How to make Christmas exciting again?

[BluebellBeth]

My children are all teens or young adults now. I know they're missing the excitement Christmas used to bring with new toys to open and build, new bikes etc to get out and ride on. I remember having a few 'blah' years between growing up and having my own kids where christmas didn't have the same sparkle anymore.

What do you do to keep the excitement? None of them want to bake, getting out can be an issue as one is autistic and hates the crowds so that makes a lot of xmas activities challenging. We try and do Christmas movie nights which can be hit and miss and the day itself just feels a bit flat now too.

I know it sounds a bit "worthy" but the best way to bring the excitement back is to get them more involved in organising. I remember that feeling of it being less exciting as we got older, but then we started buying presents for our parents and each other, cooking something interesting, making/buying decorations, thinking of outings/activities, etc. It brought back the fun and we finally understood why our mum was more interested in watching us open our presents than opening her own!

I’d not think you do. You get to the stage where everyone is so busy that it’s lovely just to come together. We play board games at Christmas and there is much fun attached to that. What we will play, who will team up, who will take down who and so on is discussed throughout the year.

All that 'exciting' stuff is for kids. When they are no longer kids, they don't need the excitement. Trouble is, our kids' excitement was what made it exciting for us!

My DDs are 21 and 18 now and I can honestly say Christmas has stayed exciting! We still pretend Santa has been 😂 They still have stockings, we have a lovely breakfast together and visit family and play games. The only change now is the content of the stockings! It’s obviously different to having 2 little children but I can honestly say it still feels pretty magical

Are they happy with what they're doing at Christmas (as happy as teens ever are!) Personally I hated forced fun with my parents when I was a teenager and so did my own son at that age. He enjoyed Christmas dinner and maybe a board game. But realistically he wanted to get back to his bedroom and play his new computer games or just generally do his own thing. I think you need to manage expectations and realise they're at a different stage in life now. Unless of course they're actually asking you to create some sort of excitement.

At that age we started having a lot of fun with family boardgames.

Agreed.

My tip is lots of games.

Go to Thailand instead

We'd host a cocktail competition in the evening (can be mocktails) and everyone designs a drink which we would pair with snacks and play boardgames. Totally transformed it into an adult event and gave us fun memories! We're at the other end, as it will be our first Christmas with baba this year!

I'm known in my family for hating all games..

I have young teens and we've been going away for Christmas for the past four years. We all absolutely love it.

It’s less about excitement at this age and more about the lovely traditions you create - so for my family it’s going by to church, decorating the tree, making the traditional food and deciding what to watch on TV (programming the skybox to record is a highlight of my Christmas planning!)

I never got tired of doing these same lovely things.

We don’t go away at Xmas but do go away on 28th till 3rd Jan - usually Sweden or Vienna or somewhere cold and often snowy , but not skiing- I look forward to this more than Xmas!!

Watching this thread closely. I have 2 adult DC (30-ish) who both left home a decade ago, and the Christmas magic in our home is almost non existent. No matter how much decorations and lights I put up, and Christmassy things I organise, like Christmas markets, panto, Christingle, carol service etc, I never get that 'excited' feeling now...

I LOVED Christmas when they were little - well up to late teens actually, as they lived at home, and both loved Christmas (and DH and I do.) But they do their own thing with their partner(s) and friends now, and we just see them for an hour or two on Christmas Eve or Christmas day around midday. (We have no grandchildren, and they don't seem to be in any hurry to have children, which is fine as it's their life.) But it would be so lovely to see grandchildren getting excited for Christmas!

I really want to get some Christmas magic and excitement back.

We do a practice Christmas dinner in December.. mainly because we are vegan and each year we like to try all the turkey substitutes,and then decide which ones to have over Christmas
We do the main Christmas meal on Christmas day ..another Christmas meal on boxing day ,with different mains and sides ,and the practice Christmas dinner in December.
We also do a new year's day dinner ..all with crackers and dessert and cheese and biscuits.
We always watch a Christmas film together after the food ,or if someone got a dvd we watch that together
There's usually a Christmas lights trail somewhere to go to as well

For me, the first part is accepting that it won't be the same, and not trying to force it to be.

I remember trying to covince myself that out adult Christmas was "just as good!!" And then kids came back into the family, and we realized it just wasn't...

But that is perfectly ok. Life floss and ebs and some things are more exciting and then less.

Don't try and force your family into a Christmas idea, just make the idea that suits your family.. and now with all older kids and adults, the idea is different.

For us, our parties became more grown up, more games, more drinking for those that could, more adult type activities, and it was great. Not the same, not as magical, but still Christmas.

we do a christmas light trail, one year we did a xmas escape room, christmas shopping,
The day itself we normally have a between 2-8 family members come to stay xmas eve to boxing day so its lots of chatting, board games and food/drink and often someone over for new year.
One year we watched lots of 80's movies in the period between xmas and new year. We do love a board game though so its mainly just chilling, eating choc and playing games. DD will be back from her first term at uni so that will be nice.

Maybe this counts as 'forced fun', but at a recent Christmas my BIL ordered a bag of tiny plastic Santas and hid them all over the house. We came down on Christmas morning to the hunt as a surprise. It was unexpected and really lovely, maybe not 'magical' but made you feel like a kid again!

My two DD’s are early 20’s now but we still make sure to make it fun it’s just different! One year we went to see a Xmas show on Xmas eve. We did dinner and cocktails once. We do the Christmas Olympics (series of silly games you can play against each other-lots of ideas on TikTok etc) painting each other was a lot of fun (canvas and paints from the works so inexpensive for an activity). This year we’re spending Xmas with friends in a cottage by the beach. Lots of board games, we seek out new movies and have movie nights, I still treat them like kids. I have pots and make pic n mix selections and have little paper bags and also boxes for popcorn. They may be grown up but they love doing kids stuff like this!!

What board games do you all play? Trying to get my family into them (teen boys) and they aren't interested. Need some recommendations

Last year we decided to make the stockings secret Santa style, each person pulled a name out of a hat and it was their job to fill a stocking. The teens really enjoyed doing it and I got a stocking for the first time.

I am trying to think of more ways like this to change things up a bit.

I feel the same, DD is 6 so still magical, DS11 likes baking and organising gifts, but DS14, autistic, has difficulties with food and emotions and also doesn’t like outdoors, or crowds. He used to happily sit and build the big Lego sets he’d get given as gifts, but he hasn’t wanted those for a couple of years now. Board games - someone always ends up in tears. We had a nice time last year, but the year before was awful. And DS14 mentioned the previous year that it didn’t feel magical

Seem to me that after a certain age, once out of childhood, Christmas isn't necessarily about excitement, but rather about contentment and appreciation of family.

There is a card game called ‘The Mind’ that we played last Xmas and everyone loved it! Teens. Adults, grandparents! Easy, very simple idea but we all had a great time.

Can you look at outings at quieter times? Not sure about near you but here the local cinema shows classic Christmas films throughout December.
A year or so ago I went to watch Home Alone with a friend on a random weekday afternoon and we were the only ones there.

Also, I’m early 40s now and my sister is a bit younger. We still go to DMs every year at the start of December. She cooks a Christmas dinner, Christmas crockery, music, crackers, the works.
We help her decorate the tree but we (me, dsis and now the kids) have mission to make the small tree in the kitchen garish and to sneak random stuff on it because dm is a strict red and gold decs only person.
Every year she is pretend horrified by the tree and spends all of December huffing in despair at how awful it is.
Dsis and I still enjoy this even though it’s nonsense. As teens we would hide empty booze bottles and nightclub wristbands on it. Now it’s random costume jewellery/keyrings etc.

The other thing I remember enjoying as I got older was being part of the ‘adult’ crowd. Being part of the chaos of prepping and cooking, the music and busyness of the kitchen, laying the table etc, and especially pouring the wine.

None of that sounds like magic but it’s what Christmas feels like for me now. It can’t be the same as the dc ht older but you can enjoy it in different ways.