Today is the one year anniversary of mydayisbooked.com! I have a super neat post to share with you guys today, but first I want to thank everyone who has supported and followed my blog in the past year! You guys are awesome:) 

I started making this advent calendar a few years ago, and I really love it. Instead of getting a candy everyday, you have to complete an act of kindness or treat yourself to a favourite winter activity. This is a great concept because it invokes the true spirit of Christmas- giving! You make can this calendar as fancy or as minimalistic as you like; I love to get super creative with it! Down below I have laid out the instructions and materials that you’ll need, as well as some ideas to get you started;)

DIY No-Candy Advent Calendar

Materials

• 25- 31 envelopes (I used ones that are about 16.5 by 9 cm, but any size works)
• 25-31 index cards (or cut up pieces of card stock)
• markers, crayons, stickers, pens, anything you need to decorate your calendar!

Directions:

1. Number the envelopes from 1-25 (or 31, depending on how many days you want your advent calendar to cover) and decorate them however you want! I drew a kind of christmasy drawing in the corner of each of mine, which took a little while, but it’s totally worth it! **You can reuse the envelopes from year to year to save time**

2. Once your envelopes are finished, take out your pieces of card stock or index cards. On each one, write an act of kindness or winter activity that you want to do in December. Here are 25 ideas that you can use in your calendar:

• Call your grandparents
• Bake cookies
• Build a snowman
• Write 5 nice comments on social media
• Make a gingerbread house
• Shovel your neighbour’s driveway
• Leave a nice note for someone
• Compliment someone who you wouldn’t usually talk to
• Donate money to a Christmas charity
• Give food to a food bank
• Make Christmas ornaments
• Send a letter to a friend, wishing them a merry Christmas
• Do some extra chores around the house
• Express gratitude to 5 different people
• Watch your favourite Christmas movie
• Make a gift for your teacher or a friend
• Wear your cosiest sweater
• Make a holiday playlist
• Go ice skating
• Make your favourite breakfast
• Bake a new recipe
• Look at Christmas lights
• Make treats for your pet
• Make hot chocolate
• Read before the fire (my personal favourite!)

3. Fold each piece of card stock in half and spread them out randomly so that you don’t know which activity is written on each one. Then put one in each envelope and seal it. This way, the activity that you do each day will be a surprise. If you know that you’ll only have time to do a certain thing on the weekend, then you can make a pile of weekend activities and fill your weekend envelopes from that pile. Also, I like to use sticky tack and hang each envelope on my wall for a cool Christmas decoration, but you can display them however you’d like.

I hope that you enjoy this calendar throughout December! It’s super fun and easy to make and spreads lots of holiday cheer;) Thanks agin for making my first year of blogging so awesome!

Yours Truly, MyDayIsBooked