10 Christmas Traditions to Make Amazing Christmas Memories
Christmas is a special time of the year. As children, we love Christmas. Putting up the Christmas tree (maybe you even cut your own tree), decorating the house, caroling, hot cocoa and warm apple cider are all part of Christmas memories and traditions. Family Christmas traditions make your Christmas special and help your children remember Christmas even when they are grown.
One tradition we have is to put up our Christmas tree on the weekend after Thanksgiving. Before Thanksgiving, my children will start to ask if we can take the Christmas tree out of the attic and start preparing for Christmas. Christmas traditions make lifelong memories.
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10 Unique Christmas Traditions
- Reading advent devotions together. Advent is a time to prepare us for Christmas. Gathering the family around to read an advent devotion is a special time of sharing together. Advent in Naria is a great devotion to read together during the Advent season.
- Christmas Eve PJ’s and having a family camp out around the Christmas tree. Try to find everyone in the family the same pajamas (or a similar style/color) and have everyone sleep around the Christmas tree together on Christmas Eve.
- Every year drive through the neighborhoods and look at all the Christmas lights and decorations. Decide which home is decorated best this year. My girls love to look at the Christmas lights, every time we are in the car after dark during Christmas season, they will ask me to take detours to see Christmas lights.
- Have a traditional Christmas Eve or Christmas day dinner. You can select what you want for your traditional meal, but once you decide to make “that menu” the traditional Christmas dinner for your family. Be sure to include at least one or two family favorite recipes that you don’t make any other time of year so they are special just for Christmas.
- Give to others you don’t know, but who have needs during the Christmas season. Let your children make special Christmas gift boxes for other children that your family can donate to a homeless shelter or send to children in other countries who would not have any Christmas gifts if you did not share Christ’s love with them. If your child is old enough to write, let them write a special note to include in this gift.
- Have a Christmas Cookie decorating day. One Saturday or Sunday in December, make a big batch of sugar cookie dough (or your favorite cookie recipe), then get out the rolling pin and Christmas cookie cutters and make some Christmas cookies. Your children will love getting to make their own Christmas cookies. If you are extra brave, you can also let them decorate them with sprinkles and icing. (PS, if you have extra dough, you can freeze it and make Valentine’s cookies in a few weeks.)
- Invite all your family over include aunts, uncles, Grandma, Grandpa, special family friends and watch a Christmas special together like It’s a Wonderful Life or Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. Share the Christmas cookies you decorated and sip hot cocoa and warm apple cider together. Make this a yearly tradition.
- Build Frosty the Snowman and take family pictures with Frosty for your annual Christmas card.
- Write a “year in review letter” every year. Ask every family member to share special stories and memories from the year. Read the year in review on Christmas. Save the letters in the book and add to the book every year. Over time you build a book of family memories. Be sure to keep adding stories even after your children grow up. Let the grandkids add stories too.
- Read the Christmas story from Luke 2 on Christmas Eve together as a family and sing Christmas carols (or go Christmas caroling in your neighborhood).
Download your FREE copy of 25 Christmas Traditions and make amazing Christmas memories this year.
Recommended for you: 5 Secrets to Making Christmas Memories That Last A Lifetime
For more ideas to make Christmas memories, Merry Memories is a book filled with 100+ pages of crafts, recipes, and activities to help you celebrate Christmas and make lasting memories.
Your turn…
What special Christmas traditions does your family have? What do you do to make Christmas special and memorable for your family?
Great list, Rachel! We love our Christmas traditions and share some on your list as well. Our favorite would have to be the drive around the neighborhood to look at Christmas lights. My husband and I used to do it while we were dating, and continued the tradition during our marriage. Now that we have 2 year old, she joins in on the fun as well.
It was lovely to see you on #SHINEbloghop this week. Thanks for sharing this with us 🙂