I love the idea of an advent calendar but have never had the time to make one before. I decided this year I was going to start early create an advent calendar for my husband. I tried to buy low cost items that he would like and things he needs. I didn’t want to buy things that he won’t use or that would add clutter to our home.
I did end up going over budget by accident. Overall I spent about $150-200. I understand this is quite a lot for an advent calendar and next year will try to stay under $100. I did buy some bulk items instead of single products as the cost per item was lower. This ended up driving up the cost. My highest cost items were the gingerbread making kit and the lottery tickets.
Supplies Needed:
- Gift bags
- Wrapping paper
- Scissors/ Tape
- Ribbon
- Stickers/ Tags
I bought all my supplies from the dollar store. Instead of buying actual gift bags I bought lunch bags that were Christmas themed. These were much cheaper than buying gift bags.
Items included:
- Chapstick/ Lip Balm
- Mouthwash/ Toothbrush/ Toothpaste
- Hand sanitizer
- Body lotion
- Mints/ Listerene/ Tic Tacs
- Hair brush
- Nail clippers
- Lottery tickets
- Pop/ Drink (I chose to gift classic glass bottle Coca Cola)
- Chocolate Kinder Surprise Eggs
- Deodorant
- Gatorade
- Dunkaroos
- Pringles
- Mini Cereal Box
- Instant Noodles
- Gummy candies
- Maltesers’ Chocolate
- Fruit Roll Up
- Corn Chips
- Pocky Sticks
- Nail clippers
- Ginger Bread House Kit
- Chocolate Chip Cookies
Things I would do differently next time:
I did not realize wrapping and packaging the presents would take as long as it did. I think it took me 3-4 hours to wrap everything. I had too many steps that were time consuming such as wrapping, tying ribbons, and making tags for each day.
Next time I will buy more gift bags/ lunch bags and only wrap 10 presents. I will also not use ribbons and use pre-made bows instead. Lastly, I will use numbered stickers to represent each day instead of making and attaching each tag myself.
Other than that, this was a pretty quick and easy surprise to put together!