Christmas family activities/traditions with young children

[SamantherJay]

What’s everyone‘s favourite Christmas activities to do leading up to the day & your family traditions? I have a 6 year old & an 18 month old, looking for lovely things to do throughout December!

The memories which have stuck for my DDs who are now 16 and 12, are the simplest things. They remember writing letters to Father Christmas and going to post them in the post box. They remember making decorations with glitter and they remember making biscuits and decorating them.

We've never done the whole thing with visiting Santa for tea or going to big events because I never had the money. Mine always especially liked making decorations out of natural stuff like pinecones and branches. We'd go for a walk to collect them.

Go and choose a Christmas tree to buy
Decorate the Christmas tree
Read the nativity story
Send a letter to Father Christmas
Sleep next to the Christmas tree
Make reindeer food
For the last couple years, a few days before Christmas we’ve gone driving to look at Christmas lights late at night. It’s awesome! Take popcorn and hot chocolate in travel mugs, and have Christmas music playing in the car. It’s basically free entertainment for the kids, and it’s nice quiet family time where everyone is strapped down. We call it a Christmas light safari.
Watch ‘The Snowman’
Go to the library for Christmas books
Drink hot chocolate with marshmallows together
Deliver presents to family
Bake cookies for Father Christmas
Decorate a paper plate on which to leave a mince pie/cookie/whatever you leave out for Father Christmas.
Take a bag of old toys to the charity shop or some food to the local food bank.

we dont really have any 'set' things except the xmas tree and xmas day... I honestly never heard of these 'traditions' before mumsnet (not saying no one ever did thing but I just never knew people where obsessed with repeating them yearly all through december and calling them part of xmas)

some years we do things like pantomime (always after xmas around new year because its more practical for us) or santa visits (some years we do, some we dont but never at a set place - we have been to the alps to visit santas home, we have been to free shopping center santas, we have had dinner with santa etc...) but it was whatever we could afford/book/have time for...

Never really 'made' stuff, our youngest is too young for baking and crafts imo and oldest DS always did those things at school and we see no need to do it all twice

We don't really do the big events because we can't afford them but the one thing we always do is get tickets for an outdoor walk with lights, I'm not sure how to describe it but it's amazing!

Other than that, lots of trips to different garden centres. They often have really good Christmas displays and we buy one new thing for the tree and sometimes have a treat in the cafe.

I always get the old leftover wrapping paper out and cut it into strips to turn into paper chains. It's a nice cheap way to make the house look cheerful and festive even if it isn't so stylish.

@shreddednips Oh the outdoor illumination type events are what we do each year as well I so hope we are allowed this year!

Making a gingerbread house.
Baking cookies.
Going for a walk to gather holly and pinecones.
Going for a walk to look at decorations in our village.