If you’re more interested in the spirit of Christmas than the commercialism of bought advent calendars, maybe this is an advent activity you will make time for this year. And it doesn’t just have to be for kids!
This can bring people together, make people feel good and build fantastic Christmas memories. If you’ve ever been involved in a message advent activity, I’d love to hear about it in the comments below.
Presentation of the advent messages
So, how do you present these positive messages throughout December?
Well, you can do it anyway you want but here are some suggestions…
- roll each message like a scroll and tie it onto the Christmas tree with red ribbon (You might need a special tree just for this if you’re including a lot of people!)
- fold each message and put it into a pre-made advent calendar
- fold each message and put it into a jar then pull one out each day as a Christmas lucky dip! To make it nicer, use a red jar or tie a festive ribbon around the jar (and of course, the jar could be any type of container, really!)
- put each message into an envelope and open one per day
- stick the message to the bed head so children wake up to see a positive message waiting for them
- create them as an advent calendar. That is, write the messages on a piece of paper/cardboard then stick another piece of paper over the front having partially cut out some flaps to be lifted (or ripped off) to read each day’s message
- you could go electronic and schedule the messages to be sent each day via email, social media or even as their screen saver
- pop a new message into a Christmas stocking (preferably hanging in front of the fireplace or Christmas tree rather than in the dirty laundry basket!) each day – or you could use the stockings for the lucky dip option!
Some positive message advent options
And using a different colour (paper, pens, whatever) for each person will make it easier to keep track of things, too!
If you have any other presentation ideas, please share them below 🙂
Creating the messages
This is both the time consuming and challenging part of the process, but also, I believe, the rewarding part.
As you write positive messages, your little Christmas helpers can be writing, too!
Put simply, you need to create 24 positive and encouraging messages for each person using the advent calendar. These messages need to be read each day so should be individual.
I’ll share some ideas about writing the messages themselves in the next couple of days.
“Put each message into an envelope and open one per day”.
I’ve had friends who do this and it is always wonderful to hear about. They’ve stuck the envelopes on the wall and numbered one for each day. They also used different color envelopes for each person to make them easier to identify. A great way to incorporate children would be getting the entire family to write a note for each other and placing multiple notes in an envelope. This could be done every day or they could be written in advance and appear on a random day each week. I personally prefer the last one, it takes less time but can be a wonderful surprise if the envelopes are randomized.
I like that idea, too Ali – adding messages from the kids just on some days would be both fun and manageable, especially if you randomised when they were found.
😳 👿 😈 😡 🙄 😥
Not sure how to respond to that Simone, but the emojis are cute 🙂