Ideas for Christmas activities/hygge that are free or very cheap

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I thought I might start a thread with some ideas for things people can do (with or without children) that don't cost much/anything and that I loved as a child and now as an adult.

• Collecting pine cones and spraying them gold/silver
• Making mince pies/Christmas fairy cakes/ Christmas cake/ anything else at home
• We buy large packs of blank cards and always spend a very happy afternoon (or two afternoons!) making Christmas cards for friends, teachers etc. We use the same Christmas ink stamps that I used as a child (even the ink pads are still ok!). My children started to really enjoy this when they were about 7 - they liked it when they were younger but it didn't take quite so much time up! Now they're a bit older they love to take time to make/draw a special card for all their significant adults and we listen to Christmas music or an audiobook while we work (I make cards too!).
• Making paper chains - we stick on a film and start a production line. The children love this and I'm happy for them to decorate their bedrooms with tons of paper chains!
• Christmas films... We don't have any subscription services but we do have the ability to "record" programmes from the tv onto our box. So I go though the TV listings near Christmas and record any films that I think we might like. I never, and I do mean never, buy films/dvd's etc. There is masses on normal TV and lots of programmes we all now enjoy too!
• I make a treasure trail for our village with things for the children to tick off - some are specific to our village, some are just random things that I assume we might spot - eg dog being walked, star on top of a tree, person wearing wellies etc. They get a chocolate coin for every item they find!
• Nativity play/crib service - children always very keen to take part in our village church nativity and/or crib service. It's also something I loved when I was a child - the sense of the whole community coming together working out parts, costumes, lighting, music etc (it was always really very simple - nothing fancy but so lovely).
• Care home - we normally go and visit a care home we have a connection with and join in with carols/general helping out. If you/your child is involved with brownies/cubs etc - please do consider asking a local care home if they're like you to come and sing carols or something!
• Homeless bags - we fill spare party bags with things that a homeless person might appreciate - new socks, new toothbrush, pack of sweets, can of coke etc. This was very much led by my oldest child and it's the children who give them out. I have had chats with them about people not always being appreciative etc/feeling really sad, tired etc but so far they have only ever had a good response!
• I take both my children shopping on their own to choose and buy a present for their sibling. Normally £5-£10 and it's their own pocket money. They really LOVE choosing and wrapping something themselves.
• Garden centre - our local garden centre has lots of animatronic animals, great displays etc. I am a sucker for a Christmas garden centre trip :-)
• Instead of a cinema trip with snacks etc that would easily cost £40 including parking, even with cheapish tickets, we have movie nights at home with homemade popcorn, hot chocolate etc. At Christmas we turn off all the lights and just have the tree lights on and we all snuggle under throws. It's so lovely and sometimes we just watch a few episodes of a favourite programme instead. The key for this is no phones etc (which is hard for me!) and feeling like we're all cosy together and enjoying something together.
• Gingerbread houses, Christmas biscuits and chocolate logs - I often invite a few friends and let the children decorate an Ikea gingerbread house. They love it and they're very cheap to buy. Last year we got a normal chocolate swiss roll from Tesco, melted some chocolate and the children really enjoyed making a chocolate log with insane decorations. (I make a proper buche du noel too another time!). Ditto Christmas biscuits - last year we decorated them as melting snowmen (copied the biscuits we saw in Pret!). Lots of fun.
• Decorating - we go for a walk about a week before Christmas and cut holly and other green things from friend's gardens (with permission) and then use this to decorate the house. It's free (!), looks and smells lovely and the children love choosing what to cut and using the secateurs.
• Jigsaws - my idea of heaven. Big Jigsaw to do while the children watch something on tv/play/"help" me with the jigsaw/listen to an audiobook. BLISS.

Ok, that's a Christmas ESSAY!! I hope someone finds some of it vaguely helpful. I think, for me, the focus is on spending time together enjoying quite basic activities but the joy of it really is in being together. We're not The Waltons and we do have plenty of arguments and tantrums just like everyone else.

We don't have a big extended family which is one reason why I like to join forces with other friends with children sometimes to bolster the numbers!

We also do things that are expensive at Christmas but I am cutting back because I know that actually, my children are just as happy playing a long game of monopoly with Pringles and lemonade as they are watching The Nutcracker!

As a child, Christmas was all about feeling safe, cosy and being with my parents. I'm trying my best to make it as simple and lovely as that really.

All other ideas MORE than welcome!

My only is 18 now but some of the things we used to love to do are on your list.

Perhaps more suited to older children ideas below;
Christmas book night /afternoon: everyone lolling around listening to Christmas Jazz Piano or whatever on Spotify reading Christmas themed books.

Christmas treat shop : for the food bank. Trip to the supermarket to choose some nice Christmas treats to add to the food bank bin.

Clay dough ornament making (the recipes with cornflour and baking powder work best and stay white). Impressions of e.g holly or fern work well.

Christmas Garden barbecue...wrap up warm on a dry evening ! Sausages are great for this with a bit of brie and cranberry stuffed into a roll.

Costa used to do a Christmas tasting evening event that was fun !

Not a cheap one initially, but a small artificial Christmas tree for each child’s room and then a few little decorations. Give them an afternoon to decorate their room, then a Christmas “walk” around your house to see the decorations. Reuse each year. We were allowed to pick 1 new bauble each year.

We go for a walk around the local area with a thermos of hot chocolate and talk about the different decorations. It’s nice spotting new ones as the days go on.

First day of the Christmas holidays is a special morning bath with a bath bomb or novelty bubble bath, and a crumpet or some toast in the bath!

Oh, DH and I also try to do a Christmas drinks evening just for the two of us - nice music, nibbles, tree lights and just sit and chat. As cheap/cheerful as you want to make it, but prep and clear up should be minimal. It started when we wanted to go to the pub but all our local ones were packed out with work Christmas parties, and actually this is much nicer!

Coming from a slightly different angle, but batch cooking a few meals so you have something easy to hand on busy evenings can help ease the crazy.

Saying no to a few engagements, or postponing meeting up with friends until January can keep December from feeling frazzled, and brighten a long dreary month.

With pre schoolers there’s a lot of time to fill, but as homework takes up more and more time, it isn’t always possible to tick off everything on the Christmas list, and that’s ok too.

I sound like a right Grinch but I love Christmas, really!

So many brilliant ideas, placemarking! Expecting my first baby end of Nov so excited for our first Christmas as a three!

I used to do an alternative version of paper chains - put the strips into a shoebox with tape/stapler (depending on her age each year) and let DD do them in her own time over a few weeks. It was great for filling a few minutes getting in from creche/work while I got dinner sorted, we would do it together sometimes and she would work away on her own at others. It could go back into the shoebox for safety once finished any day (chain didn't get crushed sitting on the table) and in a couple of weeks there was a long enough chain for the hall ceiling and often for her room as well.

I also like collecting pine cones on winter woodland walks (and nice sticks for the fire), and then painting them as decorations (or using them as firestarters) another day.

Free printable activity sheets from the web for DCs. It starts with basic colouring sheets, but there are great resources on loads of different seasonal themes for writing practise, word searches and quizzes, word mining, story starters, maths, geography, ....as well as lots of different ideas for crafts etc. Homeschool sites are particularly good to get you going. And often if they are fun things, DCs don't see them as "school stuff". (I used to do word mining with DD in bed as a way to focus her brain on 1 thing and stop everything else whirring, so she could get so sleep, and she loved them).

A Christmas disco in the kitchen or a floor picnic while watching a movie on tv are also great to do because they are fun and unusual activities in our house. Or DD coming home from school to find that the dolls and teddies were all having a picnic on her floor, or listening to "Big Bear" reading a Christmas story to them....or once, a naughty pair of dolls had a snowball fight with cotton balls...

DD has no siblings, but she does have a few DCousins etc to buy for. And she also buys something that she would like, as a present for someone who doesn't get many presents, and we wrap that and leave it at a local collection marked for the relevant age. I used to always take a half day from work to bring her shopping - which was only buying the things she needed to buy for others (or giving me a few ideas as we looked), getting a hot choc and bun while people watching, and visiting the "Live Crib" at the Lord Mayor's House - I left my own shopping to another time.

If you buy cloves in a big bag from an oriental supermarket or similar, they are much cheaper than the regular supermarket. Then you can have lots of fun poking holes in oranges and stuffing them with the cloves. And also get some cinnamon sticks and any other spices for hot drinks over Christmas, like cinnamon spiced hot apple juice or mulled wine (I use cloves, peppercorns, cardamons, star anise and cinnamon in my mulling spices mix). You could also make up little packs of spices and package prettily as gifts, on their own or hanging from a bottle of wine.

I also do a bath bomb - but as a wind down on the way to bed on Christmas Eve. We have a box that has come out every year since DD turned 1 with her plastic Santa plate and glass (they were a cheap second plastic crockery set which we used all the time until she was using regular crockery - we threw out the flowery one but keep the Santa one with the decorations to come out for the Christmas season), her stocking, the family copy of "Twas the night before Christmas", a new pair of winter PJs for everyone in the house, and festive bath bombs for her and I (and sometimes a nice festive shower gel for DH). We have dinner, light the Christmas candle and then bring out the box so DD can lay out her stocking and use the plate/glass to put out a snack for Santa, then runs up for the bath, into new cosy PJs, has a hot choc drink (common at bedtime anyway) and gets the story read in bed all nice and quiet and ready for sleep.

I ask at the local charity shop/fb for any jigsaws with missing pieces. These are great for making into hanging snowflakes and then spraying white and sprinkling in glitter. Another good one as a project is to look for a used Dolls house on fleaay/fb and then paint it up to look like a ginger bread house. We spent many happy years using festive fabric scraps to make little table cloths and painting candy canes on the table legs etc. always a project in the house and the kids loved it.

Lovely ideas, thank you for the happy thread OP 🎄

What an absolutely lovely thread. Really enjoyed reading it!

My only addition is we do a christmas eve disco in the living room. We turn the lights off apart from the tree lights and take turns picking songs and dancing with glow sticks. My eldest loves it and remembers randomly at points throughtout the year when he discovers a new song he likes!

Lovely thread OP, thank you. Loads of really nice ideas and not much to add. We are planning a windswept beach walk this year (possibly on Christmas day if we're on our own, which is why it has already come up in conversation!) with a thermos and probably something treaty for breakfast.

We also do the food bank shop someone else mentioned although not specifically christmas food.

I loved reading this, I feel all warm and fuzzy!

Thoroughly enjoyed reading this

Nothing to add but thanks for all the ideas - I love Christmas and am going to copy lots of these ideas this year!

Thanks for all the other ideas and kind comments everyone. It is so easy to get caught up in the stuff and buying and I’m trying to focus more on the meaning and family and free things. As I said, I will also spend more money than is wise in the Lego shop and buy enough amoretti biscuits to sink a ship, but that’s what I call balance 😂

@bravotango I am in pretty much exactly the same position! Expecting or first baby in early November.

I am getting organised early as I know with a newborn, Christmas will be crazy this year. I love Christmas and really want my child to also feel the magic of it, this thread is brilliant for things we can do in the years to come

@WeetabixandStrawbs So exciting isn't it! Hoping to get things sorted in September so not rushing around, and then can just enjoy the festive/newborn period. This is a great thread for inspiration - lots of things I did as a child actually included here! We also used to make a Christmas decoration for the tree each year - my mum still has ours (some are a bit battered now though )

I forgot something else we used to do. I bought a copy of "Twas the night before Christmas" in time for DD's 1st Christmas Eve and had read it at bedtime on 24th every year until she was about 12/13. I keep that with the Christmas decorations.

I also have a collection of Christmas books that I gathered over the years - some bought new, some in charity shops, some were given as presents. But these were also put away in January and came out for December and we would read a Christmas story as part of bedtime stories in December. Many of these books have now been passed on through the family to others with younger DCs. There was a mix of picture books and longer chapter books and some miscellanies of poetry/short stories/single chapters from longer books etc. I still have a handful that I re-read myself . Some years, we also borrowed a few new ones from the library for a few weeks.

Mine are in their 20s now but things we did when they were little (Low Cost)

On Christmas Eve :
we went out after lunch to feed the reindeer or geese . A walk round a visitor centre to tire them out and looking for Father Christmas .
One year the Isis space station passed over on Christmas Eve , my DC were too old to think it was The Sleigh but went out to look anyway .

They dressed up in fancy dress clothes after changing out of their muddy clothes (DS had a Dalek costume, DD had various Disney or cheerleader )

Saved jamjars to fill with candles -(LED tealights are safer and don't keep blowing out every 2 minutes !) in two lines up the garden to make a 'flight path' for The Sleigh.

When DS was about 3 , I made a Sleeping Elf (from one of their bathtoys) a little cardbox box bed and put him in playhouse . DS and I walked down to the shed with a candle light , I told DS that the Elf was tired from making toys and he'd be collected by Father Cristmas that night ( so I had to make sure he was gone before DS remembered )

Make a batch of chocolate chip or gingerbread dough then cook when needed .
Mine did like chocolate crispy cakes (and the bowl )

I made some sandwiches wrapped in foil and stickers to decorate "from Action Man" as DS was reluctant to eat if there was too much excitement going on.

Milkshake in small glass milk bottles (Lakeland) chilled in the fridge for breakfast .

What do people's teenagers enjoy at Christmas?
Mine are 10 and 15. They like a Christmas movie, hot chocolate, baking etc.
10 year old is crafty and enjoys making cards etc.
Can only really get them on a walk if I promise food or drink (can be pricey and I will be on a tiiiiiiiight budget this year, like lots I assume). Ditto Christmas markets though our city is lovely at Christmas, and I like to just take it in, but probably not so much my kids.
Any other cheap ideas for teens?

Oh great thread BTW!

Sorry if this is not allowed and delete if not appropriate, but I just wanted to advertise a free Christmas event. Christmas tree festivals happen up and down the country so check if there is one local to you :)

For anyone local to Plymouth, I am on a team that organises a community Christmas tree festival in Devonport - come see the beautiful trees decorated by local community groups, charities and businesses. Also new for this year, we will have a Christmas jumper swap shop, so bring a Christmas jumper the children have grown out of and swap it for a bigger one. Free entry but with donations to Trevi Women are gratefully received. Keep your eye on the Facebook page for more details closer to the time.

@travelmad Oooh when is this on? I'm Cornwall but was planning on a trip to Devonport at some point to take DS to the children's theatre. We watched the Christmas mouse on Christmas Eve last year and it was lovely. Although we would be going earlier in December this year.

Be great to coincide the two. And Trevi is such a worthwhile cause I'd love to support.

Ah we will be at the church right next to the children's theatre, on Albert Road. The date is still in discussion with the churches PCC but its likely to either be the first or second Saturday in December

Mine are all adults now - what they loved doing was rather than going out for an expensive meal on Christmas Eve, they got to pick a theme, research it, plan menus and concocted themed cocktails (with and without alcohol) for the whole family. This works fine for teens even a bit younger too

We also read “‘Twas the night before Christmas” on Christmas Eve and have lots of Christmas books that we read in December. I must remember to get them out on time this year - last year I forgot until a week before Christmas and we didn’t have enough time!

Also a mish-mash of books from my childhood, some new books, second hand and library