Looking for some simple advent calendar ideas. This Free printable advent calendar is a quick and fun way to add some holiday cheer to your advent season without breaking the bank with expensive advent traditions.
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Free Printable Advent Calendar
What is a coloring advent calendar? It is a simple, fun, and effective way to do an advent tradition with your children that is as simple as printing, cutting, gluing, and hanging! Start your Christmas season off on December 1st and each day continue to the next square. It’s a great way to incorporate the ‘true meaning’ of Christmas every day of December.
Advent means “coming” and the simplest definition for it is a season of preparing our hearts for the birth of Jesus Christ at Christmas and the second coming of Christ. In the simplest of terms, Advent is a Christmas countdown!
I like to think of it as a tangible reminder during the holidays to preach the gospel to myself and my family daily! It should be a practice that we do every day of the year, but Christmas is a time we can make it extra special. This season has the potential to speak to our children’s hearts in ways that other times of the year don’t.
It can be a very confusing time of the year with consumerism at its peak, but it also can be a beautiful opportunity to present the gospel to your kids amidst the season of Advent.
I encourage you to follow some type of advent tradition, even if it’s not this one. There are so many Christmas activities to do during the Christmas season, so don’t neglect to add a few to your routine! Continue at least one activity all the way to Christmas Eve and Christmas Day to fully understand the impact of the Christmas story.
There are two pages to the free printable advent calendar and 28 pages in the upgraded version! It’s a great way to make your own advent calendar. You could even have your kids make it. You might have some messy kids depending on how into it they get!
How to Use the Printable Advent Calendar
There are many ways that you could use a printable calendar. Here are a few fun activities to get you started.
- Set up a coloring station for your children to color the advent square each day. Read the Bible verse together once they have finished.
- Display the advent squares or pages (in upgrade) over your fireplace on a string. It makes a lovely Christmas decoration.
- Hole punch the advent square (it’s best if you use cardstock to print in this case) and hang it on a children’s Christmas tree after coloring the advent square each day.
- Keep the entire page whole and just let the children color at will throughout the Advent season.
- You could even place it by your Christmas tree as a reminder to do each time your kids look at their Christmas presents!
- Make sure to use your own ideas! Use your imagination, the options are endless!
These are not just for children though! Feel free to print out multiple copies for each child or adult in your family. You can make it quite the tradition.
If you want to make the calendar so there is an open square that children can open each day, here are the steps you need to take:
- Print the two pages in the free option.
- Using a razor blade or straight edge, cut around the top, bottom, and right side of each square. This makes little boxes for kids to open!
- Fold over to create a box to open.
- Glue around the grey areas on the Bible reading page. Place the two pages together to create one.
- Now every day your child can color a box and open it to reveal the advent reading for that day!
I love pairing multiple advent ideas together. One fun way you could use this in your family is with a Jesse tree and the book Unwrapping the Greatest Treasure. Although these do not necessarily coordinate with the daily readings of the book, you could use them as a fun pairing.
Our absolute favorite advent tradition is The Shepherd’s Treasure! Last year, we mixed up what the shepherd brought each morning and these advent squares were perfect to include occasionally! The Shepherd’s Treasure is the perfect way to kick the Elf on the Shelf tradition to the curb and focus on a better way to anticipate the holiday season. Plus it’s a fun way to love on your kids and maybe even give them some small gifts throughout this giving time of year.
Grab it all!
Grab the DIY advent calendar through the links below. Our upgraded version of the free printable advent calendar comes with both a coloring and full-color version. In addition, you get full pages of each day’s advent reading and corresponding coloring graphic! 28 pages total!
More Advent and Christmas Activities for Kids
I love incorporating advent activities into our family routine throughout the month of December. This printable advent calendar is just one of many ways to emphasize the Christmas story in our home.
There are many free printables and advent activities in this list, so make sure you click through and grab them. Don’t forget that we have the Bible Printables Vault where you can get all the advent calendar activities! It’s a fun way to enjoy a little holiday cheer throughout December.
Best Advent Calendar Traditions
Alternatives to Elf on the Shelf
20 Christian Christmas Kids Books
Christmas Tree Decorating Traditions: A Homemakers Perspective
A Free Christmas Nativity Word Search!
15+ Free Christian Christmas Coloring Pages with Bible Verses
Printing the Free Advent Calendar
Are you ready to download the printable advent calendar? I would love for you to have this fun way of remembering each day in December with scripture. You can get it by diving into the FREE printables library for kids where you will get not just this freebie, but dozens more for email subscribers. Or just click the button below to grab the advent calendar PDF.
Remember that this advent calendar is for personal use only. Your whole family can use it, but keep it within your own family and do not distribute it elsewhere.
You will find the PDF files below. Just click the button!
I hope you have enjoyed this fun idea for the month of December. The countdown calendar is an impactful and fun way for kids of all ages to remember the meaning of Christmas Day. It’s not about the presents, treats, or seasonal traditions. It’s about the birth of our savior and all that means! Merry Christmas friends!
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