10 Timeless Family Christmas Traditions

I love Christmas traditions and I love to come up with new ones for my family each year. There is just something wonderful about traditions that cause your family to connect on a deeper level. I have such wonderful memories of growing up and having traditions in my life, especially around the holiday time! My mom was great at making memories with us and making the holidays special! I always knew I wanted to continue this in my own family!

Sometimes you want to create traditions but you are not quite sure where to start. I put a list together of some of our favorites.

Christmas Traditions

1. Have a set of great Christmas books out for reading – we love to put ours under the tree at the beginning of December before we use the tree for presents. Let the kids pick a different book each night to read aloud as a family! You can also wrap 24 Christmas books in Christmas wrap and have the kids or grandkids open one up each night. Christmas books are also great for decorating! Put them on tables, in baskets, or other places around the house.

2. Cut down your own Christmas tree – take your family to a Christmas Tree Farm that allows you to cut one down and take it home. If you think cutting it down is too much, go to a garden center or place that sells them already cut, it is still great fun to pick out your own tree! If you can’t get a real tree putting up your artificial one can be fun too. Listen to Christmas music, make hot chocolate and decorate away.

3. Celebrate Advent– Advent can be so much fun. You can use the 25 days till Christmas to do a special advent calendar or something special for your faith at this time of the year. Maybe it’s an advent tree, a Christmas Mass, or just serving your community! They also make some fun Advent calendars. Everything from chocolate to Legos and of even a book one!

4. Have a Christmas Movie Family Night– Make hot cocoa, popcorn, and get cozy under the blankets. Pick out your favorite Christmas movies and have a Christmas marathon! Polar Express and the Muppets Christmas Carol are two of our favorites! More movie ideas

5. Drive Around to Look at Christmas Lights– We love this tradition! Make a thermos of hot chocolate (don’t forget the cups) and print out a scavenger hunt (many on Pinterest) that will give your children certain things to look for as you drive around! Don’t forget the Christmas music!

6. Have a Wrapping Party – Have some friends over and everyone wrap presents together, this helps you get a lot of wrapping done while having a great time together!

7. CartoonFest – When our kids were young we had a big party every year where we invited friends over and had what we called a cartoon fest. We watched our favorite classic Christmas cartoons, had tons of food, and everyone spent the night! It was always so much fun and everyone looked forward to it every year! The list of Christmas cartoons we used.

8. Baking night -Have special nights where you bake your favorite Christmas cookies or decorate a gingerbread house. You can now get kits that come with everything you need, makes it easy to create the memory!

*9. C*ommunity Events- Go to a community event that they have every year. We live near Cincinnati and they always have a big train display we go to at the Museum Center. Find something to do every year in your area!

10. Serve others- Start a tradition where you teach your family to serve others. Serve in a soup kitchen, donate toys to a family that needs it or a charity, have your children bless an older person that may be alone on the holidays! There are so many ways you can serve!

I hope this gives you some great ideas for starting new traditions this holiday season!

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