Advent calendar ideas: a word, a riddle or a tiny task behind every door

Three kinds of filling

Advent itself begins on Sunday 29 November this year, the fourth Sunday before Christmas, but most calendars simply run from the 1st to the 24th of December. That’s 24 small surprises to fill. The best non-chocolate advent calendar fillers are free and fit on a slip of paper:

• A word to guess. One person reads it in secret, the others guess it with hot and cold. It takes five minutes over breakfast.
• A riddle. The answer goes on the back of the slip, so nobody can peek by accident.
• A tiny task. Call a grandparent, make a paper snowflake, leave a note for a neighbor.

Mix all three and no two mornings feel the same. The full list of 24 is further down.

A DIY advent calendar in one evening

You don’t need a craft shop. Pick whichever of these you have at home:

1. Envelopes on a string. Twenty-four small envelopes, clothes pegs and a length of ribbon across a window or a mantelpiece.
2. Paper bags. Fold the tops over and close them with a sticker. They stand nicely in a row on a shelf.
3. Matchboxes. Glue them into a block, wrap the block in paper, and every drawer is a door.
4. A jar. Roll each slip up like a scroll and tie it with thread. Each morning someone pulls the one for the day.

Write all the slips first, then fold. One trick that helps: use a different color of pen for each kind of filling, so the youngest can tell at a glance whether today is a word, a riddle or a task.

The word door: hot and cold over breakfast

On a word day, one person opens the door and reads the word without showing it. The others guess, and the reader answers only with temperatures: freezing, cold, warmer, hot, burning. Whoever finds the word opens tomorrow’s door. It’s the old childhood game of hiding something and calling out “warmer!”, only the hidden thing is a word.

If your family is spread out, the same idea works without a calendar on the wall. Warmer Warmer gives one secret word every day, the same for everyone, and a new one appears at midnight. You type any word and it tells you how close you are in meaning, from freezing to scorching. Each person guesses on their own phone, wherever they live, and at dinner or in the family chat you compare who needed the fewest guesses. It’s free in the browser, no app and no sign-up, and unlike a calendar it doesn’t stop on the 24th.

Here’s how a game could go if the word behind a door were gingerbread:

1. umbrella39 °FFreezing: wrong season, wrong room
2. kitchen106 °FLukewarm: somewhere warm and busy
3. cookie165 °FHot: baked and sweet
4. cinnamon176 °FHot: the right spice shelf
5. shortbread187 °FScorching: another festive bake
6. gingerbreadFound it!

Try it now: what’s your first guess?

Guess

Your word goes straight into today’s game.

And if someone in the family has Premium, they can start a group and pick the secret words themselves, Christmas words all through December if they like. Joining is free. Everyone else guesses on their own, and the group’s leaderboard shows who needed the fewest guesses.

24 doors, ready to copy

Each riddle has its answer right after it. Write the answer on the back of the slip.

1. Task: Hang the first decoration and give it a name.
2. Word: snowflake
3. Riddle: I have needles but I never sew, and you bring me indoors in December. (A Christmas tree.)
4. Task: Call or message someone you haven’t talked to in a while.
5. Word: mitten
6. Task: It’s Saint Nicholas Day, for the saint behind the name Santa Claus. Find out one thing about him and tell the others at dinner.
7. Riddle: What falls all winter but never gets hurt? (Snow.)
8. Word: chimney
9. Task: Fold and cut a paper snowflake and tape it to a window.
10. Riddle: What has bark but no bite? (A tree.)
11. Word: carol
12. Task: Everyone names their favorite Christmas song, and you play them all while you tidy up.
13. Riddle: What do you call a snowman in July? (A puddle.)
14. Word: lantern
15. Task: Write a short thank-you note to someone who helped you this year.
16. Riddle: What is full of holes but still holds water? (A sponge.)
17. Word: wreath
18. Task: Bake or buy something small and leave it on a neighbor’s doorstep.
19. Riddle: What gets bigger the more you take away from it? (A hole.)
20. Word: sleigh
21. Task: It’s the winter solstice, the longest night of the year. Switch off the big lights and tell stories by one small lamp.
22. Riddle: What can you hold in your left hand but never in your right? (Your right elbow.)
23. Word: nutcracker
24. Task: Christmas Eve. Everyone shares the best moment of their December, then hangs up the stockings.

Advent calendar for kids

For children under six, swap the riddles for picture tasks (“draw a reindeer with a red nose”) and keep the words short and concrete: bell, star, snow, candle. Let them be the reader on word days. Being the one who knows the secret is half the fun at that age, and they will give away far too many clues, which is perfect.

Older kids can write some of the slips themselves, for the grown-ups. Expect very hard words.

Advent calendar for adults

For a couple, housemates or grown-up children, raise the stakes. Choose harder words such as nostalgia, frost, candlelight or tradition, use trickier riddles, and make the tasks a little braver: cook a dish from your childhood, send a postcard to an old friend, spend one evening without a screen.

If you’re making an advent calendar for a partner who lives far away, send the day’s door as a message each morning. A riddle on the 7th and a word on the 8th is a small, steady way to stay in touch through December.

When the last door is open

The calendar ends on Christmas Eve, but the habit doesn’t have to. A word over breakfast can carry on well into January, long after the decorations are back in their boxes.

For grandparents who live far away, there are more ideas in long-distance grandparenting ideas. For the dark evenings, try word games for family night. And if hot and cold is new to you, start with the hot and cold word game.