7 MORE Christmas Tradition Ideas for Families
This is the place to come for Christmas tradition ideas for families, with heart-warming ideas for you to incorporate into your Christmas season.
If you missed the first post, it has seven wonderful Christmas traditions for families - be sure to check it out. Below are seven more tried-and-true traditions from my family to yours… and a bonus tradition at the bottom!
The White Envelope
This is one of my favorite traditions. Each Christmas season our family gives to a cause (or several) that are important to us. I place the information about our donations in a white envelope in the Christmas tree and after all the presents are opened, we open the envelope and read about our donations. The children are not part of this process, so Christmas morning is the first time they hear about our choices and donations. It’s a touching way to bring the idea of giving back into focus after opening presents.
Driving Around to See the Christmas Lights
There’s something so special about Christmas lights glowing in the dark! I love piling the children and our dog into the car, stopping for some hot coca, turning up the Christmas music, and checking out all the neighborhood lights.
Cutting Down Your Own Christmas Tree
If you haven’t done this, you should try it! It’s so fun! It’s not at all like the movie Christmas Vacation lol! We did this for the first time last year, and it’s a keeper. Bundle up and get mentally prepared to let your little ones use that saw, ‘cause you know they’ll want to.
Letting the Children Decorate the Tree OR NOT!
I am 100% 50/50 on this one… but not why you think. It’s a lot of fun to decorate the Christmas tree as a family, to reminisce about all those special ornaments (see below), and hear the children argue about where each ornament should go and if we need another string of lights or not. I don’t care about having the “perfect” tree, and actually love all the handmade ornaments and how the tree is bottom heavy when the children decorate. These years of magic and togetherness are few, so I want to do as much as possible together.
BUT (here’s the other half). When I was a child, we went to bed on Christmas Eve with a bare Christmas tree and woke up to a lit, decorated, shining, glorious, beautiful tree, and oh! the MAGIC! I mean, it was pure awesomeness. We never got this tradition going for our own children, and now they love decorating the Christmas tree, but every year I’m just a little sad about this missed chance for magic.
A Special Ornament Each Year
I absolutely love this tradition. Each year I buy an ornament for our family that represents something interesting or special we did that year. And I also buy an ornament for each child, representing their interest, extracurricular, milestone, or special event. Each ornament is dated, and it’s so much fun to look at each one and remember that year as we decorate the Christmas Tree. When the children are ready to have a place of their own, they’ll have at least 18 very special ornaments for their first Christmas Tree.
Pro Tip: the glass ornaments are beautiful, but just don’t. Non-breakable is the way to go. Trust me.
Our “most-special-of-the-special” family ornaments don’t go on the Christmas tree. We bought this display from a local craftsman.
Switch Your Books
This is such an easy way to get in the Christmas spirit, and you don’t even have to buy the books (hello, library!).
I know a lot of parents wrap 24 books and let the children unwrap a new one each night. I tried this, but just couldn’t keep up. Or we opened one that had 87 pages on a night I was tired… it seems like a great idea, but it didn’t work for us.
What I do instead is literally take all of our “regular” books and tuck them away and replace them with themed Christmas/winter books. It’s so nice to rotate our library and have freedom of choice.
UPDATE: now that the kids are older, I can’t tuck away our extensive library, but I do still pull out all the Christmas picture books and put them in a basket by the sofa. Although they claim they’re too old for picture books, they read them!
Pictures with Santa
Each Christmas season we display all our prior pictures with Santa, and the children LOVE to look at them (I do, too!). Seeing their little baby faces change is bittersweet.
Pro tip: Since we move often, we have several different Santas in the photos – if you’re sweating the fact that “your Santa” retired or you moved, don’t worry. Everyone knows the Santa in the pictures are Santa’s helpers, not the real Santa. He’s way too busy right before Christmas to take photos, but his helpers always pass on what everyone wants for Christmas.
A Christmas Tree in the Bedroom
This is the bonus tradition! We actually don’t do this one, but I’ve always wanted to! Maybe this year…
UPDATE: We now do this! We started with the mini trees - the 12 inch ones, but they were so hard to decorate. The following year our ELVES brought them each a 3’ tree!!! The children decorate their own and it stays in their room.