Today I’m sharing my favorite 25 Christmas Traditions!Some of my most precious childhood memories came from Christmas time. Even though we didn’t have much while growing up I knew we had each other and that was the only thing that really mattered.
Christmas was a magical time, was a family time, was a time to be grateful for the special joy that comes from loving those around you and creating memories with them. Now that I have my own family I feel so blessed to keep some old traditions alive and we are excited to create some new ones every year together.
Here they are…
The day you put your Christmas Tree up sleep under it.
We put ours on Thanksgiving Day and we look forward to our sleep over every year.
When you have your Christmas dinner add an extra plate to the table.
We do this every year and it has taught our children that there is always room for someone in need at our Inn.
We live in an area of pretty warm weather.
Instead of a snow ball fight we had a flour fight every year.
It is so much fun!
Turn some Christmas music on, go outside, and get messy!
Every night read a scripture by candle light.
If you need ideas follow along with this list.
Get a few bottles of shaving cream and have each member of the family make
a Santa beard on their face… This is so much fun!
Don’t forget to take pictures!!!
As a family make the words to your own Christmas Carol
and sing it to the neighbors when you bring them treats.
{ Make it funny… People will love it }
Don’t just write a letter to Santa, this year also write a letter to Jesus as a gift for his birth.
Put the letter inside of a balloon with helium and let it go up to heaven!
On Christmas Eve turn off all the light for a minute before the children go to bed.
Place candles all over the house and start saying in your own words the Christmas Story.
As you travel from room to room light up one candle.
By the time Baby Jesus is born all the house will be lit up as a symbolism of Him being the
Light of the World.
Make a DIY Wood Nativity and have the youngest child put baby Jesus on it on Christmas Eve.
You can find the tutorial for this Nativity here.
The fact that He is missing during the month of December
makes the family focus more on the reason of the Season.
The children will also look forward to Chrsitmas Eve with anticipation knowing
that that’s the day when Baby Jesus was born.
Write as a family 25 Christmas activities, one for each day of December and
put them inside of a jar. Everyday pull one out and do it as a family.
One of our favorites is to take turns to run around our coldesac with our Christmas hats on.
{ we laugh our heads off every year doing this! }
Have a Christmas Movie Night!
You should make this delicious White Chocolate Christmas Popcorn instead of regular popcorn.
So yummy!
Put all your family names is a jar and have every member pull a name.
Pick a day where everyone does a secret service for the person they picked.
Have a craft night when every member os the family makes a new ornament for the tree.
Have a contest to see who is the fastest to drink a cup of milk and a cookie…
Playing Santa for a day!
One night have a picnic by the Christmas Tree.
Eat finger foods on the floor with Christmas music playing in the background.
Have a night when your family can talk about 25 Miracles that Jesus did.
Every year buy a new Chrsitmas Book.
Read it as a family… You will have a wonderful collection over the years.
Try a new Christmas Recipe!
Type an annonymos note and drop it off in your neighbors mailbox.
Pick a night to make handmade gifts for each other.
Find Rudolph’s nose!
Paint a red ball and hide it.
The person that finds it gets a prize and gets to hide it for the next day!
Have a Pizza Christmas Night.
Create a pizza in the shape of a christmas tree and use the condiments as ornaments.
Turn off all the lights but the Christmas Tree.
Turn on fun Christmas music,pull out pots and pans to make noise,
and dance like crazy!
Make a fire in your back yard and roast marshmallows.
Read the Christmas Story
{ Luke 2 }
Children can dress up using sheets and towels as Mary, Joseph, shepherds, and the wise men.
I hope these fun traditions inspire you to create some new precious memories with your family
during this gorgeous Christmas Season.
If you liked this post you may also enjoy
10 Things Children Will always Remember
Thank you so much for visiting with me today!
Besos
Desiree
Your empty table spot tradition is how my family and my whole country does Christmas dinner (I’m polish). We also put hay(that is actually an old pagan thing connected to some of their believes but some say now it’s to symbolize the nativity crib)and coins under the plates (coins to ensure wealth). Of course there is enough traditions connected with Christmas to write a book on that.. Oh and we celebrate Christmas Eve, not Christmas day, and the dinner contains no meat (but fish is ok);)
Wow! tOTALLY LOVE THIS TRADITIONS! i’LL PREPARE DURING NOVEMBER TO HAVE A UNFORGETTABLE CHRISTMAS! tHANKS FOR SHARING!
Thank you so much Melissa and happy Holidays!
I LOOOOOOOOOVE Christmas! It is my favorite time of year! We have a one and a half year old and a three and a half year old and I’ve been looking for fun things to do around Christmas! I especially love the list of scripture readings! Our daughter is really into mary and loves reading about her in her Bible. If you haven’t seen it, you should definitely check out the movie “The Promise: Birth of the Messiah”! We just discovered it a few months ago, but it is amazing. A wonderful 45 minute movie about the birth of Jesus! It is really well done and is a musical so it has lots of great songs 🙂
Stumbled upon this ON pinterest and cannot wait to try these with my son and niece and the whole family. it’s a great and fun way to keep Christ in Christmas and reminds the kids that it’s not just about Santa. Hopefully it will become a tradition. living in Trinidad and Tobago there’s no snow either so the flour fight should be fun and interesting. i hope my mother doesn’t have a fit that we messed up the yard lol.
love you ideas.. haven’t heard of most of them… but i hope to use most of these. Awesome!! 🙂
i AM ALWAYS LOOKING FOR NEW TRADITIONS TO SWITCH OUT WITH ONES WE DIDN’T REALLY LOVE FROM THE YEAR BEFORE. tHE IDEAS YOU HAVE HERE ARE ALL SUCH FUN IDEAS THAT i NEVER THOUGHT OF AND WILL BE TRYING THIS YEAR. THANK YOU!
As an only child (well, teenager!) living in my household, I really want to start these traditions with my parents! Thank you for the ideas! My only hope is that my step-dad (who is an atheist, sadly :c) will deal with the fact that my mum, nanna and I bring Jesus into Christmas. Maybe one day he will enjoy it 🙂
Love you comment Alice and your positive attitude… God bless you sweetheart!
Truly adorable, love every single one of your traditions. Are these something you developed over the years or stated all at once, doors it change each year,?
I developed them over the years but now we do them all!
I just wanted to tell you that my family and I did the shaving cream santa beards yesterday and had a blast with it! We had the missionaries over for dinner and they participated as well and we laughed our heads off! The missionaries even said, “these are the things we are going to remember” and “this is definitely going in my journal tonight!” We really loved the idea. Thanks for sharing! This list was great and I am excited to add some new traditions to our family!
How fun Heather! I am so glad you gave it a try! We are doing it tonight. Thank you so much for sharing… your comment made my day!
I love these! I have been looking for something to start with our little family. Thank you!!!!