How to keep the Magic going for older children.

[Aponcetasticchristmastoall]

My 3 DD’s are 13, 12 and 9 and whilst at least 2 of them obviously know the truth of who brings the presents (although the 12 year old has told me she will still definitely be sleeping upstairs on Christmas Eve as she has aways found the notion of Santa stomping about so close to her bedroom a little daunting, haha!!) they very much still believe in the magic and everything will carry on as it always has.

I am though trying to adapt our traditions and activities a little to keep in line with their age and interests and would love some fun suggestions or new ideas to add to my list. (we have obviously always done and will carry on the standard Christmas movie evenings, baking afternoons, and tree collecting )

So far I’ve written down a North Pole Spa night, an afternoon with vintage scene jigsaw, egg nog and Bing Crosby and a Christmas bingo...
(Going to get my DH to drive round with them in Christmas jumper and with carols on for an hour or so, with a stop off at local garden centre and they have to cross of everything on their bingo card, Santa, candy cane, a Christmas jumper and then back here for hot chocolate and maybe a little prize!

Trip to the cinema to see the latest Christmas film.

What else can I do that replaces the Santa visits etc?

If you’re in the UK I would strongly recommend that you have a backup for the cinema trip.

@FelicityPike it’s ok it’s just idea, Christmas isn’t going to be ruined if we can’t go.

god, who knows this year?

we normally go to Nine Lessons and Carols at the cathedral, and go to the theatre, but not sure if either will happen.

Making mince pies and lebkuchen goes down well.

Will your 12&13 yr olds honestly enjoy a game of bingo as you’ve suggested? I just know at that age mine would cringe at the thought! It sounds more suited to your 9 yr old.
Give them a budget and get them to buy a present for each other.
Look on pinterest for craft ideas that they’ll enjoy. Maybe they could make something together? Christmas bunting?
Decorate a gingerbread house
I started giving mine more exciting advent calendars than the usual chocolate ones as they got older.

Gingerbread house

Blimey, you’ve made me tired reading that. I do like the idea of a jigsaw though.
Maybe making some decorations for the tree? There are some great ideas on Pinterest which look easy enough but also nice enough to want to keep after Christmas.

@ Chocolatecake12 it might not be their favourite of all activities (though I do think they will enjoy) but I need to incorporate all girls and ages into the fun and want things that they can all do to together.

Think doing crafts, making Christmas presents could be a shout though so thanks.

Christmas gifts bingo? We love doing bingo in my family, doesn't matter we are all adults, still get very excited over winning a pair of socks that my mum got from Poundland.

Secret Santa.

We drive around looking at Christmas lights (and maybe a late night trip to McDonald’s).

Lots of national trust places have Christmas lights this year, hopefully they will go ahead as we plan to go.

I don’t really miss the whole Father Christmas thing, Christmas has been so much more relaxed since they haven’t believed, kids wake up later and we open gifts on and off during the day rather than the mad rush unwrapping at 6am.

Please tell us what you are planning for your North Pole spa night. This is blowing my mind!

I want to know about the North pole spa day too!
Also just to say my 13yo would love to play your bingo game.

I have 6 dc, now aged 22, 21, 18,16,14 and 12. We do secret Santa, so they each pick a name of a sibling out of a hat and then buy a gift (budget set quite low), trip to local garden centre where they choose an ornament and then we get hot chocolate from the cafe, did a drive in cinema to watch polar express the other year with hot chocoalte in flasks and cookies! Also panning on doing bad santa this year (stolen from a thread on here!)

I’ve seen some really lovely (or horribly corny, depending on your POV) Christmassy jigsaws somewhere - probably in WH Smith. I know my Gdcs would adore them, but they’re still too little for anything bigger than about 150 pieces.

We're going to do a North Pole spa day (helped by our hot tub)
Face masks
Fire and nail varnish

I'm taking my dds 9/11 to primark and giving them £20 to fill my stocking, they will love this

I let them decorate the tree

We're doing a secret Santa at their sports club instead of a party

Watching as my children around the same age. & for first time in forever I will be off xmas week to enjoy with them.
Planning on mean Santa. Any ideas for presents to go in it?

Bean boozle game

MNHQ kindly deleted my last message as it had my address on it. I had posted a recommendation for this Christmas Bingo game.
I bought one two year’s ago, lost it and had to buy another last year as it was so popular with everyone, 13 - 75.
£3.99 for a few sheets of paper, but worth every penny.

I’m reading this with interest. My kids are much younger and still believe and would enjoy some of these - one would like the Spa day for sure.

Santa visit, pantomime, visiting the city to see the lights and decorations followed by their favourite restaurant are all out of the question this year. All their activities do a Christmas theme on the last day too but their activities have all stopped too.
We do a lot of crafts so they aren’t as much fun as they were before either.
It’s a strange year and looks like Christmas 2021 will be the same so definitely time for new traditions.

@mosscarpet - what is bad Santa please? I’ve got two teens and I’m intrigued ...

I've been thinking about this and I've decided to take them Christmas shopping one evening to choose a Christmas outfit but we'll go in the dark and then out for some dinner to make it feel a bit more exciting/Christmassy.

Bad Santa is amazing and comes in many different forms, we play it with a mixture of wrapped nonsense (spam, dog poo freeze spray etc) with good presents in the mix too (we have varied this along the way and a good present can be anything from a lip gloss, we have 3 girls, to last year when we wrapped up the girls new phones and threw them in the mix.

If you have time on your hands you can help to disguise the good presents from the bad with excellent gift wrapping skills, things in cardboard boxes to give the illusion of something better or worse or flippantly thrown together in the an old Carrier bag.

All wrapped presents are put on in the middle and we take it turns to throw a dice, again many variations, we play that everyone throws until gets a six and picks a parcel and no one is allowed to open anything to this point and then like Uno each number can mean something different, 4 a steal, 6 a second present from the middle, 3 pass a parcel onto the person on your left, 1 a swap etc.

You can keep everything wrapped until the very end with people guessing what the desirable presents are or you can open as you go (which I think is more fun) especially when grandad ends up with the nail varnish and the 6 year old the can of beer etc.

It really makes our Christmas as so much fun as well as keeping some little (or big) presents back to prelong the fun.

We do Christmas movie bingo - the cards say things like and oversized Christmas tree’ ‘someone gets fired’ an ‘ someone discovers the magic of Christmas’ and every time you win you get a quality street. We do it with the cheesy movies on sky or Netflix

I don't want to come over all righteous and your ideas sound lovely (if a bit exhausting ) but for me part of the 'magic' of Christmas for older children is them learning that as well as being the time of year where they get loads of presents, treats and sweets for themselves it's that it's also an opportunity to be especially kind to your friends and family and spread some joy to others as well - otherwise it can all just get a bit materialistic and one-up-manship to me.

So can you think of some more altruistic things to do, some classic Christmas 'charity' things like soup kitchens might be harder with Covid (and I'm a bit meh about the idea of bringing your children to see/help the poor people for one day only anyway) but think smaller scale, could you do a family litter pick to help make your local street/park/beach nice for Christmas (wrap up warm and then come back home for hot chocolate etc), do a clear out of their old toys/clothes together and donate to charity, go shopping for presents for local children in care or at your local refuge (local police forces, charities or schools often coordinate these, just watch out for the ones which send boxes/presents to the third world as often these are evangelical Christian charities using it as a chance to proselytise as well as being super environmentally unfriendly to air freight boxes of plastic tat halfway round the world!), maybe they could offer help with chores/friendship to any lonely elderly neighbours or bake mince pies or Christmas cookies and drop them off to friends or anyone else in need? Craft competition to make nice presents for Granny/aunts and uncles or similar? Put on a talent show on Zoom - sell 'tickets' for charity? A 'lottery' or 'lucky dip' advent calendar where you all write down nice things they can do for each other/the family and you draw one a day, thinking things like 'I will make everyone a cup of tea after school' or 'I will wash the car' or similar (appropriate to their ages)?

Sorry if that came across a bit twee, not saying my kids are saints and did all the above in an angelic fashion without grumbling or whining having to be bribed - absolutely not, they're selfish materialistic little horrors like all kids but that's why I felt the need to strike a bit of a balance, we always did lots of more selfish christmas stuff with them too, for the record!