How the planner fits activities to your days

The rules, in the order they run

1. Skipped days get no card. A day marked Skip: away or Skip: rest has no activity; the fridge calendar says Travelling or Rest on it.
2. School days and busy evenings get short activities: 10 or 20 minutes.
3. Weekends and holidays get longer ones: 45 or 90 minutes. An activity that has to be done outdoors is used only if you allowed outdoors, on any day. Weather comes from where you live: activities that need snow or a frost are used only where snow is likely; a southern hemisphere summer gets no cold-weather activities and gets summer ones instead.
4. Travelling days get an activity that needs no supplies and works anywhere, such as a car, a train or a waiting room.
5. Every child's age must fit. Each activity has a youngest age and sometimes an oldest; an activity is left out unless every child in the plan is inside its range. If any child is under 3, only activities done with a grown-up beside them the whole time are used.
6. The cost is never above your budget. None means things most homes have; small and medium allow a little or a little more to buy.
7. The faith setting. Christmas, no faith content uses winter activities and Christmas customs such as Santa and the tree; Christian adds the Christian story; general winter uses winter activities only, with no Christmas customs.
8. Screen-free, when you choose it, leaves out every activity that uses a screen.
9. No activity repeats within a plan.
10. No two baking or craft activities on consecutive dates. Food activities count as baking. A skipped day between them breaks the run.
11. The last day is a together finale. The 24th, or the 25th if you chose it, always gets one of the finale activities, and finales are used nowhere else. If you skip that day, the finale moves to the last day before it that has a card. The finale still follows rules 2 to 8.
12. A seeded shuffle. Among the activities that pass, each day tries them in an order drawn from a seed, favouring the ones the activity list weights higher. The seed is shown as a 6 character plan code: the same code, dates, children and choices always give the same plan, and Reshuffle draws a new one.

When the rules cannot all be met

The planner never repeats an activity and never relaxes a choice for you. It works out whether every day can get a different activity at all (a matching between days and activities), and if not it names the days that cannot all be filled and lists each single change that would give a full plan, such as allowing outdoors, raising the budget or skipping a day. Every child must fit every activity, so a wide spread of ages narrows the list most; when the ages are part of the limit, it says so.

Swaps, locks, edits and changes

Swap offers only activities that fit that day, are not used on another day and keep baking and crafts apart, so a swap never changes another day. A swapped or edited card is locked; locked days stay through a reshuffle. When you change a setting, every card that still fits stays where it is and only the days that no longer fit are refilled. A locked card that no longer fits is set aside, not deleted, and comes back if you change the setting back.

Dates and the start of Advent

The first Sunday of Advent is the fourth Sunday before Christmas Day: the Sunday from 27 November to 3 December. It is worked out for each year. Every date is a plain calendar date (year, month and day), never a moment in time, so no time zone or clock change can move a card. The default school calendar makes Monday to Friday school days up to the last school day you choose, which starts at the Friday on or before 18 December.

The shelf visitor

With shelf visitor mode on, each card gets a different one of 32 placement ideas, in an order drawn from the same plan code.

Worked example: a family of 2 with a travelling week

Ada is 5 and Theo is 9. The count runs from 1 to 24 December 2026, school ends on Friday 11 December, the family travels from Monday 14 to Friday 18 December, and Wednesday 9 December is a busy evening. They live where snow is unlikely in December, so no card depends on snow or a frost. Outdoors is allowed, the budget is small, faith content is Christmas with no faith content, and shelf visitor mode is on. That gives 8 school days, 1 busy evening, 5 travelling days and 10 weekend or holiday days. With plan code 02MQ1H the planner gives the plan below; the table is made by the same code that makes yours.

Every school day and the busy evening has a 10 or 20 minute activity (rule 2), and every weekend and holiday day a 45 or 90 minute one (rule 3). The 5 travelling days each have an activity with no supplies (rule 4): I spy winter colours, Count the Christmas trees, Mirror faces, Winter story chain, Christmas alphabet. Every activity suits both a 5 year old and a 9 year old (rule 5), and the 24th is a finale (rule 11). Each card also carries a shelf visitor idea, and no two are the same.

What it is not

• Not a shop. No products are sold, and no activity needs a particular brand, shop or character.
• No accounts. Nothing is uploaded; the plan is made and saved in your browser.
• Not advice about your children. The ages, lengths and costs are a guide, and a grown-up stays in charge.
• Not random each time you look: the same plan code gives the same plan. Rules version 1.

Traditions and customs are named descriptively. Adventfold is not affiliated with any toy company, retailer, church or calendar publisher.