Hello and welcome to December! The month of disappearing money and reindeer antlers on cars, of massive amounts of online shopping, of panic-inducing mad dashes to find the perfect gift while also making sure your kid is wearing the appropriate dress-up gear for “Holiday Week”, of navigating family obligations with safety regulations, of making this the most perfect, magical holiday ever (until next year) so your kid has wonderful memories to look back on and a drive to do the same for her children. It’s exhausting, but perfect, and I wouldn’t change a thing.

Which is why if you are anything like me, you want to do everything you can to make this season special, including an activity based advent calendar, but you might be short in ideas. Believe me, I’m constantly scrambling… as we speak, two of my dates have yet to be filled with an idea. I’m here to help, though, by giving you what we do, week by week.

Day 1 – Rudolph Ice Cream

Ice cream is always a win, even for my girl who generally doesn’t like sweets too much. (To be perfectly honest, ice cream will make a couple of reappearances, at my kiddo’s request.)

Day 2 – Wrap Abbey’s Gift

Harlow bought the pets gifts with her own money, and on Day 2 she wrapped Abbey’s completely by herself.

Day 3 – Snow Globe

So, I’m the kind of person who looks at an empty container, and thinks about how to use it in a craft. My craft room is filled with garbage potential ideas. Hey, I’m a hoarder crafter! So when Harlow brought home a cupcake from class in the coolest little domed container ever, I washed it and saved it. Lucky that I did, because that’s what we used for the next craft! Harlow made the sleigh by cutting up a red Solo cup, the bag from some string, burlap, and hot glue, and the deer out of felt. We had the trees and snow. I’m the one who messed up the bottom by trying unsuccessfully to hot glue it shut. But it is still fantastic. And these are the cups – I might use them as a classroom project for her school party.

Day 4 – Melted Snowman Ice Cream

This is pretty self explanatory, but it is fun to make him look melty-wonky.

Day 5 – Collars for the Fur Babies

With a little elastic, some 6×2 strips of tulle, a couple of jingle bells, and a lot of patience, you can make adorable collars. We have the world’s most tolerant pets. Seriously.

Day 6 – Snowman Pizza

I’m going to admit two things. First, I was totally unprepared to make the collars, so we did the collars and the pizza on the same night, both on day 6. Second, my husband totally hijacked this one, to the best and most delicious results. Generally when I do snowmen pizzas, I buy those individual round pizza crusts that come in a 3-pack, slap some white cheese, yellow cheese nose, and black olives on it for a quick, cute dinner. Chris made the dough from scratch, totally made an entire snowman, AND a Santa pizza. Seriously, he put me to shame, but it was a amazingly delicious result, and to make it even better, we had a family dinner. I seriously was in star-eyed happiness all evening.

Day 7 – Craft 1

I have a treasure trove of Christmas craft supplies, so it was Harlow’s choice.

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