Bookish & Craftastic Advent Ideas
The countdown to Christmas is about to begin, so here are some of my all-time favorite book-related and crafty ideas for a fun and meaningful Advent!
Book Advent~Every year I put away all of our Christmas and winter-themed books and then pull them out on the 1st of December to make a Picturebook Christmas Tree. We read one each evening for a bedtime book Advent tradition that my little bookworms look forward to year after year.
Another idea (from Detail Gal Blog) is to wrap books and put them under the tree so that as you read them and the space under the tree empties, excitement for Christmas morning builds!
Wrapping just the covers of picturebooks and lining them up on a mantle or bookshelf like a 
colorful little Christmas tree forest is another awesome Advent idea from Reading Confetti!
Here are some Christmas and winter-themed book suggestions:
Source: lifeatthezoo.com via Melissa Taylor, ImaginationSoup.net on Pinterest
Source: holyspiritledhomeschooling.net via Melissa Taylor, ImaginationSoup.net on Pinterest
And these free, printable Advent activity cards…
Source: addapinch.com via Melissa Taylor, ImaginationSoup.net on Pinterest
or these service-themed Advent cards…
Source: aliedwards.com via Melissa Taylor, ImaginationSoup.net on Pinterest
would be awesome with these vintage-looking library book pockets.
Source: notonthehighstreet.com via L.R. on Pinterest
This year we are making an ornament a day to give as gifts to family and friends in what I hope will become another fun and creative Advent tradition for our family. If you want to give it a try, too, you can find some cute ornament craft ideas here.
And for more ideas about how to make the holiday season fun-filled and meaningful, as well as keeping the joy and wonder of childhood alive for your little ones year round:
In a twist on the Advent theme, here is A Very Toddler Christmas~24 Tips for a Safe, Stress-Free & Jolly Holiday
The Spirit of Christmas… The Great Santa Claus Debate
Making gratitude and generosity a standard of life… 7 Tips and Traditions to Make Giving a Standard of Living
The Reason for the Season… Celebrating Jesus with a Santa Claus Christmas
A happy childhood sends a child into adulthood with a baggage of confidence and kindness instead of disillusionment and anger. 200 Ways to Bless Your Children with a Happy Childhood
The human brain needs time to process, categorize, prioritize, analyze, and otherwise make sense of all of the trillions of bits of information that it receives each day. Non-structured playtime for children functions much like sleep does for adults, giving their brains the time and space they need to move short-term memory to long-term learning. 25 Reasons NOT to Keep Children Busy
In the world of a child wonders are as simple as sticks and sheets, leaves and books, boxes and giggles, and the promise in a rainy day. The Seven Wonders of the World of Childhood
Children who love to read…READ! Engaging children’s hearts in the wonder of reading instead of just training their minds in its mechanics. Raising Bookworms
From hitting to defiance to tantrums to testing the boundaries and more, here are gentle parenting tools, tips, and techniques…Practical Gentle Discipline
Award-winnning author, L.R.Knost, is the founder and director of the children's rights advocacy and family consulting group, Little Hearts/Gentle Parenting Resources, and Editor-in-Chief of Holistic Parenting Magazine. Books by L.R.Knost include Whispers Through Time: Communication Through the Ages and Stages of Childhood ; Two Thousand Kisses a Day: Gentle Parenting Through the Ages and Stages ; The Gentle Parent: Positive, Practical, Effective Discipline ; and Jesus, the Gentle Parent: Gentle Christian Parenting the first four books in the Little Hearts Handbook gentle parenting series, and children’s picture books Petey’s Listening Ears and the soon-to-be-released Grumpykins series.
A Craft-astic Holiday or One Craft-aster After Another (and loving it!)
This is for all you mamas who see the creative projects and crafts and cute baking on Pinterest and wish you were the kind of ‘crafty mama’ who could whip together such adorableness for your little ones. I, too, wish I was a crafty mama and have pinned so many great ideas and tried a few with…let’s just say less-than-stellar results, lol. But my children have loved every flub, giggled at every failure, and laughed their way through every project regardless of the results. There’s joy in the journey, mamas, so take heart and grab some of these ideas and flub and fail your way to a happy, craft-astic holiday!
Here’s a project that didn’t turn out as intended. (From the creative genius Play at Home Mom, who made a beautifully flat and festively decorated ice rink which mine doesn’t remotely resemble, haha. Head over to her site for some really great ideas!)
But, even though my ice rink somehow ended up with a mysterious growth, my little people loved it just the same. In fact, they really enjoyed the ice mountain (aka ‘growth’) and used it for some Florida sledding!
And here are some other ideas I’m planning to ruin, er…try out for some Christmas fun!
This site has some really cute Advent ideas for using picture books!
~And these cute ideas are from Pinterest!~
My most recent craft-aster: setting Christmas gifts on fire last night! So, fyi, coffee beans are flammable (who knew?). The candle needs to be in a glass votive and high enough out of the coffee so the beans won’t fall in and catch fire. Mine didn’t even vaguely resemble the adorable ones pictured below (pre or post fire, lol), so click on the picture to get instructions if you want to make them!
Award-winnning author, L.R.Knost, is the founder and director of the children's rights advocacy and family consulting group, Little Hearts/Gentle Parenting Resources, and Editor-in-Chief of Holistic Parenting Magazine. Books by L.R.Knost include Whispers Through Time: Communication Through the Ages and Stages of Childhood ; Two Thousand Kisses a Day: Gentle Parenting Through the Ages and Stages ; The Gentle Parent: Positive, Practical, Effective Discipline ; and Jesus, the Gentle Parent: Gentle Christian Parenting the first four books in the Little Hearts Handbook gentle parenting series, and children’s picture books Petey’s Listening Ears and the soon-to-be-released Grumpykins series.
