How to Make a Modern Wooden Advent Calendar

A modern wooden advent calendar hits different.

Growing up, my parents always bought us advent calendars before Christmas. They were the cardboard ones with the chalky chocolate in them (you know the kind), but we went nuts for them. Especially when they got the ones that weren’t in order so you had to search for the day’s number each morning. Chaos. Alex’s mom would make him a mini Christmas tree covered in candy that obviously he obsessed over being that he’s now 29 years old and ate Sour Patch Kids literally three days ago.

Anyway, now that we’ve got our own little nugget in the family, we knew we wanted to start a tradition of our own full of Christmas magic for her. She’s only nine months old, but why not start now? We combined both of our childhood traditions and I whipped up this quick, one-day modern wooden advent calendar to fill with activities and treats.

You can download a PDF of our daily advents for yourself here and make sure to sign up to our newsletter for a free set of holiday gift tags.

Modern wooden advent calendar instructions

Tools & Materials

• (1) 1×3 at 8 feet
• (2) 1×2 at 8 feet
• ⅝” dowel at 48”
• ⅝” spade drill bit
• Wood stain or paint (we used a mix of Early American and Weathered Oak)
• Pocket hole jig
• Pocket hole screws
• Drill
• Wood glue
• Miter saw
• Polycrylic
• Sander

How we made our modern wooden advent calendar

Cut your rails

You’ll start by cutting the 1×2 down into eight pieces at 20” long. Next, cut your 1×3 into two pieces of 62.25”.

Cut your dowels

This one is a little bit tricky, but doing this step will make your life way easier. First, measure 1.75” along your dowel then hold it up on the miter saw to where you would cut. Grab a scrap piece of wood and hold it up to the dowel on the other side and clamp it down in place, making sure the clamp isn’t in the way of the saw coming down.

Now, you’ll be able to just keep sliding the dowel along until it hits that scrap piece of wood and you only had to measure once!

So now, keep cutting those little pieces until you’ve got 24, but make sure you wear safety goggles because the tiny pieces really shoot outta that bad boy.

Make your dowel holes

Make a mark in the center of six of the 1×2 pieces every 4” along, then use your spade bit to make a hole the whole way through the wood. This is a learn-from-my-mistake situation, because I tried not to drill the whole way through and had some issues with them not all being the same depth, so just go the entire way through the wood piece until you’ve got a hole.

Glue the dowels in place

Add some wood glue in the 1×2 holes and push your dowel through until it’s flush at the back (you may need a rubber mallet for this if it’s a tight fit like mine was).

Add pocket holes

Take all the 1×2 pieces and add a pocket hole on the back at each end so there are two total in each piece (even the two 1×2 pieces that don’t have any dowels in them).

Assemble your modern wooden advent calendar

Take your 1×3 pieces and add the 1×2 pieces without the dowels in them to the top and the bottom to make a frame, attaching with pocket hole screws in the back.

Take your first 1×2 with the dowels in it and slide it between the 1×3 side pieces 7.5” up from the bottom piece. Keep repeating, adding the next 1×2 7.5” up from the previous one until you’re at the top. Your last 1×2 piece will only be a few inches away from the top piece but that’s okay, I did that on purpose so I’d have a little top piece to string garland or ornaments around for decoration.

Sand it all down, then stain or paint

Give it all a good sanding (I took extra care over the end of the dowels because they were a bit rough from the miter saw), then wipe it down with damp paper towel or tack cloth.

Stain or paint the color you like and wait for it to dry.

Give it a coat or two of polycrylic to seal it all.

Add advents (optional)

You could add anything you’d like to to the dowels now, but if you want to go for our look, we used these red drawstring bags. I added some homemade pom poms and vinyl letters to them for decoration, but the best part is the whole calendar is a blank slate to add your own style!

Now you’ve got yourself a cute, modern wooden advent calendar to keep you merry through December. If you need ideas for what to add into the advents, download a free PDF printable of our activities here (we even included a few blanks for you to add your own if you’ve got any traditions of your own).

We’re so excited to get started and round out this year with a fun month of our new tradition. Check out the tools and materials we used to build this modern DIY advent calendar.

If you enjoyed this modern wooden advent calendar, sign up to our newsletter where we share all of our favorite DIY updates.

MODERN DIY ADVENT CALENDAR EVENTS HERE