Need activity ideas and themed products for your program each month? Download and print our daily holidays and observances calendar! See the link below for our December 2023 Calendar.
Refer to the calendar when you need inspiration, whether you are planning activities for the entire month for each holiday, or you need last minute ideas. Be sure to visit our Daily Holidays page to find related items that can help you celebrate each observance.
December 2023 Daily Holidays & Observances – Printable Calendar
How to Use the Calendar For Your Program
We have listed the daily holidays or observances that fall on each day of the month. Some days have multiple holidays, so you can choose to focus on just one, plan an activity for each one, or combine them if possible. For example, December 21st is National Short Story Day and also the First Day of Winter. If you are a teacher, you can have students write short stories about the winter season, including some of their favorite memories. Then choose a few volunteers to share with the class. You can also combine art and seasonal writing with this Torn Paper Art activity.
You may choose to use the calendar to plan your activities each month and develop themes around each of the days or a combination of days. The second and third week full weeks of December include several historical observances: Nobel Prize Day, Human Rights Day, Bill of Rights Day, Boston Tea Party Day, and Wright Brother’s Day. Plan a History Week for your program with lesson plans that include fun facts and information about each important part of history.
If you are just looking for some filler ideas or last minute ideas, refer to the calendar on any particular day and come up with a quick lesson or activity related to the daily holiday or observance. Some of these can even be used for brain breaks.
Activity Ideas Suggestions
On pages 2 & 3, you will find an activity suggestion for each holiday and observance under the Activity Ideas section.
If you see a URL under the Activity Ideas section, that means the observance is listed on our Daily Holidays page! Visit that link (PDF includes clickable links) to find products and items that would work great for an activity.
We’ve also shared some specific ideas as a guide. For example, Pretend to Be a Time Traveler Day is a great time to encourage creativity and plan a fun Makerspace and STEM activity. Provide your group with cardboard boxes, rubber bands, paper, tape, and other craft materials and have them create their own time machine. Learn more about Makerspace tools here.
The second full week in December is World Choral Day and World Violin Day. Plan a Music Week for your program where you plan some fun instrumental crafts and activities, like making sheet music or DIY kazoo. View all of our musical craft ideas here.
Weekly & Monthly Observances
Our printable calendar also includes weekly and monthly holidays for the month of December on page 3. We have shared a few helpful links and related ideas below.
Monthly Holidays:
- National Bingo Month
- Write To A Friend Month
- National Tie Month
- Universal Human Rights Month
- Read A New Book Month
We would love your feedback on how you plan to use the calendar for your program, and if you would like to see any changes in the template. Thanks everyone!
Thanks for these fun calendars! I do wish you could get them out earlier. I do the planning for an after school recreation program and we plan 2 months ahead so that we have time to get our supplies. I still manage to squeeze in an activity or two when your calendar comes out, but I’d utilize it much more (and it would be a big help) if the calendars could be sent out a few weeks earlier than usual. I understand that information is timely and it may not be possible. I just wanted to throw the idea out there. I am sure there are other programs that have to submit their plans by the 1st of the month prior to the planned month.
Thanks for the “ear”.
Hi Laurel, thanks for the feedback! We definitely understand planning ahead, and are going to work on getting these calendars posted earlier. We just published January 2024 if that helps! https://www.ssww.com/blog/january-daily-holidays-observances-printable-calendar/. Now we are working on February. We also just launched our calendar on the homepage of our website at https://www.ssww.com/. It is still being finalized, but if you check back in a few weeks, it will be updated with even more helpful ideas and links. Thanks!
Oh My Goodness, Thank you so much! I am trying to get January plans together right now and I’m excited for the help!
This is so great! I totally needed something to keep me organized and this will be perfect!
Thanks for the activity ideas calendar, with all the upcoming holidays. Thank you!