Parents ditching traditional advent calendars for this new cost-cutting trend

The countdown is now officially on to Christmas, and that only means one thing — advent calendars.

Like everything else, advent calendars are pretty expensive unless you’re going the traditional chocolate route (and even those will set you back a pretty penny!).

So, one mom has come up with a solution which will not only save you money but also guarantee you some quality time with your little ones.

The unique idea

Mom Corinne took to TikTok to showcase the special advent calendar she has created for her kids.

“Prepping our favourite Christmas tradition 🎄” she captioned the video.

In it, you can see Corinne gathering, wrapping, and decorating 24 Christmas-themed books.

Each of them is numbered from one to 24, to be unwrapped and read together each day leading up to the big day.

“We reuse the same set of Christmas books each year,” she clarified in her caption.

“I love that it’s so easy and promotes time together.”

“I love this!”

Moms in the comment were quick to praise Corinne’s idea, saying they’ll be jumping on the bandwagon this Christmas.

“I definitely need to do this! My toddler loves books,” one commenter said.

“All week was thinking what advent to do this year and this is it!!!” said another.

“Oh, I love this! I was looking for a non-choc advent calendar” one said.

“I love this, I totally want to do this for my boys this year” said a fourth.

Others suggested their own similar ideas to save even more money.

“Would it be odd to wrap library books? (Then return them of course)” one suggested.

“Another way to save money is to get books from the op shop if you aren’t worried about it being Xmas themed” said another.

“If you like this idea but cannot afford that many books you can buy an advent calendar with mini books for about $20.” said a third.

“You could buy them after Christmas this year at a discounted price and do it next year,” another suggested.

Or, try this one!

If your little ones aren’t so keen on books, but you’re looking to do your own DIY advent calendar this year, maybe try this idea.

TikTok creator @emilycarriveau shared how she made her own using a tackle box last year, filling it with anything her kids could possibly want.

“It’s 24 compartments, which means this is the perfect box,” she said.

“You guys can fill your advent calendar with whatever you want — hot chocolate pods, nespresso, toys and trinkets, money. The bottom line is, it’s all going to fit!”