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An advent calendar is 24 or 25 small moments in a row, and the hard part is not the first day. It is day 11, when the chocolate is gone, the activity says "build a gingerbread house" and nobody bought gingerbread. A printable calendar fixes most of that: you choose the activities in November, print once, and every morning there is something ready that costs nothing. This guide covers the main types, how to print and assemble them, and how to use one on a tablet.
First, the dates. The church season of Advent begins on Sunday 29 November 2026. Countdown calendars start on Tuesday 1 December and run to Thursday 24 or Friday 25 December. Decide now which you follow, because a 25-day set and a 24-day set are not interchangeable.
Four kinds of printable advent calendar
- Activity calendars: one card a day with something to do together (a craft, a kindness, a short story, a walk). The value is that you do not have to invent 25 ideas in a busy month. Juniper and Sprig's Cozy Countdown is this type: 25 family cards and a separate set of 25 classroom cards, designed so every activity uses paper, pencils, crayons, scissors and tape.
- Kids' tracker calendars: a poster with numbers 1 to 25 that a child colors in each morning. Cheap, visual, and it answers "how many days left" forty times a day. Many activity sets include one.
- DIY box or envelope calendars: printable templates you fold into small boxes, bags or envelopes and fill with treats or notes. These need cardstock and an evening of cutting.
- Planner-style countdowns: a page inside a holiday planner with one activity per day, next to the gift list and the menu. The Christmas Planner Printable works this way: 33 pages including a family advent countdown with 25 simple activities, in US Letter and A4.
A note on supply, measured October 2026: there are 95 active listings on Getly with Christmas or Xmas in the name, median price $3.00, but only two of them are advent calendars or contain one. Most December listings are activities you can slot into your own calendar, which is often the better plan anyway.
Build your own from December activities
If no ready calendar fits your family or class, build one from single activities. Pick a mix of quick days (five minutes before school) and long days (weekends). Printables that work well as calendar days:
- A word search for a quiet morning: Christmas Cheer Word Search (8 puzzles) covers eight days on its own.
- A weekend game: The Snowy Gate Rescue, a family escape room for ages 5 to 10 that can also be played as a treasure hunt around the home.
- Letter-to-Santa day: the Kids Christmas Wish List Printable Kit with a letter, a reply and wish-list pages.
- Coloring days: one page from a Christmas coloring book for each of the slower days.
- A family party evening: Christmas Party Games Printable Pack, 15 games with answer keys, good for the last weekend.
- Thank-you day after Christmas: Kids Thank-You Notes.
Write each day's activity on a small card, number the cards 1 to 24 or 25, and put them in envelopes, a jar or a pocket chart. That is your calendar.
How to print
- Check the paper size. US Letter and A4 differ by a few millimetres, enough to cut off dashed cut lines. The good sets ship both; print the one that matches your paper.
- Print at 100% / actual size for cards with cut lines and for box templates. "Fit to page" shrinks the template and the folds stop lining up.
- Use a low-ink version if there is one. Several December sets include a greyscale copy, and 25 colour cards will empty a cartridge.
- Cardstock for anything that hangs or folds: 160 to 220 g/m² for boxes and tags, normal paper for activity sheets that get colored and thrown away.
- Print everything in November. Printers jam and ink runs out in the second week of December, not the last week of November.
Assembling a DIY calendar
- Envelopes: the easiest. 24 small envelopes on a string with clothes pegs, one activity card in each.
- Boxes: score the fold lines with a blunt knife and a ruler before folding; cardstock cracks otherwise. A glue stick holds better than tape on small flaps.
- Pocket chart for a classroom: 25 numbered pockets on a wall, one card per day, read aloud at the start of the lesson.
- Safety: small paper pieces and scissors need an adult for young children; Juniper and Sprig's set says this explicitly, and it applies to any DIY calendar.
A digital advent calendar in GoodNotes
If you plan on an iPad, you can run an advent calendar inside GoodNotes or Notability without printing. Import the PDF, keep the tracker page as the first page and cross off each day with the pen or a sticker. Activity cards work the same way: open one page per day. There is no dedicated GoodNotes advent calendar on Getly right now, so a printable PDF is the practical choice; a hyperlinked digital planner such as Digital Planner 2027 then carries you from December into the new year.
Classroom licence
A calendar for 25 children means 25 copies. Read the licence before buying: most Christmas printables are personal use. Juniper and Sprig's set includes a classroom card set written for a teacher-led group of about 20 to 25 children, which tells you the seller expected classroom use, but still check the licence text in the listing or message the seller.
Checklist
- 24 or 25 days, starting 1 December?
- Letter or A4, and a low-ink version?
- Activities that cost nothing, or do you need to buy supplies?
- Cut lines and box templates printed at 100%?
- Personal or classroom licence?
On Getly you can pay by card (Apple Pay and Google Pay where available) or in USDT or USDC. Every purchase has a refund window of at least 30 days, and the files stay in your library, so an undated calendar can be printed again next year. More December printables are in Printable Educational Materials.
