By: Priya Anderson & Ruby Anderson

For those who celebrate Christmas, participating in advent is a fun way to celebrate during the holiday season with friends and family. Here are five fun winter and Christmas activities to put on your advent calendar this year.

1. Decorating for Christmas

Some people might claim the best part of the Christmas season are the lights and decorations and most people who celebrate Christmas decorate anyway, so adding this to your advent calendar can make it more exciting. There are so many ways you can decorate for Christmas. For example, you can hang up stockings and wreaths as well as decorate a Christmas tree with ornaments, tinsel and lights. You can also decorate outside and spread the Christmas spirit to others around you. Decorating with your family or friends can be a fun way to spend time together while also making your home feel festive and cozy.

2. Ice skating and Sledding

Going outside during the winter months can be hard because of the cold weather but ice skating is a great way to spend some time outside and enjoy the winter months even if they aren’t your favorite. Especially if it’s on your advent calendar, it’s even more reason to do it! There are many ice rinks around the Twin Cities to visit which have skates to rent if you don’t own your own pair. Even if you don’t celebrate Christmas, going ice skating can create a fun and memorable day.

If ice skating isn’t for you, another great outdoor activity you can do is going sledding. Sledding can be an easier activity compared to ice skating and is still a lot of fun. As long as there’s snow, you can use almost any hill to go sledding which makes it a very accessible activity as well.

3. Watching Christmas movies

Watching Christmas movies can be a fun way to celebrate Christmas in the comfort of your own home. There are many great movies to watch during the Christmas season including favorites such as ‘Elf’, ‘Home Alone’, ‘The Polar Express’, ‘The Grinch’, ‘Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer‘, and many more. Making popcorn and hot chocolate is our favorite snack to have during a Christmas movie marathon and the perfect treat to have. Sitting down and turning on any of the Christmas movies we mentioned or any holiday movie is another easy way to get into the holiday mood.

4. Baking Christmas cookies

One of the most popular advent calendar activities is baking Christmas cookies. This is a tradition favored by many and is another fun way to bring the Christmas spirit into your home, as well as an excuse to eat delicious treats. There are many different cookies to choose from based on your preference from gingerbread to snickerdoodle. You can even decorate sugar cookies to look like Santa Claus, a Christmas tree, or a snowman! Invite friends and family to fill your home with the sweet smell of cookies and make sure you don’t miss out on this advent activity.

5. Building snowmen

A tradition many people look forward to during the winter is building snowmen. As kids we loved building snowmen and sometimes forget it’s another fun and simple way to enjoy going outside during winter. If it snows enough, bundle up and go take the chance to have some fun in the snow and use your creativity to build whatever you can imagine. Whether you can only build a simple snowman or if you can sculpt a masterpiece, don’t forget to put this classic activity on your advent calendar this year.