Magnetic Advent Calendars

Colorful magnetic Advent calendars - to buy or make yourself, one of a kind - are among the most interesting "countdown to Christmas" decorations your family will enjoy year after year.

A fun holiday activity for kids and adults alike, the daily countdown of December days gives families a chance to take a moment together in the midst of our busy lives. Many parents use the ritual of the Advent calendar as a time to talk about why we celebrate Christmas, for example, and the universal values of peace, love, and joy that we honor as the spirit of this season.

Featured here, for example, is the Dear Santa Metal Advent Calendar with the exuberant feel of children's artwork in red, yellow, and green. As it brightens your kitchen for the holidays with a fun activity to count down the days to that most special Eve, it may even give your creative kids the inspiration to make their own Advent calendar next year!

Take a look at the magnetic calendars for sale, but also check out all the inspirational ideas from other families for ideas you might want to make a part of your own holiday traditions. Creating a craft together, if that's what you and your kids enjoy, can add an extra sparkle to the countdown to Christmas.

If you're short on time, grab one of these beauties to count the days until Christmas comes. If you're the crafty type with a few hours to spare, take these as inspiration for your own designs - and keep reading for some DIY tutorials on making a magnetic Advent calendar.

For something a little different, there's also popular designer Kurt Adler's The Story of Christmas Interactive Magnetic Advent Book, shown here. Not only is it a beautiful tabletop display that takes practically no space to store when the season is over (the three-panel book is just over 11 inches tall and 8 wide, though it unfolds to an impressive 25-inch display), this one is a great source of teaching and learning for your kids. Each of the figures in the nativity scene has a meaning, which is explained in text printed right on the back of the book. As you place each magnetic figure in its location, day by day through December, it's a wonderful opportunity to talk with your kids about the values that underpin your faith and the true significance of the Christmas story.

Can you take Kurt Adler's artistic vision as the starting point for your own family's creative Christmas activities?

If there's a keen artist in your family, it might be fun for them to create their own unique backdrop for the nativity scene - maybe a colorful collage of tissue paper and gift wrap, or the child's drawing of how they imagine the stable in old Bethlehem might have looked. Tape the artwork or drawing to your fridge and use the Kurt Adler Christmas Story magnets on that one-of-a-kind piece instead of on the magnetic backdrop that comes with the set. Every day in December, you can take it in turns to add one more magnetic figure to the biblical scene. A family discussion of why the Baby Jesus doesn't go on the picture until Christmas Eve could be a nice chance to retell the story of Christmas one more time. Each year, you could have a whole new version of the nativity scene for your family Advent calendar! And when Christmas is over, simply store the magnets safely away in the calendar book.

Here I've rounded up some of the more interesting craft tutorials for magnetic Advent calendars. Not all of these are new, but they're the very best of my bookmarks and I'll add more as I come across them.

Cut out a Christmas tree shape from pretty wrapping paper (or stick one of your children's holiday drawings to the front of your fridge or dishwasher) and mark on the numbers 1 to 25 on it... all you need is an assortment of 24 interesting Christmas magnets to add one by one as you count down the days of December. No one else in the world will have exactly the same Advent calendar as you!

Such a lovely Christmas decoration - and I'm not even much of a Hallmark fan, normally! Among the "store-bought" magnetic Advent calendars, this classic Hallmark model is top of my list, ever since I saw it hanging on the fridge at a friend's house. If it wasn't the exact same design, it was one close enough to be twins, anyway.