Favourite Christmas traditions?

[Gerbera55]

This year will be my baby’s first Christmas - they’ll only be 4 months old so I’m not expecting magic but I’d like to think of some traditions to start. Something we already do is to each write a favourite memory for the year on some paper which we then put into a glass bauble. When we decorate the tree, we look through the memories from previous years.

I’ve ordered a personalised Christmas blanket which I want to use for a family Christmas film night each year, we can definitely start that from this year seeing as I spend a lot of time on the sofa contact napping!

What traditions do you and your family have that you love?

Being off work!

When the dses were kids, we started a tradition of sitting and reading T’Was The Night Before Christmas by candlelight, then reading the Christmas story and singing a carol before they went to bed - it calmed them down a bit so they went to sleep a bit quicker.

This thread might be helpful OP

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/christmas/5413187-christmas-traditions?page=2&reply=147344691

Those sound lovely.

For me, we had a lot of existing traditions, so when my son was born I was a bit skeptical of adding too many more and overloading the festival. I have snuck in a couple though, and the one I enjoy the most is writing a Christmas morning "story" from santa.

I stole the idea from Tolkien who rote letters from santa to his grandkids, containing amazing fantasy stories (you can buy the book of his letters) and since then every year I've wrote a letter containing a little story from the perspective of santa in the north pole. Normally it also contains something he is interested in. This year he is really into monsters, so it will be some snow-monster causing trouble for the elves or something similar.

I tie the letter to the bottom of his bed, and when he wakes up he finds it, runs to our bed, and we cuddle up and read the story together.

We always bake cookies on Christmas eve for Father Christmas. Also on Christmas eve we have a walk in the forest and then watch a Christmas movie in our pyjamas.
In the run up I do my own advent calendar for dd (one that I sewed myself) and we usually see a show or ballet.
We also do the reverse foodbank advent calendar and a shoebox gift, I get dd to help with buying things for these so she remembers that some children aren't as fortunate as her.

One of my favourites that I’ve seen some of my mum friends do is a Christmas book advent calendar - stock up on Christmas books (charity shops, second hand etc) and every night in December read a different Christmas story together. You could add some twists like always having them in the same order, having a particularly special one for Christmas Eve etc.

My tip as someone who had a baby of a similar age as yours last year would be not to put too much pressure on having a perfect Christmas. We did lots of lovely things in the run up, but kept the plan for the day really low key because babies can be so unpredictable and we didn’t want to put loads of effort into the day and then have her scream the whole time or something. As it was she was perfect all day and we could just enjoy all the lovely easy bits we’d got for our first Christmas as a family!

I'm so excited for my first Christmas with my DD!!!
I've seen some lovely ideas from Twinkl, my fave is 'paint a ceramic plate especially for Santa/Rudolph’s Christmas Eve treats... Personalise the plate with your baby’s name/handprint and bring it out in future years.'
There are lots of other ideas, including activities to do with the baby in the lead up to the big day!
https://www.twinkl.co.uk/resource/a-parent-guide-to-babys-first-christmas-on-a-budget-t-par-1665664910
Hope you have the best day as a new family! xxxx

When my 3DC were young we did the Christmas shoe box through their school for many years.

Over the early years, we collected lovely Christmas story books and they'd be put out by the fire place and we'd read those leading up to Christmas. They're all young adults now but we still put the books out!

When DS1 was born I bought a wooden advent calendar with little boxes and that has come out every year right up until they were late teens. When money was very tight during the 1st 10 years or so, we'd sometimes end up putting in 20p each or a vitamin in there - they laugh about that now.
I've also kept a journal since 2005 with 'turkey in time' and 'turkey out time', what went well, where I'd bought stuff from, menus and a whole heap of information and notes which is very funny to read back on.