We have an advent calendar that has little doors. They’ll compartments range in size from maybe fitting a hot wheels car to a box of crayons? We usually fill it with a mix of small treats and usually plastic crap. We’ve also done 25 days of kindness and the Christmas story mixed in with those treats. That was fine and the kids liked them, but (understandably) weren’t all that interested in those when plastic junk or candy was in them. Last year we bought a couple advent LEGO sets (one was Star Wars and one was a playmobil Christmas scene). Those were fun, but it seemed silly to take the components out of their own calendar just to use ours.

Here are some options:
1) continue to fill with coins/treats/plastic crap
2) take a full LEGO set and give them a little bit every day
3) try 25 days of kindness again, but then I’m not sure they’d be excited without something else in there and it might just be more things I’m supposed to do during the already crazy Christmas season. So what else could go in the boxes?
4) something else entirely?

I do really like the calendar and would like to continue to use it, I just haven’t figured out the best way to do it. Boys are 4 and 7 (DD is 6 months).