Christmas tradition ideas

[Limonatamum]

Hello! I have a 1 year old and really looking forward to starting family Christmas traditions, please tell me all your cute ideas!! I know she won’t know much this year but more about starting things for the future!

Some of the most precious traditions are completely accidental.

The dc were understandably freaked out about Santa when they were little and would insist that dh check that he was definitely gone before opening the living room door. Long after they got brave and bold, dh still goes first to check.

Ds helped df decorate his Christmas tree and afterwards had a chocolate digestive and orange juice when he was 2. The following year when df asked him if he would come help ds was excitedly talking about the chocolate biscuit and oj and every year until he died df would make sure he had the chocolate digestives in for ds.

Likewise we have a special Christmas cereal and I only buy it at Christmas because the dc latched on to the idea of it.

Kids are bonkers.

Christmas Eve, DC's have new 'surprise' pyjamas. We used to read the Night before Christmas every year, but that's kind of fallen by the wayside now they're teens.

At some point before Christmas, we also try to do a shop for the food bank. Sometimes I'll do it on my own other times we've split up - DH + a DC and me with the other, with a budget and see who can get the best/fullest/most useful basket of stuff. I found that really opened the conversation with the DCs to understanding not everyone has the same sort of Christmas. I'm also planning to do it in November this year, so I can put advent calendars in!.

Make a gingerbread house, as children it was made a day or two before Christmas and admired until Boxing day when we would have some of it for tea

Make biscuits to hang on the tree, an advent candle to light on the table during dinner.

My mother pulled a blinder, we never put the tree up until school was finished.
When we got home on the last day the whole house needed to be cleaned and tidied 'for the christmas tree'. Only then could the tree go up, we never moved so quick 😆

Brilliant!

My DC were only 3 and 1 last christmas so we're only starting our traditions too but what we did and think we'll keep going:

• Christmas elf arrives 1st December and brings advent calendar, Christmas books, pyjamas and bedding (i think at least then you're using them for a whole month rather than just 1 day) On christmas eve the elf brings a christmas eve box with their stockings to hang up, ingredients and recipe for making christmas cookies, the santa plate, reindeer food, hot chocolate kit etc. I'm planning to just put things from the elf that we'll re-use every year or eat.
• See a christmas lights switch on - we have several in our local town and villages so make a point of seeing at least one which usually also has hot chocolate stalls/santa on his sleigh etc
• Panto with lunch/dinner out after - Have booked for 23rd this year but thinking i might save this for after christmas in future years maybe 27th/28th december
• Visit santa - try to combine this with a day out, usually doing visits at a soft play centre or something
• Christmas eve - Make christmas cookies/bakes with the ingredients brought by the elf. Deliver some family gifts and drive by some nice christmas lights (with christmas music playing, obviously) 😆This year I feel this will be mainly to tire dc out and get them out the house so I don't have to peel them off the ceiling. Early dinner then bath and christmas pj's on, set out santa/reindeer treats and hang up stockings and have hot chocolate and christmas cookie before bed, christmas story in bed.

the main things which stayed:

• a special plate to put Santa’s mince pie and a carrot for Rudolf
• a visit to a local NT place which is decorated differently each year
• a visit to panto
• a visit to Xmas fair: at school or just locally
• a walk through city centre to see Xmas decorations and hot chocolate after
• big tidy up before arrival of Xmas tree and then music on and decorating Xmas tree all three of us.

there were other things but these stayed even DD is older teen now

We read ‘the night before Christmas’ on Christmas Eve by candlelight - it makes it a bit more special. My kids are late teens now and still insist on it 😆

I would recommend @Limonatamum a photo frame Christmas tree decoration - we take a picture of the kids every year at Christmas and add it to the frame, it’s lovely to see how they change from year to year. Your DD is the perfect age to start this.

I think that a lot of the most meaningful traditions are things that happen by accident and then stick.

The Christmas that DC1 was a toddler and DC2 was a couple of months old, I couldn't face climbing the ladder into the loft and getting out the decorations for the tree. So instead I decorated the tree with some ribbons and scraps of red gingham fabric tied into bows, and dried orange slices, and gingerbread men and various shapes of iced ginger biscuit, and pinecones, and it was lovely and we decorate the tree with biscuits every year. We bake them on the Saturday and decorate the tree on the Sunday. From boxing day onwards, we eat the biscuits.

Hot dogs and Home Alone on "little Christmas Eve" (23rd December)

I'm just trawling this thread as I'm off work poorly, read this one and I genuinely teared up at the chocolate digestive story, it's made me feel all warm and gooey. What a beautiful memory for your son and something so special, yet so simple, he and your dad shared. Truly magical.

Also I get my dc a personalised Christmas card each from moonpig or the like with photos of them/family through the year on it and I write a little story in each of their cards about what they're up to at that time, ie just started walking/talking, what they like, a sweet/funny story about them, how proud we are of them etc. Obviously they don't give a crap about it just now but if I keep this going every year how amazing in 20 years time say for them to see them.

1st December I bring out a box of Christmassy stuff- mugs, books, jigsaws, snow globe, candles, etc. All reused year after year so no tat.

New matching PJs on Christmas Eve but not Christmassy ones so they can wear them all year round.

One year when the DC were very young, I bought them small advent card calendars to go alongside the chocolate ones as I loved opening mine as a child. These brought such enjoyment and they loved opening the tiny windows and they were often kept and put away each year.

They’re all grown now but I’ve already bought them for this Xmas 😄

It will depend on what my partner is working but last year we went to Toby Carvery on Christmas Eve and then did a buffet for the 3 of us on Christmas Day and I would like to do that again but it depends on his hours if he’s working on Christmas Eve which he probably will be as he wasn’t last year 🤔 We went to visit his family in the morning after stockings and Santa presents to exchange presents with them and then we went to my parents for breakfast and to exchange presents with them before going home to open our presents to each other and start making buffet food. It was much nicer than the year before when we went straight to my parents for breakfast and presents and then to my partners family for Christmas dinner and presents as we were out for most of the day and then ds was exhausted and we ended up doing presents late when he woke up. He was tired last year too but as we weren’t back late it was fine that he had a 2 hour nap as there was plenty of time left when he woke up!! He’s 2 now and I’d like to be back home at the same time again this year as it is much nicer just have time for the 3 of us 🥰 I know we will keep visiting family on Christmas Day as it is important to my partner to see his family and it is nice to open presents together but I won’t do a full day/Christmas dinner again (at least not whilst we have smalls) 🤷‍♀️

Other than that I’ve baked cookies for Santa with ds (well, he sort of stirred the mixture and attempted to decorate them) and I’d like to do that with him (and any future smalls) every year and extend it to other Christmas baking as he grows and understands more!!
I enjoyed doing stockings and Santa presents in bed so I think I’ll keep that up for as long as he lets me 🥰
I do a Christmas craft with him that I keep and give as gifts to family (it was a hand and footprint bauble for his first Christmas and a robin handprint mini canvas for his second). I’m not sure what I’m going to do this year or if I should just let him design something on his own with felt tips/stickers/paint ect.
We will go on a Christmas Day out or two and see santa

We also do Christmas Eve boxes with pjs, something to do, something to eat, something to drink and a bauble for the tree plus a Santa letter for ds 🤗

We go out in the drizzle and pick a tree together (the misery binds us :D) - from a farm, so they cut it down in front of us and everything.

We all stay up new years eve

I buy us matching pyjamas (which they are starting to refuse to wear now they're older, but still do to please their old mum)

We don't do santa visits any more, but we have stockings (and some presents are in them every year the same, as a tradition)

We'll often do a big shop together, so we all have some treats for Christmas Eve

Things we still do (despite them being adults) include Christmas lights switch on in town (obviously mulled wine rather than hot chocolate now), going to the garden centre with a huge Christmas section and picking new decorations, making a Christmas cake and ritual feeding of alcohol, baking Christmas spiced cookies, all decorating the tree together (blended family so this is particularly nice, we choose a date they can all get here even one who lives a distance) and they still get new pjs on Christmas Eve and we all headed to midnight mass. We open presents after dinner except stockings which they still like, that's what my kids were used to and dsd was fine with it, she had Christmas with my family, adult so her choice

@BrownOwlknowsbest our DDs do this too and I love it! It does gripe me when family members are annoyingly nagging them to open more when they are contentedly playing.

Our traditions:
We put Xmas books around the fireplace when we decorate the house in December
Drive-by Xmas lights fun on Xmas Eve
Night before Xmas read through on Xmas Eve

Mine are 14 and 18 now but still love their stockings, refillable advent calendar and still get excited that on Christmas Eve morning they get a treasure hunt style poem to find a sack with new pyjamas, blankets and either a board game or dvd.

As well as The Night Before Christmas we've also read Richard Scary's "The Night Before the Night Before Christmas" on Christmas Eve, eve and over the years added to our Christmas story book library so all bedtime stories in December were Christmas ones.

One piece of advice I wish someone had given me is to buy two identical stockings per child. Not such a problem when they are tiny but as they get a little bit older it's such a pain to collect the stockings, fill and rehang and having a pre-done one would be so much easier!

I take my son to watch the Nutcracker ballet every year, he’s a teenager now and still loves it. I try to shake it up a bit when I can so I don’t get bored though I also love it! Like different productions, the ice skating version at Winter Wonderland etc.

We go to our local Christmas light switch-on. Father Christmas also does a sleigh ride down our road every year (for charity) so we watch that.
GPs also have a visit santa + steam train rider + panto combo near them that we go to. MIL also buys them a set of new PJs each.

DC get fairly free rein over decorating our tree (I always do the tree lights first, then let them loose with the rest). Then we do a 'Christmas light switch on' at home.

Stockings always have an orange (DH family tradition) and chocolate coins (my family tradition) at the bottom.

Our DC are still little so our traditions are still evolving. We tried leaving out the mince pie/sherry/carrot for Santa last year but they weren't very engaged with it so I'm not sure whether that's a keeper. We don't do Christmas Eve boxes currently and I'm determined never to do Elf on the shelf!! I would say create traditions that you enjoy yourself, don't get stuck doing things that you find a bit of a pain just because you think you should or because you think everyone else is doing it. DC will be excited if you are excited!

On Christmas Eve, just before bed, I always read The Night before Christmas by the light of the candles on a chocolate log, which we all demolished afterwards..........I know, cake just before bed! 😱

I thought this we a solo tradition until I read ‘we’ 😄 I was about to pinch your idea!

When DS was little we:
Visited Santa
Left out mince pie, milk and a carrot
Tracked Santa on norad on xmas eve
Listened out for reindeer bells (grandpa in the garage shaking bells)
Got a PNP video message from Santa (personalised and very convincing)
Made our own Christmas decorations to add to the tree
Go to the village lights switch on
Read "the night before christmas" at bedtime on xmas eve
DS always put the star on the top of the tree

Now he's 12 (and a full on teenager) we:
Still read "the night before christmas" at bedtime on xmas eve
DS still always puts the star on the top of the tree
Go to the village lights switch on
Decorate a gingerbread house then smash it up and scoff it while watching a Christmas movie
Watch Home Alone every year.
Buy a new decoration to add to the tree
Drive round to see the neighbourhood christmas lights

On Christmas morning we get up and unwrap presents, DS eats a chocolate Santa for breakfast, usually followed by noodles. We put a bit of tinsel on the dogs and take them to the beach, then we see wider family for presents, food and games.

I love Christmas 🤗

Probably not until she's older although it could be adjusted with sponge cake but our yule cake is fruit cake made in two halves, a light half made with yellow sultanas, almonds, cherries and white sugar etc and the other half is dark, made with currents, raisins, brown sugar and treacle. It's to celebrate going from the dark of the old year to the light of the new as it's the winter equinox.

There's no way of knowing what colour you will get when you cut into it but we have done this in our family for many many years and it brings a little of the pagan back.

I love Christmas and start to think about it from midsummer onwards. : )