31 Ways to Slow Down and Savour December: The Calendar for Advent and Beyond
December has a habit of arriving with an enormous amount of expectation attached to it.
There are presents to choose, things to bake, school events and Christmas nights out, cards to write, houses to decorate, people to see, food to organise and all the ordinary things that don’t conveniently disappear simply because it’s Christmas.
The washing still needs doing.
Dinner still has to be made.
Teenagers still need lifts.
The dog still needs walking.
There are school bags by the door and appointments in the diary and mornings when everybody is trying to get out of the house at once.
And somewhere in the middle of all of that, we’re supposed to be enjoying December.
I think that’s why I’ve become increasingly interested in the small moments of Christmas rather than trying to make the whole month feel special.
A lamp switched on before the afternoon has properly ended.
The first mince pie with a cup of tea.
Christmas music playing while dinner is being made.
A cold walk.
A few branches brought in from the garden.
Sitting beside the tree for ten minutes when everyone else has gone to bed.
None of those things requires us to find another free afternoon in December.
They simply ask us to notice the month we’re already living.
And that’s really what this little December calendar is about.
31 very simple invitations to slow down and savour December — one for every day of the month.
Not 31 things you have to do.
Not a Christmas challenge.
And certainly not another list to fall behind on.
Just 31 little possibilities.
A December Calendar for Slowing Down
I originally created this calendar because I wanted something that would help us notice December rather than race through it.
And I still love the simplicity of it.
There is one small prompt for each day from 1–31 December, but the calendar isn’t tied to a particular year. You can print it, keep it in your Christmas binder and return to it each December.
Free 31 Ways to Slow Down & Savour December Calendar
One gentle invitation for every day of December — from lighting a candle and taking a winter walk to baking something familiar, watching a favourite Christmas film and making time for the people you love.
Download the Free December Calendar
And before we go any further, there’s something important I want to say about how to use it.
Please Don’t Try to Complete This Calendar
Really.
Don’t.
There are 31 ideas because there are 31 days in December.
That doesn’t mean you need to complete all 31 of them.
If December 4th suggests a winter walk and it’s lashing rain sideways, don’t go for a winter walk because a printable told you to.
If you’ve planned a Christmas movie night and everyone is tired and cross, abandon it.
If you miss four days, don’t catch up.
There is no catching up.
You can’t fall behind at Christmas.
Use the calendar as a little menu rather than a schedule.
Circle the things that appeal to you.
Swap days around.
Repeat your favourites.
Ignore half of it.
Let the calendar serve your December rather than allowing it to become one more thing December expects from you.
That’s the whole point.
31 Simple Ways to Slow Down and Savour December
1. Light a Candle at Breakfast
December mornings are dark here.
Instead of fighting that darkness quite so much, I like leaning into it occasionally.
Light a candle while you’re having breakfast or that first cup of tea. Leave the big overhead light off for another few minutes if you can.
Nothing else needs to happen.
You’ve simply noticed that it’s a December morning.
2. Put on a Favourite Christmas Song
Not an entire festive playlist.
Just one song you love.
Play it in the kitchen, in the car on the school run or while you’re getting dressed.
Sometimes one familiar song is enough to change the atmosphere of an ordinary morning.
3. Bring a Little Greenery Indoors
Clip a few suitable evergreen branches from the garden or bring home something gathered responsibly on a walk.
Put them in a jug.
Lay a few pieces along the dresser.
Add a little greenery to the mantel.
You don’t have to redecorate the house.
RELATED: Natural Christmas Decorations You Can Make at Home – 15 Simple Ideas
4. Have Your First Mince Pie of the Season
Or your first favourite Christmas treat.
Make a proper cup of tea or coffee, sit down and eat it.
Preferably without simultaneously emptying the dishwasher.
A radical concept, I know. 😂
5. Write Down Three Things You Want From December
Not things you want to get done.
Things you want from the month.
More evenings at home?
Time with your family?
A little space to yourself?
More walking?
Less shopping?
More baking?
Less rushing?
Knowing what you actually want December to feel like makes it much easier to say no to some of the things that don’t belong in it.
6. Take a Winter Walk
It doesn’t have to be long.
Walk around your own area.
Go down a familiar lane.
Take the dog.
Walk to see the Christmas lights after dark.
Notice how different the world looks and sounds at this time of year.
Winter has its own landscape. We miss quite a lot of it when we’re always looking ahead to Christmas Day.
7. Bake Something Familiar
This is not the day for the seven-layer Christmas showstopper you’ve never attempted before.
Bake the thing you already know how to make.
Biscuits.
Scones.
A traybake.
Ginger cake.
Something that makes the kitchen smell lovely and doesn’t require a degree in patisserie.
RELATED: 15 Christmas Baking Ideas – Cookies, Cakes & Festive Treats
And if you’d like somewhere to gather your festive baking plans and favourite recipes, you’ll find my free Christmas Baking Companion there too.
8. Switch Off the Big Light
This is possibly my most sophisticated seasonal-living advice.
Turn off the big light. 😂
Put on the lamps.
Light the safe candles.
Turn on the tree lights.
December evenings don’t need much help.
Sometimes we just need to stop illuminating them like a supermarket.
9. Wrap a Few Presents Slowly
Not all of them.
A few.
Clear a bit of space at the table, put on some music and make something warm to drink.
Use the paper and ribbon you already have.
Add a little dried orange, greenery or twine if you fancy it.
Then stop.
You don’t have to turn present wrapping into a four-hour endurance event.
10. Do Something Christmassy Together
This can be very small.
Watch a film.
Bake biscuits.
Play cards.
Go to see the lights.
Make hot chocolate.
Ask everybody what they’d actually enjoy rather than deciding that family Christmas togetherness must look a particular way.
RELATED: 25 Cosy Christmas Activities for Families & Teens
The post also includes my free Christmas Family Companion, with family activities, bingo, conversation cards, traditions and Memory Jar ideas.
11. Spend Ten Minutes Beside the Christmas Tree
This is one of my favourites.
Once the tree is up, sit beside it.
No television.
No wrapping.
No phone if you can help it.
Make tea and just sit there for ten minutes.
It sounds almost ridiculously simple.
That’s because it is.
12. Choose Something You’re Not Going to Do
I think this deserves a place on every December calendar.
What can you let go?
A social event you don’t really want to attend?
A complicated recipe?
A decoration you don’t need to put up?
A tradition everybody has outgrown?
Something you’ve somehow decided you “should” do every Christmas?
Cross one thing off.
Enjoy the space it leaves behind.
13. Make a Natural Christmas Decoration
Dry some orange slices.
Make a pomander.
Tie a few cinnamon sticks together.
Make a twig star.
Gather pinecones.
One decoration is enough.
The pleasure is as much in sitting down to make it as in the finished result.
RELATED: Natural Christmas Decorations You Can Make at Home
You’ll also find my free Christmas Crafts Companion there if you’d like a few more ideas for making things slowly at home.
14. Look Through Christmas Photographs
Go back a few years.
Look at the tiny people your teenagers used to be.
Look at old trees and old houses and people you miss.
Notice the decorations that have somehow appeared in photographs for fifteen years.
Christmas is layered.
Every year sits quietly on top of the ones that came before it.
15. Have an Ordinary Evening at Home
No Christmas activity required.
Make dinner.
Put the dishwasher on.
Watch whatever you’re watching.
Fold washing.
Read.
Let everybody disappear into their respective corners of the house.
An ordinary evening in December is still December.
You don’t have to make it festive enough to count.
16. Do One Kind Thing Quietly
Leave something for a neighbour.
Donate to a food appeal.
Send a message to somebody you’ve been thinking about.
Pay somebody a genuine compliment.
Help without announcing it.
Christmas kindness doesn’t need a hashtag.
17. Make Something Warm to Drink
Tea absolutely counts.
So does coffee.
Hot chocolate.
Mulled apple juice.
Whatever feels like comfort to you.
Take it somewhere comfortable and drink it while it’s actually hot.
Parents everywhere will appreciate the ambition of that last part.
18. Revisit a Christmas Tradition
Choose one tradition that has lasted in your family.
Maybe it’s a film.
A meal.
A decoration.
A place you visit.
A book you’ve read since the children were small.
Keep it because you love it — not simply because you’ve always done it.
RELATED: 12 Meaningful Christmas Traditions to Start with Teens or Grown-Up Kids
And if you’re thinking about which traditions you’d like to keep, change or begin, my free Christmas Traditions Companion is there too.
19. Leave Some Space in the Weekend
You don’t have to fill every December Saturday and Sunday.
Protect a few hours.
Stay home.
Go for a walk.
Potter around the house.
Bake if you want.
Do absolutely nothing Christmassy if that’s what you need.
Empty space isn’t wasted December.
20. Eat Something by the Christmas Tree
Breakfast.
Pizza.
Tea and toast.
A Friday-night takeaway.
Christmas dinner is not the only meal that gets to become a memory.
21. Go Out to See the Christmas Lights
Walk or drive.
Put some Christmas music on in the car.
Bring something warm to drink if you fancy.
Let everyone choose their favourite house.
With teenagers and older children, this is one of those wonderfully easy traditions that can survive long after many childhood Christmas activities have disappeared.
22. Make a Tiny Christmas Bucket List
Tiny being the important word.
Choose three or five things you’d genuinely like to do before Christmas.
That’s enough.
If you’d like some inspiration, I’ve created a free Christmas Bucket List Companion with simple ideas for enjoying the season without trying to squeeze everything into it.
Explore the Christmas Bucket List Companion
Don’t choose the things that sound most impressive.
Choose the things you’d be disappointed to miss.
23. Put Your Phone Somewhere Else for an Hour
Not forever.
Not as part of a digital detox.
Just an hour.
Leave it charging in another room while you bake, watch a film, eat dinner, go for a walk or sit by the tree.
See what you notice when you’re not half somewhere else.
24. Make Something You Always Make at Christmas
This is different from trying a new festive recipe.
Make your thing.
The biscuits everyone expects.
The cake you’ve made for years.
The Christmas ham.
The stuffing.
The sweet treat somebody asks about every December.
Repetition is part of what makes Christmas feel like Christmas.
25. Notice the House at Night
Before you go to bed, walk through the house.
Switch things off.
Look at the tree.
Notice the little pools of lamplight.
The school bags that may finally have been abandoned for the holidays.
The wrapping paper hiding somewhere it shouldn’t be.
The evidence of people living here.
There is something particularly lovely about a house at night in December.
26. Let Christmas Eve Be Christmas Eve
You don’t need to arrive at December 24th exhausted from trying to finish Christmas.
Let something remain undone.
Put the food away.
Stop tidying.
Turn on the lights.
Let Christmas Eve begin.
RELATED: 10 Christmas Eve Traditions – Simple, Meaningful Rituals for December 24th
You’ll find the free Christmas Eve Companion there too, filled with gentle ideas for creating an evening that feels like your family’s Christmas Eve.
27. Ask Everyone Their Favourite Moment So Far
Not their favourite present.
Their favourite moment.
Ask over dinner or in the car.
The answers can be surprising.
Very often, nobody chooses the thing we spent the most money or effort organising.
Worth remembering.
28. Take a Walk After Christmas
There is a strange little quietness after Christmas Day.
Go outside.
Walk somewhere familiar.
Let the cold air clear your head.
Nobody needs entertaining.
Nothing needs producing.
Christmas isn’t over simply because the big day has passed.
29. Eat the Leftovers
Please don’t create an elaborate new meal while the fridge is groaning under the weight of perfectly good food.
Make sandwiches.
Put bits on plates.
Eat cheese and crackers.
Heat something up.
One of the great joys of this part of Christmas is not having to start again from scratch.
30. Have a Slow Morning
Stay in pyjamas a little longer if you can.
Make another pot of tea.
Read.
Do a puzzle.
Let breakfast drift towards lunchtime.
Nobody needs to seize the day.
The day will survive.
31. Write Down What You Want to Remember
Before December disappears, write down a few things.
Not an assessment of whether Christmas was successful.
Just what you want to remember.
Something somebody said.
A meal.
A walk.
A quiet morning.
A chaotic evening.
Who was there.
What the house felt like.
The little things that would otherwise disappear.
Those are the pieces of December worth keeping.
The Calendar Isn’t the Point
The calendar is simply a prompt.
The point is noticing.
December will happen whether we pay attention to it or not.
There will be mornings when we’re rushing.
Days when plans go wrong.
People will get tired.
Somebody will be in bad humour.
The house will get messy.
We will forget things.
Not every evening will be spent serenely beside a Christmas tree with a mug held in two hands.
Thank goodness, really.
That’s not life.
Slowing down doesn’t mean arranging December so perfectly that nothing stressful happens.
It means finding small places within the life we’re already living where we can be present for it.
Five minutes can count.
An ordinary dinner can count.
A drive home in the dark with Christmas music playing can count.
A cup of tea while the rain hits the windows can count.
A Slow Christmas Doesn’t Have to Look a Particular Way
I think “slow living” can sometimes become another aesthetic we’re expected to achieve.
Candles.
Handmade everything.
Beautifully wrapped brown-paper parcels.
A perfectly restrained Christmas tree.
Homemade mince pies cooling photogenically on the kitchen counter.
Lovely.
But none of those things is a requirement.
Your slow Christmas might involve takeaway pizza and a Christmas film because everyone is shattered.
It might mean buying the cake.
Saying no to making handmade gifts.
Leaving half the decorations in the attic.
It might mean choosing the supermarket mince pies everybody actually likes.
It might mean deciding that this is not the year for a particular tradition.
Slow isn’t a decorating style.
It’s permission to decide where your time and attention go.
Our Free Slow Christmas Companion
If this way of approaching December feels like something you need this year, I’ve also created a free Slow Christmas Companion.
It’s a gentle collection of printable pages designed to help you think about the Christmas you actually want — what matters, what you can let go of, where you’d like to create a little more space and how you might enjoy the ordinary days around Christmas too.
It isn’t a planner for squeezing more into December.
Quite the opposite.
Free Slow Christmas Companion
A gentle printable companion for creating a Christmas with a little less rushing, a little more intention and plenty of room for real life.
Download the Free Slow Christmas Companion
You’ll find it in the complete Christmas Printables Library alongside the Christmas Baking, Family, Traditions, Crafts, Christmas Eve, Bucket List and other seasonal companions.
Create Your Own Version of December
Perhaps that’s the best way to use the 31-day calendar.
Don’t use it as my December plan.
Use it to find yours.
Print it.
Cross things out.
Move things around.
Circle five ideas.
Write something completely different over one of mine.
Maybe your family has a tradition that isn’t on any Christmas list on the internet.
Good.
Put that on it.
Maybe you know December 12th will be ridiculously busy.
Leave it blank.
Maybe the only thing you want from December 19th is an early night.
Excellent choice.
A useful seasonal printable should give us ideas.
It shouldn’t tell us how Christmas is supposed to look.
More Ways to Enjoy Christmas at Our Little House
If you’d like to continue from here, I’ve gathered lots more Christmas inspiration and free printables around the site.
Before You Go…
December doesn’t need to be slowed down completely.
I’m not even sure that’s possible.
There will be busy days.
There will be full weeks.
There will be things we’re looking forward to enormously and things we’ll be quite relieved to cross off the calendar.
But in between all of that, there are little pockets of the month that are very easy to miss.
The dark morning when the tree lights are the first ones switched on.
The smell of something baking.
A teenager appearing in the kitchen looking for food and staying to talk.
A cold walk.
The familiar Christmas decoration you almost didn’t put out.
The evening when everybody happens to be home.
The quiet after Christmas Day.
The last few days before a new year begins.
We don’t need to turn every one of those moments into something significant.
We just need to be there for some of them.
So print the calendar if you’d like it.
Choose a few things.
Leave plenty out.
And let December be a month you live, rather than one you spend the whole time trying to complete.
Chat soon,
Ciara x
Before You Go…
Looking for a little extra inspiration?
Browse our growing collection of free printables, including seasonal calendars, bucket lists, planners, journals and reflection pages designed to help you create a slower, more intentional life.
🖨️ Create Your Christmas Companion Binder
If you’re planning to print several of our Christmas companions, a few simple supplies can make it easy to create your own beautiful Christmas binder to enjoy year after year.
(This section contains affiliate links. If you choose to purchase through them, I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. Thank you for supporting Our Little House in the Country.)
- 📗 A4 Display Book
- 📁 A4 Ring Binder
- 📄 Plastic Document Wallets
- 📎 Adjustable Hole Punch
- 🖊️ Fine-liner Pens
- 📑 Divider Tabs
Explore the Christmas Collection Further
If you’ve enjoyed this printable, I’d love to invite you to explore the rest of our growing Christmas Companion Library. Each beautifully illustrated collection has been thoughtfully designed to help you create a calmer, more organised and more meaningful festive season. Whether you’re planning Christmas, preparing festive meals, embracing Advent, slowing down to savour the season or making magical family memories, there’s a companion waiting for you.
Explore the collection: Christmas Printables Hub, Free Christmas Planner Companion, Christmas Kitchen Companion, Christmas Eve Companion, Christmas Bucket List Companion, Slow Christmas Companion and Advent Companion
- A Slower Life, Right in the Middle of a Full One
- Slow October: 31 Simple Ways to Cosy Up Your Days This October
- When the Days Feel Like Themselves Again
- Not Everything Ripens at the Same Time
- What Makes My Ordinary Life Feel Meaningful? A Gentle Reflection on What Really Matters
📖 Winter Reading & Seasonal Inspiration
If you’re drawn to the quieter, slower rhythms of the colder months, these are some of the books I return to again and again during winter. They explore themes of seasonal living, rest, reflection, hygge, and finding joy in simpler days. I’ll leave the links below if you’d like to explore any of them further.
Some of the links below are affiliate links, which means I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. Thank you for supporting my work.
📚 Winter & Seasonal Reading
- The Christmas Chronicles – Nigel Slater
- The Almanac: A Seasonal Guide to 2026 – Lia Leendertz
- The Joy of Wintering – Erin Niimi Longhurst
- How to Winter – Kari Leibowitz
- Calm Christmas and a Happy New Year – Beth Kempton
- My Hygge Home – Meik Wiking
- The Art of Danish Living – Meik Wiking
- The Little Book of Hygge – Meik Wiking
- The Little Book of Lykke – Meik Wiking
- Wintering – Katherine May
- The Self-Care Year – Alison Davies
- The Happiness Year – Tara Ward
- The Wheel of the Year – Fiona Cook & Jessica Roux
Our Little House in the Country
Hi, I’m Ciara — writer, homemaker, and the heart behind Our Little House in the Country. I share slow, seasonal living from our cozy corner of the Irish countryside, where life is a little messy, a little magical, and deeply real. Whether it’s a teen-friendly recipe, a lived-in home moment, or a reminder to let go of perfection, this space is about embracing the everyday and finding joy in what’s already here. Come in, kick off your shoes, and stay a while — the kettle’s always on.
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