Our December 1 Christmas Advent Kickoff

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It’s wild to me to think we’ve done our own family advent for over a decade now. It feels like we just started trying out a few traditions with tiny kids, and now it feels like we have several things that have stuck around! Most of these are things we’ve done for at least 7-8 years, with a couple of new things for this year.

Here’s what we do on our special December 1 Advent kickoff:

Dinner

We don’t really have a set menu for this! I do like to set a pretty table – I got a new Geometry tablecloth this year (bonus points for being easily washable, stain resistant, and no iron) and dinner napkins. (Discount code PREETHI.) Plus, we’ll set out some candles to help it feel festive. Other than that, we’ll just do a normal meal, but may add in some non-alcoholic mulled wine punch to help it feel festive!

Advent Box

We always hand out our December 1st advent box this evening! HERE are more details about it. This year, I’m thinking I’ll set everything out at each place setting instead of putting it all in a box. Here’s what we’re including this year (2025):

Chocolate advent calendars (Lindt chocolate teddy or pick & mix advent calendars for the kids, dark chocolate marzipan for the adults)
Copies of the Tokyo-themed holidays around the world advent calendar (it’s free if you’d like to print off a small or big copy!)
A new game – I loved this years ago and think it’ll be fun to play with the kids
Festive metal swizzle sticks to go along with our hot chocolate this season
Christmas pajamas – we already handed these out a week or so ago for when we decorated our tree, but we’ll invite everyone to wear these to dinner today (I shared lots of suggestions for where to get matching family Christmas pajamas right HERE)

Daily Advent Activities Kickoff

One of our favorite parts of December is our daily advent activities! After dinner, we’ll start these – it usually only takes about 10 minutes total, but it’s such a sweet way for our family to come together each evening and I really love it. We like to kick things off with watching this video – it’s such a sweet reminder of why we personally celebrate Christmas.

After that, we do a few of our daily advent activities:

25 Day of Christ – we love this short daily devotional! Our kids take turns putting the ornament that goes along with each day’s message on the tree. (Discount code PASSPORT25)
Tokyo-themed holidays around the world advent calendar – we’ll do the simple daily prompt and color in the day’s illustration on our big copy
Chocolate advent calendars
Jacquie Lawson digital advent – we’ve done this for a few years and it’s so charming and delightful! Super affordable, too.
Holiday picture book advent – we wrap our favorite Christmas picture books each year and the kids take turns opening one each day. They’re all super familiar with all of them but it’s still fun to unwrap them!
A Christmas Carol read aloud – my older kids and I are reading this together this year. I alternate between reading aloud or us all listening to the audiobook while we do a puzzle together. (We’ll be working on this London-themed Christmas puzzle this year, and we love this puzzle board.)

We’ll also explain our service/kindness advent this year – we’ll actually do this in the mornings by reading a quick scripture from this Christmas ABCs advent, and giving the kids an idea of a simple act of service they can do that day that’s related to the day’s letter.

Kindness Jars

Something new we’re adding in this year is family kindness jars! We could use a little more sibling thoughtfulness around here, so I decided to set up a jar for each kid. Then throughout the month, anytime someone does something kind for someone else, they can write it on a piece of paper and put it in that person’s jar. Then on Christmas morning, each kid can read all the kind things that others did for them throughout the month. We’ll see how this goes!

Activity Calendar

We also have a few special and fun activities throughout the month – a hot chocolate night, going to see the Nutcracker, going caroling, etc. We’ll talk through all the month’s activities so everyone is on the same page!

Christmas Bells!

Finally, we’ll finish off the evening by pulling out our very favorite bells to sing a Christmas song or two together. This is one of our family’s favorite activities in December! Would make a wonderful family gift, too. We don’t do this every night, but the kids do request it probably every night. 😉 (Discount code PREETHI.)