Christmas traditions with teens

[Lovelyautumncolours]

Inspired by another thread I'm wondering what traditions you have with your young teens over the Christmas period now they don't believe. Interested in things you do together as a family (that gets them out of their bedrooms)

Mine are adults now but once they stopped believing nothing else changed really.
Stockings left out and filled by me, sometimes a challenge when they went through a phase of being up much later than me. They would still grab the stocking and bring into our bed to open.
presents left under the tree but no-one goes in living room until after breakfast.

The only tricky bit is when they want to stay in bed late but we compromise and agree a rough time that everyone is happy with.

Go out together to choose the tree! Watch old Christmas movies and TV shows. Not much other defines - the day runs as it always did.

I don't mean Christmas Day I mean in the Christmas hols before the actual day. Our Christmas Day is the same as it always was.

I struggled with this but it just sort of evolved and everyone was still happy!

Ds likes to cook, so we made sweets, fudge whatever and watched Christmas films on the weekends or the days leading to Christmas

he helped me wrap the presents for younger DS stocking

we did a food bank shop and delivered it

we volunteered for a local charity in how they were supporting families at Christmas

bought a tree and decorated it

still did a few crafts

took him shopping to buy gifts that he wanted to give and had a massive festive hot chocolate in costa

Surely you still do similar things? I still went to panto, theatre, ice skating, carols etc as a teen. Decorate the tree. watch movies My mum still does us a little stocking!

We did things like film nights, board games night, Christmas music, putting decorations up, some craft and photography things for grandparents, visits to the Panto and to concerts in the nearby city.
We used to have a Chinese meal on the first night of the school hols.

We still go to the ballet or the panto, have advent calendars, Christmas bedding for December. Carols at our Minster with some food somewhere beforehand. Decorate the tree together with a Christmassy picnic and a film on. Go to our local NT place for carols by floodlight. Stockings in bed, presents before lunch.

Not much has changed really.

Forgot about board game nights, going to a local English Heritage place to do a walk with all the lights and panto/a show.

I suppose we still do lots of Christmassy things - advent calendars, still have the getting the tree tradition, booked a Christmas lights trail. Eldest is a no for panto but I'm thinking I'm going to get her there anyway (oh yes I will!). We did Board games during Christmas lockdown and that was fun so I need to reinstate that.

I have just seen lots of Christmas events on fb that are no longer suitable but there's still lots of fun to be had with teens (and glad no-one's mentioned Winter Wonderland!)

I'm liking the idea of a Chinese takeaway at the start of the school hols - that will go down well!

Maybe not the kind of thing you're looking for, but we do a secret Santa for stockings. We give the kids an allowance to complete it. They had to research/shop/wrap the entire thing. The stocking exchange was possibly the best bit of their Christmas! Plus it saves me having to complete everyone's stockings by myself. Win win

I love this idea - they will love the shopping (with my money!) and the secret Santa bit and yes to less presents for me to buy and wrap!

They took over tree decoration, mulled non alcoholic punch, progressed to mulled wine by mid teens. Making truffles for gifts and to eat. Added more evenings out rather than daytime stuff

So far I only have one teen (15yo DS) so trying to work this out myself! I also have a tween DD (11) and a 5yo DD who is obviously full of the excitement of being a believer, so it's quite tough getting the balance right!

We've always done a pre-Christmas ice skating trip which has been loved by all. But last year, DS did tell me that he doesn't mind coming but it's not really 'his thing' which is a bit sad.

We have a wonderful light trail near us that we've been to for the past couple of years and doing this year too. That I can definitely see sticking for years to come.

We live on the outskirts of London and we like to go into the city to see the Christmas lights and the shop fronts of some of the designer stores which are incredible!

One-to-one Christmas shopping trips with them to choose gifts for the others. That's one of my favourite things to do actually and usually involves lunch out.

We always do a gingerbread house 'bake-off' on Christmas Eve - split into two teams and bake one each. The best one gets the honour of staying on display over Christmas; the other one gets smashed up and eaten for pud! More often than not, they're both utterly awful though 😂

We always have a Swiss cheese fondue on Christmas Eve - that's one from my childhood!

Watching Christmas films. Playing board games. Winter walks to collect bits for a wreath. Wreath-making. Santa visit for little one - older DD still likes to come too but DS doesn't. We tend to try and go to see a show or something around New Year. Doesn't always happen though - sometimes it ends up being the cinema instead!

Still do usual things with whoever is around like going to forest to choose tree.

We've done a family secret santa and put the gifts on the table as place tags to open at lunch time. It does mean I have to buy another present!

Gathering greenery and making wreath for door and garland for stairs.

Bucks fizz for breakfast Christmas day with more or less orange juice depending on age.

Cocktail/ mocktail night

Games night at home

Play cards in pub

Walk on boxing day

Mulled cider or wine with firepit if cold and dry bit not too cold.

That's a lot of alcoholic things for a family that doesn't drunk much. 😳

Advent calendar
Filled boot and small gift for St. Nikolaus
Christmas market visit in Germany every other year
Buying a tree and having mince pies/hot chocolate at the garden center cafe
Light walk
Christmas Carol concert
Ice skating
Watching Nativity at least once

It hasn't really changed since DD stopped believing, we just carry on.

It hasn't changed much for us really, we stopped going to see Santa in his grotto obviously and its nice not to have to remember to fib about stockings.

So we do
Light trail
Cut our own tree at a Christmas tree farm
Carol concert
Panto
Make gingerbread houses
Deliver cards to neighbours
Go to the pub on Christmas Eve once the prep for the next day is done
Put out carrots, mince pies and a drink for Santa on the fireplace
Stockings on beds

In the run up to Christmas, we all get to pick a Christmas themed programme from a series like Modern Family, Ghosts etc and we watch one or two a night as the Christmas week draws on.
On Christmas Eve we tend to go for a walk to look at local lights, it could be a paid entrance or just looking at local houses that have pushed the boat out - we grab a takeaway hot drink from Costa and walk along with it. Mind you, due to lack of cold Christmases we end up quite hot and bothered by the time we get home 😁

Def. going to choose the tree. Our dds always did with dh - and would invariably come back with some huge thing that meant we had to shift the furniture around to make a space, and dh would have to saw at least a foot off the bottom. And it’d still touch the ceiling.
I wasn’t ‘allowed’ to go with them, because I’d be ‘boring’ and press for a more reasonable size!

They still always had stockings - it’s the law in this house for everyone to have one, regardless of age.