I remember so many holiday traditions we had growing up. My mom taking us to church and watching christmas specials while eating warm cookies. At bedtime on Christmas Eve my mom read the story of Jesus’ birth and at midnight my parents would wake us up to open gifts. When I was really little my dad dressed up as Santa and delivered our gifts from a giant sack. Floyd and I have been trying to find our own traditions to do now with our children. Here’s 10 fun things we’ve done that are favs with our kids.
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10 Family Traditions to Try This Year
Bake Cookies for Neighbors and School Teachers/Santa
I love baking cookies for Christmas but it’s a lot of sweet goodness for one family not to share. That’s when I decided to bake cookies for my daughter’s caregivers and each year we continued doing it. It was always interesting finding out which ones were favorites among their teachers. My take on Russian wedding snowball cookies seems to be a huge hit with older teachers and our Turtle Cookies is a hit with the slightly younger teachers. The rapsberry almond cookies are the younger generation’s favorite.
Presentation is also part of the fun. I use to pick up our boxes from AC Moore but since they closed in our city I ordered some cute boxes from Amazon. For a finishing touch, I make salt dough christmas ornaments with the kids and tie them with ribbons around the box. The kids love bringing these sweet treats for their teachers.
Get Hot Chocolate and Cut Down Our Christmas Tree
Before we were Team Faux Christmas tree from King of Christmas we were Team Real. We would buy hot chocolate and head to the tree farm to pick out our tree. It was always a cool experience with the kids and each year we would alternate who picks out the tree. When we had two kids – the child who didn’t get to pick the tree got to put the star on top the tree. Now that we are Team Faux Tree we alternate who puts the star on the family tree.
Make A Holiday Playlist
Floyd loves the classics and Livi likes the newer songs so we have a mixture of classics like Jingle Bells, Deck the Halls and Let, it snow mixed with a few newer songs. Kid’s Christmas Party on Spotify has newer songs that you can add some classics for a good balanced playlist.
Build And Decorate A Gingerbread House
Okay, after some serious cry sessions trying to build gingerbread houses I learned a mom trick. My kids don’t eat gingerbread so it really works for us – hot glue the house together and then let them decorate it. Trust me it will save you from a whole lot of tears and stress.
Make Your Own Christmas Ornaments
If you have kids, they are probably bringing you home a lot of Christmas ornaments they made in school. A lot of my kids’ ornaments are not exactly within my theme or ideal for my tree. But one year we made ornaments at home that fit our tree theme. I bought some clear ornaments and paint to make marble ornaments and the kids loved it. Since I didn’t know what to expect I did a test run with the hubby the night before….it was a cool stay at home date night.
Go For A Christmas Light Drive/Walk
The kids love when we drive to the nearest Bright Nights and walking downtown to look at the lights and decorations.
Once we get to the Brights Nights park we let our kids unbuckle from their seats and drink hot cocoa. With my old car we had a sun roof which we would open and let them pop their head through. Now we just bring blankets and roll down the windows. It’s a 45 minute drive and the kids normally knock out on the way home so we make sure they also bring pillows. This activity is one of our non-negotiable
Have A Not So Silent Game Night
The night before Christmas we always have a family game night with Minute-To-Win-It themed Christmas games. It’s a lot of laughs and it does get noisy – fair warning especially if your family is as competitive as mine. I make score cards and prize ribbons made of ribbon and Gerhaldi chocolate (gold, silver and pink wrapped candy). The years we invited extended family we awarded the teams rather than individuals. The winning team won ribbons and a gift card along with ornament to symbolize our game night. We are hoping to buy a house soon to restart this tradition with extended family members.
Read a Christmas Story on Christmas Eve
We read the traditional story of the birth of Christ. Then we watch a Christmas special and crawl into bed. I have seen some mamas bring an air mattress and sleep by the tree and it looks super sweet but this Mama is usually doing some last minute gift wrapping. For the record, my gifts are usually wrapped ahead of time but each year I am disignated the family wrapper.
Write Letters To Santa
We like to take the kids to Macy’s so they can sit at the red box and letter writing station. While they are writing we take a sneak peak and see what is on their list before putting it in the giant red box.
In our family we don’t go crazy with gifts we do Something To Wear, Something To Read, Something They Need, and Something They Want along with a Bonus Gift that we use to say was from Santa but the we were feeling a little jaded with Santa getting all the credit and started making our stocking stuffers from Santa. Bonus Gifts are from us – so total of 6 gifts per child. However, we are flexible with the number especially if we see a gift that we know our kids will love
Sponsor A Family/Deliver Gifts
Both my church and the kids’ school sponsors families for Christmas and I think it’s a great idea. We usually go together as a family and buy things to donate based on the child’s preferences and needs. It teaches our kids that Christmas isn’t just about receiving but giving as well.
On Christmas Day we have the kids deliver gifts to our extended family members and call it Operation Christmas _____. One year it was Operation Christmas Smile. Another year it was Operation Christmas Cheer and we kind of change it depending on the vibe.
Getting Our Home Ready for Christmas
One of my favorite holiday traditions is getting our home cozy and ready for Christmas. I am not a Griswald by any means but I do have areas I like to focus on. These areas are the dinning room and living room. It’s where we spend the most of our time during the holidays and I feel if I decorate more than that it would make our apartment feel cluttered.
Living room – Things I focus on in this space is the tree, coffee table centerpiece and throw blankets for the sofas. Fa-La-La simple!
Dinning Room – I let the kids decorate our dinning room tree with all their school ornaments. The other area I focus on is the table. Here I do a runner, candle holders and add a few things I find from the Target dollar spot.
What are Your Holiday Traditions?
Do you have any holiday traditions that your family just loves doing? Share them in the comments or email me