What do you do to make christmas really special for your children?

[littlebird77]

My children are slightly older (8 &11) and we have had a tough year. How do you make christmas really special for your children? I am looking for new ideas!

What can you afford? Days out...NT properties do lots if your a member thats cheap, if not maynot be a good option.

Turning house into true wonderland, usually involves hanging stuff from the ceiling to mark it out as special, you can cut out and make snowflakes to hang...nice and cheap and truly stunning. like its snowing from the ceiling.... depends on budget!

We have had crap year but we save for xmas so had funds to pay for this, we are doing a ballet age appropriate, show in London, Lapland UK, and a few other days out. We visit a gorgeous seasonal Christmas shop which is beautiful dc have small budget to spend....we really go town on the house, make it look v different.

We tend to do Christmas crafts like making our own door wreaths and window snowflakes. As well as making things like truffles or biscuits to give to family with handcrafted boxes and labels.

We do a couple of outings - previous ones have been Winter Wonderland at Hyde Park, ice skating at various venues, pantomimes at local theatres. This year we're planning on watching a Christmas movie at an open air drive-in cinema.

We make marzipan fruits and gingerbread stars together and make little boxes and then they give them themselves to all their friends and family .

I have those wooden advent calenders with drawers.
I put a chocolate in as usual but on random days there would be a clue to a cheap gift hidden in the house....a mini treasure hunt.

My kids love having their own small tree, we made a rule that everything on it has to be homemade so they make decorations for it. We go to a pantomime (money permitting), we make Christmas biscuits, plan Christmas film nights. It's the little things that make the difference

I start it all on the first of December. They wake up to a Christmas breakfast with loads of Christmassy baked goods and fruit and yoghurt. I decorate the table and get crackers. They get their advent calenders and a little Christmas craft set.

I do do elf on the shelf (I know everyone on here hate it) but the children just love it. They named their elves hilariously mundane names! They love seeing what they've done every morning (very low key... Think sticking Googly eyes on bananas etc).

We do some Christmas crafts and Christmas baking throughout december. They stir the Christmas pudding and all make wishes.

We go to the pantomime every year with my mum and sisters (my mum pays as part of the children's Christmas presents). They all get those flashy light wands and Ice cream at the interval. We also go to a reindeer farm and see father Christmas there. They also have loads of fun things to do (bouncy castle, fake snow, animals etc).

We all put the decorations up together, and the tree always looks a bit crazy but they love doing it! They put all the decorations that have made in previous years on it. DH also has his own tree which he just puts disco balls on and has a massive disco ball for the top. He calls it 'disco treever' and the kids love it.

On Christmas eve we all go to christingle and then they come back to Christmas eve boxes (also much maligned on here). These have Christmas books, stickers, new pj's and lots of Christmassy sweets. They also have a dvd and board game between them. We play the game and watch the movie, then they all snuggle up in bed.

I love the build up almost more than Christmas itself. All the things we do are traditions me and DH started and the kids enjoy them and look forward to them every year. We do do lots of little bits but nothing is too expensive and It really seems to build the excitement and magic up!

We do book advent - wrap up Christmas books which we've collected from charity shops/ebay/bookpeople collections, stick a number on the front and read one a night until xmas. DD and DS take it in turns to unwrap and chose a second book from the already unwrapped pile as it grows. Its lovely to see the books come out again and some old favourites reappear and remember how much they were liked last year (The Smelly Sprout is particularly loved!).
We go and see the Christmas lights at local towns and compare. If its dry we take a 'picnic' of thermos hot choc and biscuits. If there's a brass band, we're there!
Also wooden advent calendar and I wrap up chocs individually

These are lovely suggestions!

We watch lots of xmas films on Netflix so no extra cost - and might make some xmas flavoured popcorn. It's about £1 for a bag of popping corn so really cheap.

We do xmas crafts, letter to santa, bake xmas buscuits and also some bigger stars to hang on the tree that DH eats

Biggest expense is taking DD to xmas carol goncert locally. I book it in June though when the tickets first come out so it feels like I'm getting a freebie when it actually comes around. Appreciate this is warped logic!

When i was a nipper about the same age, we'd have a party on Christmas Eve just us family of 4.

We played pass the parcel, charades etc; ate buffet food (Ritz crackers and Philadelphia cheese - never had rhem during the year, such a treat!) and trifle.

It was really fun family time, easy food to pick at. Me and dsis wore party dresses.

I'd say do free stuff with your children: bake, decorate, go for walks and collect things they like then put them in glass jars with twinkly lights- one for each bedroom. My ds loves collecting stuff on our dog walks - the usual pine cones and funny seed pods - but also bits of pottery broken crap and just yesterday "oh, look at this lovely disc with a star on it" - top off a bottle of Estrella just add twinkly lights!

We do Christmas crafts, go round the local Christmas markets, bake cookies etc to leave for Santa and also deliver some to the local fire station and police station.

On Christmas Eve (once DD is sleeping) we paper over opening of the living room door, so that on Christmas morning she needs to run and burst through it to get to her presents - she still talks about doing it last year!