November: slow starts
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Write down how you want it to feel
Not a shopping list: write what you would like this Christmas to feel like, and the one thing you want to make sure happens.
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Keep a gift-ideas notebook
Whenever someone mentions something they love, note it down. By December you will have thoughtful gifts instead of panic buys.
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Bake a Christmas cake and feed it weekly
A rich fruit cake made in autumn and fed a spoonful of brandy every week is a ritual in itself. Everyone stirs and makes a wish.
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Read A Christmas Carol, one stave a week
Dickens wrote it in five short staves, so read one each week by lamplight. It is shorter than you remember, and funnier.
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Build your Christmas playlist
Spend an evening choosing the songs that make it feel like Christmas to you, from Nat King Cole's The Christmas Song to the one you secretly love.
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Start a weekly giving ritual
Choose one cause and give something each week until Christmas: a small donation, a bag for the food bank, an hour of your time.
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Plan the menu as a pleasure
Sit down with cookbooks and a glass of something and plan the big meal like a treat, not a task. Choose one dish you have never made.
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Make one gift by hand
Pick one person and make them something: a jar of chutney, a knitted scarf, a framed photo. It will be the one remembered longest.
Early December: get out and gather
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Take a Christmas lights walk
Wrap up, bring a flask of something hot and wander the streets with the best lights. Pick a favourite house and go back to it next year.
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Visit a winter market
Go for the mulled wine and the smell of roasted nuts, buy one handmade thing you would not find in a shop, and take your time.
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Make a wreath for the door
Gather evergreen cuttings, pine cones and a few dried orange slices on a wire ring. It does not need to be perfect to look lovely.
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Write real cards to five people
Pick five people who would be glad to hear from you and write each a proper paragraph, not just a signature. Mention a memory from this year.
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Perfect your own mulled wine
Simmer red wine or apple juice with orange, cinnamon, cloves and star anise. Tune the recipe until it is yours, then write it down.
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Hold a biscuit swap
Everyone bakes one batch and goes home with a mixed tin. It is the cheapest way to have twelve kinds of Christmas biscuit.
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Have a December games night
Dig out an old board game or learn a new one with friends. Make it an evening you look forward to every year.
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Watch It's a Wonderful Life
Frank Capra's 1946 classic still lands. Watch it with the lights low, a blanket and no phones, and see who cries first.
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Listen to the whole of The Nutcracker
Put on Tchaikovsky's complete ballet score, not just the famous suite, with a hot drink. Or catch a live performance if one is near.
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Start one new tradition
Pick something small to do every year from now on, like a Christmas Eve walk or a new ornament for each year, and do it for the first time.
The last days: stories and smells
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Decorate the tree with a story for each bauble
As you hang each decoration, say where it came from. Put on your playlist and take your time; the tree can wait for the stories.
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Build a gingerbread house, badly
Bake the walls, mix the icing and accept that it will lean. The point is the evening, not the architecture.
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Call someone who might be alone
Think of someone for whom the season may be quiet or hard, and ring them for a proper chat. Maybe invite them over.
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Make proper hot chocolate
Melt real dark chocolate into hot milk with a pinch of salt and a little cinnamon. Drink it slowly somewhere cosy, no screens.
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Pack a Christmas Eve box
Fill a box with new pyjamas, a book, a hot chocolate and a film for the night before. Grown-ups deserve one too.
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Take a Christmas Eve walk
Step out for half an hour in the late afternoon of the 24th, when the streets go quiet and windows glow. Make it a yearly thing.
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Read A Visit from St. Nicholas aloud
Better known as 'Twas the Night Before Christmas, it takes five minutes to read aloud. Do it on Christmas Eve, whoever is listening.
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Lay the table the night before
Set the table on the evening before with candles, napkins and place cards. Waking up to it ready feels like a gift.
The practical list
Ten things with a rough date each, so they stop circling in your head.
Counting down with children? Advent of Play, also made by Qloovi, has an activity for every day of Advent.
Questions people ask
What can adults do to count down to Christmas?
Small rituals work best: a lights walk with a flask, one stave of A Christmas Carol a week, a biscuit swap with friends, a candlelit evening once a week. The lists above are sorted by when they fit.
How do I make December less stressful?
Get the logistics on dated lists early: gifts, posting dates, the food order. Then plan the nice things with the same care, so they actually happen.
When should I start a Christmas countdown?
Early November gives you time for slow things like a Christmas cake or a handmade gift. A start on 1 December works too, with more of the small, quick ideas.
Can I do this with friends or a partner?
Yes. Gladsoon lets you share a countdown by link, so everyone can tick off the same plan.
More guides
- Things to look forward to, from this week to next year.Ideas for things to look forward to, small and big, plus simple ways to make any plan more fun to wait for. No spending required for most of them.
- Birthday countdown ideas for a big one.Countdown ideas for a 30th, 40th, 50th or any big birthday: look back, look ahead, gather your people, and make the last days before the day count.
- Wedding countdown ideas for the two of you.Wedding countdown ideas for the bride and groom, or any couple: small things to do together in the months, weeks and last days before the wedding.