Begin your own Christmas traditions!
As our little ones grow, it’s a great year to begin some Christmas traditions that will last for years. Here are some ideas to get you started, add your own in comments!
1. Opening up a gift of a new pair of pajamas on Christmas Eve, to be worn that evening and for the opening of gifts on Christmas morning.
2. After opening the pajamas, having a family time for reading a favorite Christmas story, watching a Christmas movie, or just remembering the events of the past year (for those with older children).
3. Having a special breakfast on Christmas morning, whether it be cinnamon rolls or something more complicated like homemade gingerbread waffles (yummy!). We always have cinnamon swirl bread with hot cocoa or spiced cider.
4. We have stockings on Christmas morning, even though we don’t celebrate Santa Claus – it’s a tradition that my husband had growing up, so we are passing it along to Lil’ Duck.
5. Having a special ornament each year for each child, whether they make it, choose it, or are given the ornament to open (some open it on Christmas Eve and hang it on the tree for Christmas morning). This not only creates special memories each year as you hang the previous ornaments on the tree, but also makes a stash of ornaments for them to take with them when they have their own tree someday.
6. Decorating the tree as a family while playing Christmas music – we always do this the day after Thanksgiving, but you can pick any day you like (some even do this on Christmas Eve).
7. Some people even sleep under the tree on Christmas Eve with their children – kind of a camp-out if you will.
8. Church on Christmas Eve – a big tradition for many people.
9. Take a tree branch, tie it to the stairway railing and hang a little present for each day in December, making it into a little advent calendar. You can hunt all year long for little things to wrap for the kids.
10. Advent calendars – the traditional ones with the tabs are still a great tradition!
11. Taking an evening to go drive around and look at lights. We used to sing Christmas carols in the car while we drove around too!
12. If you do celebrate Santa, bake cookies and place them under the tree with milk (you can also put out veggies for the reindeer).
13. Finally, making a countdown chain with strips of construction paper – we did this for each day of December with various colors of paper. It’s something that the little ones can help with taping and tearing one off each day & is also a visual reference to answer the endless question, “How much longer until Christmas?!”
Also go visit: Parenting Toddlers, Virginia, Skittles, Kelli, Wendy Ann Edwina D’Cunha, Beth, Laura, Third World County…(leave a comment, I’ll add you here).
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These are awesome!
Happy TT.. great list
Some of my favorite memories are riding around town looking at Christmas lights. I still love it to this day! Great list! Happy TT!
it’s lovely to have Christmas traditions, that we can look forward to every year without fail. I definitely try to do so myself… and as the kids grow bigger I’m sure more and more will get added to them. Some old (from when we were kids) some new, and some just evolving as we grow together……
We had Christmas traditions up until a few years ago- not having them to look forward to can be a little sad now. We do still drive around looking at lights, though. Great list and happy TT!
What wonderful traditions. My T13 was similar.
one of our traditions is that we drive around on Christmas eve and look at the lights. Then we all laugh about the year my sister drove and nearly killed us.
Love your list! Many of those traditions are ones we do with in our family.
Happy TT!
We have a wonderful Christmas/New Year tradition that starts on Christmas. My father opens a letter by writing “Merry Christmas” and telling a quick bit about the day and what has happened through the year. He ends his part by writing “now I turn the pen over to….” and then that person writes about their year. Each one writes throughout the week and even the little ones take a turn. Then it is finished by my mother who re-reads the letter and writes all the things we forgot. We put the letter in a safety deposit box and we don’t look at it for ten years. Every new years eve we read the letter from ten years ago. It is amazing the things we forget and it’s wonderful to read the writing of grandparents after they are gone and others who have stayed with us never to be seen again (like old girlfriends and boyfriends). It’s a wonderful tradition that we treasure and will for years to come. Now that we all have families of our own we all do it with our own families.
Awww, great list!
When I re-read your post I had missed that you don’t celebrate Santa Claus. I understand that. As a Christian I have many friends who feel the same. We have a tradition of telling the story of Saint Nicholas and the sock story every year. He heard God’s voice and did what he told him to do and saved a poor family from poverty and immorality. This is a good lesson about what it means to listen to God and to help others. We also talk about Santa being fun and silly and we all just play along like halloween. That way they don’t feel left out with their other friends and they can tell them the story of St. Nick.
Great 13! You’ve done it again, Duckwoman! (OK
Mama Duck…you read my mind! I was just thinking yesterday that I needed to read up on traditions so we can start some with Norah. Thanks so much for the ideas–I love the pjs one!!
Thanks for a great 13! You’ve given me some great ideas to present to the family this year!
My 13 is up and running.
what a great list! we always go look at xmas lights and we don’t have our tree up yet but we do that as a family too! also we do st. nick’s day on dec. 5th and that’s when we get our stockings!
I love all of these ideas! We’re starting some of these with our little family.
Any chance I can convince you to post your gingerbread waffles recipe on my my Favorite Ingredients Friday recipe exchange today?
Wonderful list! Our traditions are making a gingerbread house, decorating the tree with music on, opening one gift on Christmas eve, open some gifts, pb&j coffee cake for breakfast, open more gifts.