In an attempt to make Christmas really magical this year, what are your favourite traditions?

[Yellowballoon77]

Just that really!

Favourite traditions that you do, or ones you’ve heard.

I want to add a new one and make Christmas really magical (not necessarily spending more money, but bringing a bit more sparkle!).

We put snow spray boot prints, using a stencil, on our front door mat. The top of our stairs looks straight down to the front door. The looks on their faces on Christmas morning, when they look down and see Santa’s footprints, is magic!

Through December we have a Hot Chocolate tray - Christmas mugs, candy canes, marshmallows, different hot chocolates on a tray with fairy lights and tinsel.

We play ‘Christmas movie bingo’ where we watch Christmas movies and win points for ‘snowball fight’ ‘someone getting fired ‘ etc. My kids love it.

We have Christmas bedding, blankets and tiny trees for bedrooms on 1st December. We always burn a specific Yankee candle ‘Christmas Eve’ when everyone breaks up for the holidays- it’s the smell of Christmas in our house.

We take the kids Xmas shopping - give them a budget and they have to buy presents for each other and me and DH.
We do a Christmas trip - normally a grotto or other Xmas day out - Longleat festival of light, Rhondda toy mine, Perry grove Santa railway, etc
Ice skating at a local winter wonderland
Go to the garden centre to look at all the displays etc and get a hot choc.
Drive round in the dark looking at everyone’s outside lights
DD makes/buys me an angel every year
Go to local forest where they sell Xmas trees, pick one (lots of inning and looking. At them from different angles, trying to remember what height we normally get) and they wrap it up for you, come home and decorate it with Xmas music on and then have mince pies.
Me and DD get up at 5:30am on Xmas Eve to go and do the food shop. I used to do it when I worked evenings and DH worked shifts so the only time I could go with none of the small children in tow was early morning. DD decided she wanted to come one year when she was about 4 so we have done it ever since. We get a macdonalds breakfast on the way home.
Track Santa on NORAD
Bake and decorate a gingerbread house on Xmas Eve day time
Elves bring new Xmas themed pjs during bath time on Xmas Eve.

They tend to evolve a bit as they get older. Over the last 20 years we have:
Special breakfast sometime in December- sometimes called North Pole breakfast. Shopping for bath bombs on Xmas eve morning. Christmassy pub trip. Christmas bedding on 1st. Getting same fabric advent out for 1st. Looking at well decorated houses locally. Writing list to Santa and sending up chimney. Going to garden centre and picking a beer decoration each. Ice skating.

We also do the giving kids a budget for parent gifts. Just £5 but it's really interesting to see what they choose.
We always save a present and put it in the hallway or on the landing on Christmas day early evening. Then I say "kids, you've missed a present. How could you not see this?" This gets us over the end of day lull.
A family board game always mysteriously appears in our front room on boxing Day afternoon.

We go to the forest and select our tree to be cut down. Always have a real tree.
A nights stay in London for winter wonderland/lights/science museum/hamleys
I take them to somewhere that sells nice decorations and they choose one special decoration each year, so they will have ones for their own trees in the future.
Disney Xmas songs in the car all December

I’ve read (on here I think, but I can’t remember) that in Denmark they have a tradition of giving gifts of books and chocolate on Christmas Eve and settling down to read. I’m thinking of adopting that one

I do a 'Christmas breakfast' for my DC on 1st December.

When they come down in the morning the table is decorated and usually some other decorations are up. I get out their Christmas plates and mugs. I've served things like toast cut as stars, christmas tree crumpets, banana and strawberry candy canes. This year I'm going to do star shaped pancakes and kiwi christmas trees. Also have mini mince pies and gingerbread men.

Their advent calendars are on the table and the basket of christmas books, the christmas dvds and activity books are down from the loft. I've got them a couple of craft kits for making decorations this year too.

We do a December first box which has the Christmas clothing, mugs and books (all reused before anyone starts about wasteful spending).

Normally go to Kew Gardens for the illuminations in early December. Winter Wonderland one weekend morning so DS can go on the rides.

I love these ideas and have been noting ones down! Please keep them coming!

The children both made red felt stocking tree decorations in their reception year at school I think - about 10cm long. These get filled with chocolate coins on Christmas Eve - and then they are 'discovered' on Christmas Day.

When DH was growing up he always got a small gift on Boxing day. It was referred to as a "tree gift" & was hidden in the branches of the Christmas tree.
I was always given a "tree coming down" present (again, nothing extravagant). Again, hidden in the branches.
Our children get the best of both worlds, so they get a Boxing day & tree coming down present.
Once the Christmas tree is all packed away I put a small gift in the place of where it stood for them to find (rather than hide in the branches).

It’s not a tradition as we will be trying it for the first time this year but hopefully (if restrictions allow) we will each have a budget of £2 for each other person to go into the pound shop and choose things - anything goes, could be chocolate, a shower gel or whatever. Then they’ll be put in our own boxes with shredded paper so each of us will have six items, and we will take it in turns to try and guess who chose each one for us. Hoping it’ll be a little bit of fun for not much money.

Some wonderful ideas here

My daughter will have just turned 1 this year, so still developing ours, but I'm stealing an idea I saw a while ago: picnic tea on Christmas Eve in front of the Christmas tree with only the fairy lights on! Sounds lovely :)

Ahh that sounds lovely!

I am loving these suggestions

My DC are adults now, but when they were small I always used to write them a letter from Father Christmas, rolled and tied with a ribbon, for them to open on Christmas morning. It was a summary of their year, the highs and lows, challenges and rewards. When my eldest was 8, her best friend's mum (and my close friend) passed away suddenly, and that year's letter is the most memorable and moving of all. I keep it in a very safe place. Father Christmas telling my daughter what a good friend she had been through it all and how her friend would need lots of love and support from us to help her through. They are lovely letters to revisit now my children are grown.

When the children were younger- and still some now but we have moved

Christingle service round about 13th

Weekend before Christmas - Santa train
Put big decorations up (not tree)

Pantomime or ballet on 23rd

Christmas Eve- Children and DH go to get the tree. We all decorate it
Fish and chips for lunch
Nativity service at church- everyone dresses up
Village has mulled wine and mince pies- vintage vehicle come (that will out me)
Friends and family come to house for supper
Carrot and port for Santa
Bed
We always end up still doing wrapping for stockings

Christmas morning. Champagne , smoked salmon rolls, cinnamon rolls for children
Open stocking - 1 gift at a time in a big circle
All guests including adults get a stocking

Big walk with the dogs

The pretty standard food, play. watch rubbish tv at night

Games

We do baking on Christmas eve, a local charity has done a kids baking hampers this year and instructions, cookie cutters, instructions, ingredients etc included in it so that'll be extra special.

I giftwrap books up for each day of advent and have a book advent calender, kids pick a book every night to read together.

We watch a christmas movie every night too. I bake a lot during December so have a little treat with our movie.

We decorate gingerbread men.

Christmas eve boxes in December

@Copperblack Love the movie bingo and the candle - brilliant ideas.
This has just made me really excited for Xmas when my daughters are a little older (they are currently 3 and 4 weeks!)

One I wish I’d done as young as possible is take a picture doing the same thing every year. I saw it on another site once and it was making the Christmas pudding. Was so cute seeing the children grow old over the years doing the same shoot

@DefinitelyPossiblyMaybe - I do something similar but it is a Christmas card from me to each DC. I reflect on their year and how their personalities have developed etc.

I always let the children choose a tree decoration every year so tree is full of decorations that have meaning .

We also used to do the tree present thing as kids . Might bring that back . We had ours Christmas Day evening .

The first Sunday in December is a day of putting up the Christmas tree in the morning and an afternoon of Christmas card writing. There is lots of Christmas music and mince pies.

Youngest in the house lights the Christmas Candle on Christmas Eve - we put ours on the mantle rather than in the window, but it's an old Irish tradition to show that there is "room in our Inn" for any weary travellers. We take a few minutes when lighting it to reflect on the year finishing, good and bad parts of it and also remembering people no longer with us.

When DD was small (until she got to primary school), she used to make the same spiced Christmas cookies for the Christmas performance for parents/party in the creche - as she got older, she was able to do more bits and by her final one, the cookies she'd made could be included in what went to creche rather than being reserved for home consumption - we had lots of very small shaped cutters (I think playdoh rather than cookies - but as long as they got a good wash before use, they worked really well) in various different shapes to make small cookies for the toddlers and there were larger ones for adults in more traditional stars and holly leaves.

We also do the "give DD a budget and take her shopping to help her buy presents for the family".

And I used to fill an empty shoebox with strips of coloured paper, sellotape and kid-friendly scissors for her to work away on her paper chains when it suited her throughout late Nov/early Dec (and they were protected against getting squashed or inadvertently thrown out in the shoebox in between sessions). The results went up in the hall when we decorated the house.

And lots of other crafts - making toilet roll santa/snowman/penguins, snowflakes from sheets of plain white paper pleated and cut carefully, glittered pine cones, lollipop stick trees.....all sorts.

And I used to print free printable colouring pictures and activity sheets from the web (Activity Village, DLTK, various homeschooling sites etc) to put 1 a day into her advent calendar along with a chocolate shape (buy the nets of chocolate santas/snowmen shapes wrapped in foil from Aldi/M&S etc for those).