Why should kids have all the fun? Here are advent calendars for you and some for kids!

Chocolate is usually the first thing we think of when it comes to advent calendars, but what about Aussie craft beers, Lego, beauty products, Smiggle or reusable options which you can fill with whatever you want? Here are our top picks but be aware, some need to be preordered soon! Catch had the best prices for a variety here.

Not all of these options are ‘thrifty’ but they are fantastic! The kid’s options are more budget-friendly. I love Christmas so am quite excited about the options below. A couple are affiliate links. You can read my full disclosure here.

Reusable Advent Calendars

Growing up, we had one which my mum made. It was a fabric Christmas tree with pockets. Each pocket had a lolly for each child and something nice we had to do that day for others to get in the Christmas spirit. If you don’t want to make one, you could buy one like this.

We spend a little time as a family writing out something to put in each pocket. Most are tasks like smile at 3 people today, find something you can do to help someone else, sing a song as a family etc. Then we add the lollies or chocolates. My kids love this tradition, along with others we have.

Food And Drinks Advent Calendars

Easy options are of course chocolate which you can get everywhere, alcohol (again, many big stores have these) and hamper style ones. Here are a few of my favourites.

25 Days Of Beer

Beer Cartel creates a brilliant advent calendar each year. Be quick though, as it is extremely popular. It is 25 Aussie craft beers which you can get for $149.99.

Aldi, Dan Murphy’s and numerous other places have alcohol ones as well but this supports an Aussie business.

T2 Advent Calendar

A cute selection of tea bags is found in the T2 advent calendar.

Non Food

More families are moving away from the traditional chocolate advent calendars. I mean, the cheap ones have bad chocolate and so much waste. That said, I wouldn’t object to being given the Koko Black 25 chocolate box (my favourite!) Not technically an advent calendar but 25 chocolates makes it almost the same, right?

Baubles – Twinkle & Shine

A selection of Christmas baubles along with facts about Christmas around the world. This is a cute little calendar for around $20 which is educational too.

Beauty – Vintage & Co. Grand Christmas Traditions

There are so many cute beauty advent calendars but this one is vegan and free from cruelty to animals, plus I love the vintage feel.

Kids advent calendars

My kids have made the decisions here. They want them all, but of course, it’s not practical!

Lego

Lego has a huge range of advent calendars. I found the best prices were with Catch. I love the LEGO ones because you can do so much with them. We play with LEGO all the time and have a huge collection so options like this work well for us. The hardest part is choosing which one!

Ooshies

Whether you want superheroes, Harry Potter, Transformers or other ones, Catch has a great range of Ooshies advent calendars.

Crayola Art Advent Calendar

Paint, crayons, colouring pages and more make for a creative advent calendar. Catch has the best price for the Crayola advent calendar.

Smiggle

Because we all need more brightly coloured plastic things, right? I haven’t personally bought this one but it is popular at my kids’ school. You can check it out here.

What do you do for advent calendars?

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