A Slower Countdown: 25 Tiny Christmas Moments to Color With Your Kids

By Terry Morgan · October 16, 2026 · 4 min read

December with little kids runs on two speeds: unbearable excitement and total meltdown, sometimes before breakfast. Advent calendars help — a small moment each day gives the waiting a shape — but the chocolate kind lasts about nine seconds. A coloring countdown lasts longer, costs less, and leaves something for the fridge door.

How it works

Pick a Christmas coloring book with plenty of pages and number them 1 to 25. Each evening — after dinner works best, when the day needs a soft landing — your child colors that day's page. Date it, hang it, and watch a paper garland of the whole month grow across the kitchen. By Christmas Eve you don't just have decorations; you have a record of December, in crayon.

Why the ritual sticks

• It gives the waiting a job. "How many days?" becomes "how many pages left?" — something they can count and touch.
• It lowers the evening temperature. Twenty quiet minutes with crayons is a natural bridge from holiday chaos to bedtime.
• It ends in a story. Pair the last few pages with a favorite Christmas picture book and the countdown finishes the way December should: together, on the couch.

Make it yours

Younger kids do best with big, bold pages they can finish in one sitting — a giant gingerbread house beats a detailed village scene. Older kids might prefer one bigger scene built up over several days. And there's no rule that says grown-ups can't have a page too; coloring a fireplace scene next to your child's reindeer is half the fun.

The Christmas books we reach for during our own countdown — coloring pages for little hands and one cozy storybook for the final nights — are linked below.

From our shelf

Enjoyed this post? These are the Pooshop101 books that go with it — tap any cover to take a peek on Amazon.