based calendars, require some planning but tend to create the kind of December memories that actually last.
This guide covers the best approaches to advent calendars for toddlers, what works by age, how to make a simple activity calendar yourself, and a full list of ideas to fill it.
Table of Contents
What Kind of Advent Calendar Works for Toddlers?
The right type of advent calendar depends entirely on your toddler’s age and what December looks like in your household.
Age 1 to 2: Keep It Sensory and Simple
Very young toddlers have limited understanding of counting down to Christmas and even more limited patience for unwrapping small items repeatedly. At this age, the best advent calendars are either simple (a small treat each day that takes seconds) or sensory (a new activity, texture or experience rather than a wrapped gift).
A book advent calendar, where a different Christmas or winter picture book is wrapped each day, works beautifully at this age. Wrap 24 books (a mix of new and revisited favourites) and open one together each evening. The book becomes the activity.
Age 2 to 3: Experiences Over Objects
Two and three-year-olds begin to grasp the countdown concept and are excited by the ritual of opening something. Activity-based calendars work particularly well here because the experience, making something, going somewhere, doing something together, is more engaging than unwrapping another small toy.
The ritual is as important as the content. Opening the calendar together at the same time each day, making it a specific moment in the routine, gives it the significance that this age group responds to.
Age 3 to 4: Activities, Small Treasures and Countdowns
By three and four, toddlers genuinely understand that Christmas is coming and the countdown becomes meaningful. They can follow instructions for simple craft activities, participate in baking, and appreciate a mixture of small treats and bigger experience activities.
This is the age where a pocket calendar with activity cards works well, because the child can begin to read simple picture prompts and engage with what is coming.
Types of Toddler Advent Calendar
The Activity Calendar
Each day contains a card, note or small prompt describing an activity to do together. No objects, no packaging, no plastic. The activities range from simple (watch a Christmas film together, make paper snowflakes) to special (visit a Christmas market, see Santa, make mince pies).
This is the lowest-cost and lowest-waste option and often produces the most engaged children because the experience is immediate and shared.
The Book Calendar
24 books, wrapped individually and opened one each evening. Mix picture books specifically about Christmas and winter with general favourites. New books are exciting; familiar ones are comforting. The bedtime read becomes the advent activity.
A variation is to visit the library on 1 December and borrow 12 Christmas books, then alternate borrowed books with owned ones throughout the month.
The Pocket or Envelope Calendar
A fabric or paper calendar with 24 numbered pockets or envelopes, each containing something small. Contents can be a mix of activity cards, small treats, stickers, mini figures, coins for a charity box, or notes describing a family activity.
Making this yourself is straightforward and means you control exactly what goes in each pocket. It also lasts for years.
The Chocolate Calendar
The standard option and not without value. If chocolate is the vehicle that makes a toddler reliably excited to engage with the calendar each morning, that engagement is real and the ritual matters. Just manage the sugar timing (after breakfast, not first thing) and accept that some days the excitement is entirely about the chocolate and that is fine.
The Sensory Box Calendar
A small selection of sensory materials, one new element added each day or two. Kinetic sand on day one, festive playdough on day three, cotton wool snow on day six, pom poms and tweezers on day nine. By Christmas Eve you have a fully equipped sensory tray. Works particularly well for toddlers who are interested in exploratory play.
24 Toddler Advent Calendar Activity Ideas
These are designed to be written on cards and placed in a pocket calendar, suitable for children aged two to four.
Week One
- Make a paper snowflake. Fold a piece of white paper and cut small shapes into the folded edges. Open to reveal the pattern.
- Put up the Christmas decorations. Give the toddler a specific job: hanging a particular ornament, putting the star on the tree, arranging figures in the nativity.
- Make Christmas playdough. Standard playdough recipe with red food colouring, peppermint extract and a handful of glitter.
- Watch a Christmas film together. The Snowman, Elf, or any of the short animated Christmas specials.
- Bake and decorate biscuits. Simple shortbread with royal icing. The decorating is the activity, not the perfection.
- Make a paper chain. Strips of coloured paper, looped and taped. Hang it in the toddler’s room.
- Go on a Christmas lights walk after dark. Bring a thermos of hot chocolate.
Week Two
- Make a Christmas card for someone who lives far away. Handprints make excellent robins.
- Post the Christmas card. Visit a post box together. This is genuinely exciting for most toddlers.
- Read three Christmas stories in a row in a fort made of sofa cushions and blankets.
- Make salt dough decorations. Salt, flour and water, rolled and cut, dried in the oven, painted when cool.
- Feed the birds. Make a simple bird feeder from a pine cone rolled in peanut butter and seeds. Hang it in the garden.
- Make reindeer food. Oats, edible glitter and orange peel. Package it up to scatter on Christmas Eve.
- Visit a farm, zoo or Christmas event in your area. Check local listings for Christmas activities.
Week Three
- Make a gingerbread house from a kit. The assembly is the activity; it does not need to look good.
- Write or draw a letter to Santa. If the child cannot write, they dictate and you write. Post it or leave it in a special place.
- Watch it snow (or make pretend snow) with torn white tissue paper or cotton wool in a tray.
- Make hot chocolate with all the toppings as a special afternoon treat.
- Visit Santa if you have arranged this, or do a video call via one of the personalised Santa video services.
- Wrap a present for someone in the family. Give the toddler the tape and paper and let them do it.
- Make a Christmas collage from old Christmas cards, wrapping paper scraps, foil and glitter.
Week Four
- Go to a carol service, pantomime or Christmas performance. Even very young toddlers can manage a short performance in a familiar setting.
- Make mince pies together. Ready-rolled pastry, a teaspoon of mincemeat, cut into circles, pinch the edges.
- Read The Night Before Christmas by candlelight, put out a mince pie and carrots, and hang the stockings.
How to Make a Simple Pocket Advent Calendar
What You Need
- A length of felt or burlap fabric, approximately 60cm x 80cm
- 24 small fabric pouches or envelopes (buy ready-made or make from small rectangles of fabric folded and sewn or glued on three sides)
- Numbers 1 to 24 (stamp them, print and cut them, or use iron-on numbers)
- A way to hang the calendar (a wooden dowel threaded through the top, or a ribbon)
- Something to fill each pocket with
Method
Attach the numbered pouches to the fabric in rows. Four rows of six works well. Sew, glue or pin them on. Thread the dowel through the top edge or attach a loop of ribbon. Fill the pockets with your chosen items before 1 December and hang somewhere accessible to your toddler.
The whole project takes about two hours and the calendar lasts for years.
What to Put in Advent Calendar Pockets for Toddlers
For parents who want small objects rather than activities, here are non-chocolate options that work well for toddlers:
- Mini figures (animals, Christmas characters, vehicles)
- Stickers
- Hair clips or bobbles
- A coin for a charity box
- A small book (flip books, board book minis)
- A temporary tattoo
- A bath bomb or bubble bar
- A small puzzle piece (all 24 pieces together make the Christmas puzzle)
- A note describing a family activity
- A homemade token for something (an extra bedtime story, choosing dinner, staying up 15 minutes later)
Common Advent Calendar Mistakes to Avoid
Setting expectations too high. A toddler who is given a large chocolate advent calendar, then switched to an activity calendar, will notice and object. Start as you mean to go on.
Making activities too complicated for the time you have. December is already busy. If an activity card says “make a gingerbread house from scratch,” that needs to be a weekend activity, not a Tuesday evening.
Making the calendar entirely about objects. The most memorable December traditions for children are almost always experiences and activities rather than things received. Build the balance toward experiences.
Losing track of which day it is. Toddlers will want to open multiple pockets at once if given the opportunity. A consistent calendar ritual at the same time each day prevents the entire December being opened on December 3rd.
