Christmas Advent Calendar – Acts of Service

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Christmas Service Advent Calendar

I’ve seen a lot of blog posts about doing random acts of kindness on your birthday (like this, this, and this). Since my birthday happens to be in December I thought that would be a great way to celebrate, but wanted to expand it a bit more to help us get into the holiday spirit as a family. So for our Christmas Advent Calendar this year we are going to do random acts of kindness and service.

Christmas Advent Calendar - Service Calendar

Step 1: 

I purchased a large nativity print by Simon Dewey called “And His Name Shall Be Called Wonderful” from Deseret Book. I couldn’t find in their online store the exact print, but any nativity print would work.

Then, I trimmed it to fit the frame that I was going to put it inside of (on top of the glass). You could also just mount this on a poster board or bulletin board of some sort.

Christmas Advent Calendar - Random Acts of Kindness
Christmas Service Advent Calendar - Service

Step 2:

I cut the picture into 24 equal pieces and then designed my acts of service in Microsoft Publisher to be about that same size and printed them out. My squares ended up being about 2″ x 2 1/4″ but the size of yours will depend on what frame you use.

Christmas Service Advent Calendar - DIY Calendar

Step 3:

After cutting the acts of service and gluing them onto the back of the nativity picture pieces, I added a few glittered rub-ons to add a little bit of something fun and sparkly.

Christmas Service Advent Calendar - Service each day

Step 4:

Since tape may tear the paper, I used this Removable Mounting Poster Putty to mount the squares onto the glass of my picture frame. Now, as we complete an act of service we will turn the piece over and eventually will see the whole picture of the nativity.

Christmas Service Advent Calendar - Random Acts of Kindness each day
Christmas Service Advent Calendar - Small acts of service

I hope that by doing these small acts of service each day we will focus on what we can do to reach out and help others and a little less on what we are hoping to see under the tree on Christmas morning.

Here are the PDF files to my random acts of service if you’d like to print them for yourself:

Christmas Service Advent Calendar pg1

Christmas Service Advent Calendar pg2

And here is a GIANT list of ideas to create your own list:

64 Service Ideas for Advent Calendar

There are so many different things you can do for an advent calendar, and in fact I’ll be sharing more than a dozen ideas in just a couple of days, so check back for more inspiration!

 Here are 20 more advent/countdown calendar ideas! Merry Christmas!!

***If I were doing this again I would not slice up my nativity print. I wouldleave it in the frame and use the tacky tape to place the acts of service on the glass of the frame and peel them off as they are completed to reveal the fully intact print of the nativity. 


12 Comments

  1. I love this idea. I am not very computer savy and I wanted to change a couple of the ones that you used to some others on the list, but I am not able to add or change anything to the PDF file. Is there another way to do this without me having to recreate the whole thing, because I am not sure I can do that. 🙂 I showed this to my teenage kids and they loved the idea. Thanks for sharing this.

    1. Beth-
      I recommend printing out my document and cutting them out, use the ones you like and throw out the ones you don’t. Then to create the ones you want to do, just open a Word Document and make sure it has 3 columns – that should make it so the width is about the same as mine were. Then just type your ideas and space them out, print them and cut them. Good luck, I’m so glad you liked the idea!!

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