How to make your own Christmas traditions?

[mogkat]

How did you or do you make Christmas traditions as a family?

This time of year I'm always reading about peoples traditions around Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, Boxing Day etc.
They all sound so fun with food and games.

We have no traditions and it makes me a bit sad.

My son is 4 so this year I would say is the first year he's been excited and understanding Christmas more.

My husband is a bit of a bah humbug Christmas type of person and he's just looking forward to a break from work. So it's down to me!

As a kid growing up we didn't "do" anything other than the standard turkey dinner. Small family so not lots of people.

What new traditions have you started since having kids of your own?
I'd love ideas on how to start some for us as a family of 3.

Thanks in advance!

As a child we all helped do food prep on Christmas eve, like peel carrots etc. But finished off with making jelly which I loved doing! With real jelly not the sachet as you have to stir it for ages to get it to dissolve

I think they just happen naturally. They are the things you start because you like the idea of them and continue. So a tradition from my childhood was a pillow case stocking to open on Christmas morning. Translated now into a proper looking red sack. My adult dd will be waking up here Christmas morning and I know she’d be disappointed not to get her stocking, and I’ve found it rather lovely to be making one again as she left home many years ago.

A nice, (and useful) one at that age is that they pour the breakfast orange juice and you all have a toast.
The reason it's useful is that as they get older they graduate to Bucks Fizz and champagne cocktails (and they have to supply the champagne cos it's their 'thing'). Why, I've even got mine onto Bloody Marys now.

No children here but I just gradually added traditions for the two of us, based on what we both liked the idea of. If it worked well then we repeated it in following years.
Have been criticised on here in the past for some of the following, but this is some of what we do:

• no main presents but do a stocking each, with a set budget filled with a few small bits to open (otherwise we wouldn’t have anything to open at all on the day - we don’t really need anything but it is nice to open a few bits)
• Christmas Eve ‘box’: nothing major, just some nice PJs each, a game to play/ activity to do together, and maybe a couple of snacks
• we are vegan so limited in terms of choc tins, so I buy lots of diff choc truffles etc to make our own chocolate selection tin
• we eat Christmas dinner earlier in the month at our favourite restaurant where they do the full works and it is amazing. Would be a lot of work to create similar at home for the two of us, and it’s nice not to be stuck in the kitchen.
• then for Christmas dinner on the day itself we usually have a buffet type spread, but this year I am doing afternoon tea instead. Then cheese and crackers in the evening (I order lots of cheeses online by an amazing vegan cheese specialist - some vegan cheeses can taste a bit weird! 😆)
• Christmas Day we just relax and hang out together. Then Boxing Day we will often take the dog to the beach, play a game in th afternoon etc. Other days we spend visiting the in-laws

We go to church for the kids service at 5pm then drive round the local lights on the way home. I hadn’t thought of it as a tradition until last year when some of the houses that raise money for charity did light due to covid and my girls said how much they missed it

Oh I forgot, also midnight service on Christmas Eve at our local church. I go to this alone though as I am a regular church goer and DH isn’t religious at all

Traditional need to be fluid to some extent, don’t make yourself a slave to them. We have a Christmas fairy who delivers cards and gifts through out December (not ever day) advent calendar, panto tickets, elf biscuits with the suggestion we eat them with a glass of milk and Christmas stories, or a suggestion of making a donation to food bank. Choosing and decorating the tree. Deciding and making or buying santa snack. Choosing and wrapping Christmas gifts. Making cards or seasonal crafts. Walk between Christmas and new year with hot chocolate. Watch Christmas films with hot chocolate and squirty cream. New Pjs on Christmas eve for everyone. You don’t need to do all of it every year but last year DH was shielding and this year it’s a long time between school and Christmas day so it fills in a lot of time.

So many wonderful things here. Thank you all for sharing your Christmas festivities.
I will have to try different things and see how they go down and like you have all said - things you enjoy can become a tradition as the years pass.

Hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas time

*Going for a drive to see all the houses lit up.
*Making a Gingerbread house - either made from scratch or I just buy a kit.
*Decorating the tree on the 1st December, while playing the Boney M Christmas album , dancing around and singing all the songs.
*Getting the kids to help make a pavlova for dessert, they put the piles of cream on and then drop bits of fruit all over it.

Have a wonderful Christmas, OP !

One thing happened the other day which i know I will do every year now, we had a gingerbread house to assemble and decorate and me and the kids sat and made it while we pretty much had last Christmas on repeat and we were singing our heads off. I had a split second where I almost looked in on us from outside the window and just knew it was a perfect moment. I would do anything just to have that half an hour again every year.

I agree with others traditions develop rather than made - so a small example when D was young I bought a gold coloured dalek ( it was on a key ring but he liked Dr Who at the time so I put it on a ribbon and on Christmas eve it is the first one to spot the dalek wins - no prize just the honour )

We also do one new Christmas decoration each year . We don't do Christmas Eve presents but we have been going to go to the local church Carol concert at 11pm on Christmas Eve - it is lovely.

Other than that - lovely late breakfast then presents then music on and cooking dinner. ( DS is older so no longer being woken up in the early hours. )

I used to get a pair of wellingtons and some talcum powder & make footprints for Father Christmas - Dh would drink the glass of whisky & I would take a bite out of the carrot. I still draw Father Christmas & put a message from FC on to one of DS's presents . He is in his 20s

We’ve always gone out for dinner on Christmas Eve. When the children were very small their dad convinced them on the way home that an aeroplane’s lights were Rudolph’s nose (red) and the light on Santa’s sleigh (white). They’re nearly 30 now and still look out for the lights on Christmas Eve.
We follow NORAD too.

@RosesAndHellebores Thank you. UMNHs back at you.