What Do You Do With 24 Tiny Dinosaurs After Christmas Is Over?
The 24 baby dinosaurs are not clutter — they are a ready-made playset. If every door hid a same-scale figure your child can actually play with, your January plan is simple: name them, house them, and rotate them.
The 24 Days Dinosaur Egg Advent Calendar: 24 colorful hatching eggs, one baby dinosaur inside each.
The Morning After: What Our Living Room Actually Looked Like
On the morning of December 26, our living room looked like a small museum had exploded. Twenty-four brightly coloured eggshell halves were scattered across the rug, and twenty-four baby dinosaurs stood in a wobbly parade along the windowsill.
I'll be honest: my first instinct was the bin bag. Christmas cleanup was in full swing, and one more pile of small plastic things felt like the last straw. Then I watched him pick up the tiny purple T. rex and announce, "This one hatched on December 3rd, so he's the oldest." He remembered the hatch date of every single dinosaur.
That stopped me. These weren't 24 random trinkets. Over three weeks, the daily egg-cracking ritual had built a cast of characters with names and birthdays. So instead of the bin bag, we spent ten minutes on a sort: eggshells into the recycling, dinosaurs into one clear shoebox. That ten minutes was the best post-Christmas decision I made — the dinosaurs are still being played with in February, long after the chocolate calendars are forgotten.
Why the Egg Calendar Survives January and the Chocolate One Doesn't
The difference is what comes out of the door. A chocolate calendar leaves you with an empty cardboard box. A toy calendar leaves you with whatever was inside — usually a mixed bag of stickers, tiny puzzles, and mismatched figures. The 24 Days Dinosaur Egg Advent Calendar works after Christmas for three specific reasons.
First, all 24 surprises are the same kind of thing: one baby dinosaur per egg, all roughly the same scale. Twenty-four figures that fit together make a herd. Twenty-four unrelated trinkets make a junk drawer.
Second, the six colours turn the set into a sorting game without buying anything extra. Colour-matching races work because the colours repeat across the set.
Third, the hatching ritual did the hard work for you. Each morning your child cracked an egg, so each dinosaur arrived with a hatch date and a name. Kids don't get bored of toys they have a story about. At $31.99 for 24 figures, that's about $1.33 per dinosaur.
The Five January Games That Use All 24 Dinosaurs
You don't need to buy anything to keep the set alive. Every game below uses things already in the house, and every one of them uses the full set of 24.
1. The baking-tray small world. Spread dry rice or kinetic sand in a baking tray, add a few pebbles and a cup of water as a "lake," and let your child build a prehistoric landscape for all 24 dinosaurs.
2. The colour-sort race. Scatter all 24 dinosaurs on the floor and shout a colour. Your child races to collect every dinosaur of that colour before you count to ten. Six colours, six rounds — and tidy-up is built in.
3. The ice-age rescue. The night before, freeze six dinosaurs in a tub of water. In the morning, hand your child a jug of warm water and a blunt spoon and let them excavate their friends. A quiet half-hour — the figures are small, solid, and waterproof.
4. Shadow puppet theatre. After dark, shine a torch at a blank wall and hold the dinosaurs between the light and the wall. A tiny plastic triceratops casts a magnificent shadow. Give each dinosaur a voice and you have a bedtime show with zero screens.
5. The show-and-tell name game. Each dinosaur gets a paper "fact card" with its name and one real fact. Your child presents one dinosaur a day at breakfast, like a tiny museum guide. By the end of January they can name all 24.
The Storage Trick That Keeps Them Played With
Here's the rule that made the difference: the dinosaurs live in one clear shoebox, on a low shelf, where my son can see them. Out of sight is out of mind, and a closed toy box is where advent calendar figures go to die.
We rotate, too. Eight dinosaurs stay out for the week; the other sixteen wait in the box, and we swap every Sunday. Scarcity keeps them interesting — the blue stegosaurus is exciting again after a week away.
How the Other Dinosaur Calendars Compare After Christmas
Not every dinosaur calendar ages equally well. The question to ask before you buy is not "how many doors?" but "how many playable figures will be left on December 26?"
| Calendar | What's inside | After-Christmas verdict |
|---|---|---|
| 24 Days Dinosaur Egg Advent Calendar ($31.99, ages 6–8) | 24 hatching eggs, 24 baby dinosaur figures in 6 colours | Best after-Christmas playset: 24 same-scale figures, colour-sorting built in |
| Mattel Jurassic World Island Visitor Advent Calendar ($32.99, ages 4+) | 19 mini dinosaurs, 1 human figure, 4 scenery pieces | Strong runner-up: the scenery pieces make instant small-world play, but 19 figures is a smaller cast |
| National Geographic Dinosaur Advent Calendar (ages 4+) | 13 collectible figures + 11 activities including a dig brick | Great for craft lovers, weaker as a playset: only 13 figures, and half the doors are activities, not toys |
| schleich Dinosaurs Advent Calendar 98984 (ages 4–12) | 24 pieces | Beautiful, detailed figures collectors love — but the price is premium and the set is aimed at older kids |
| BRIO World Advent Calendar 2026 (ages 3+) | Train set pieces with a dinosaur twist | Lovely if you already own BRIO trains; on its own the dino count is too small to be a standalone playset |
Mattel Jurassic World Island Visitor Advent Calendar — Pros: 19 mini dinosaurs plus four scenery pieces build a small world straight out of the box, and kids already know the characters from the films. Cons: fewer figures than the egg calendar, and the scenery only makes sense with the Jurassic theme. Best for: kids who already love the films.
National Geographic Dinosaur Advent Calendar — Pros: thirteen realistic figures plus eleven real activities — a dig brick, a race car to paint, glow-in-the-dark stickers — and fact sheets that teach genuine dinosaur science. Cons: only thirteen figures survive into January, and half the calendar is one-off activities. Best for: craft-and-science kids who care more about doing than collecting.
schleich Dinosaurs Advent Calendar 98984 — Pros: twenty-four pieces from the most detailed figure brand in the business; the dinosaurs look like museum models and survive years of play. Cons: premium pricing [待核实] and styling that suits older kids better. Best for: collectors and families who already buy schleich figures.
BRIO World Advent Calendar 2026 — Pros: wooden train pieces built to last, with a dinosaur twist this year, and everything works with existing BRIO sets. Cons: the dinosaur count is small, so it can't carry a dino-obsessed kid on its own. Best for: families who already own BRIO trains.
Count playable figures, not doors. A calendar with 24 same-scale figures is a playset; a calendar with 24 mixed surprises is a countdown. The 24 Days Dinosaur Egg Advent Calendar wins on that count — at about $1.33 per figure, the cheapest way I know to buy a full dinosaur cast in one go.
FAQ
Can the eggs be reused after Christmas? Yes — the eggshell halves make nests and hiding spots in the small-world tray, though they are not designed for repeated hatching. The dinosaurs are the reusable part.
What age is the dinosaur egg advent calendar for? It is designed for ages 6–8. The figures are small, so it is not suitable for children under 3.
What if my child loses some of the figures? It happens — we are down to 22. The games still work with fewer figures, and a clear box on a low shelf cuts losses dramatically.
Is it worth buying in November, or should I wait for a sale? Buy before December 1, or the countdown is already half over. A sale price on December 15 is no bargain if your child misses the first two weeks.
Before you reach for the bin bag on Boxing Day, give the dinosaurs ten minutes: a sort, a shoebox, a spot on the low shelf. Ours are still roaring in February — and the 24 Days Dinosaur Egg Advent Calendar is the one Christmas purchase my son still plays with every week.