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August 7, 2021

8 Christmas Traditions to Start as a Family

It’s that time of the year when every family gets excited about their annual fun family Christmas Traditions that they get to do together. Check out our 8 tried and true traditions to do each year as a family during the Christmas Holidays.

What are some family Christmas Traditions?

These are fun and family friendly activities to do during the holidays. These family activities can bring a family closer together and help every be reminded of the real reason of Christmas. It’s not just about presents, gifts and cookies- although those are fun things to eat, wrap and give to each other.

It’s all about getting your family together and enjoying some much-needed family time. WIth all the unknowns in the world, why not choose to spend this holiday season making more family Christmas memories that can last a lifetime.

I highly recommend that this also be electronic free time too. Yes, I mean no cell phones, tablets or iPads- through the majority of the ideas. 

Check out these awesome 8 Family Christmas Traditions to start this holiday season. We have fun ways to enjoy spending family time together during the holidays. Find out these fun ideas to do together with a family of all ages during Christmas. Find these fun things to do in December

Fun Family Christmas Traditions

24 days of Christmas books

This is quite a simple process and idea. You celebrate the 24 days leading up to Christmas by reading as a family each night. Head to your local store and buy 24 family books.

They can be about anything, but, I have seen most of the people I have talked to about this, buy Christmas themed books.

We hope that opening up a present each night will help get our young children to understand the concept of presents and what to do with them.

Anyway, you get 24 “new” books and wrap them up each individually. Each night a family member gets to open one up and read it aloud to the rest of the group.

We hit our local consignment shop for books on the regular. I highly recommend that you check them out before going out and buy brand new ones.

For Small Business Saturday, our favorite consignment shop had all children’s books priced at a QUARTER a piece on year!

Yup, you read that right- only a quarter. I’m not gonna lie, Caroline and I were the first 2 people in the store. I had her strapped to me in our FAVORITE carrier (learn more here) and we went to town.

I have also found that you can buy used books on Amazon.

Don’t forget about your Prime Membership– Try Amazon Prime 30-Day Free Trial and using your Ebates!

House lit up with Christmas light decorations.

Pajama Drive to See the Lights

So this is pretty self explanatory. Everybody hops in their favorite pajamas with a mug of hot cocoa and you go for a ride through your neighborhood and surrounding neighborhoods if necessary.

You get to see what all of your neighbors have been up to this year and you get to find the house with the most extravagant decorations.

Don’t worry, we are working on becoming that house year after year 🙂

Christmas is our favorite time of the year in the Sharp household.

If you’re looking for some cool decorations, check these out!

I love the outdoor decorations, you can find them all over.

Santa in a Christmas Parade- a fun family christmas tradition

Find local Annual festivities

Grab your local paper or newsletter and check out the events going on in your area. Every year our small town has the Centreville Christmas Parade.

We are extremely proud to have it as it is the longest Christmas Parade in the state of Maryland!

We are so excited to go to it each year.

All the stores, schools, event groups and clubs around our area and some throughout the state participate and create floats to show.

I know in our “relative” area, we have the ICE show at the National Harbor.

It’s a neat event to take the kids to see each year. Another one we love to see is the Lights on the Bay.

You can actually see them each time we drive across the Bay Bridge to head to the Western Shore.

I have seen a LONG line each year for people waiting to get inside them. They’re really pretty and they’ve put a lot of time and effort into those decorations.

Fun ideas like this can be found all over the place- I’m sure of it.

Watch a Christmas Family Movie

Each night of December, leading up to Christmas, as a kid, I remember picking out a movie and heading to my parents bedroom.

I’d curl up on their bedroom floor and we would all watch a different movie each night.

Most nights ended with mom snoring before the movie credits.

But, it was something that we did every year and it is something that I cherish and love to reminisce on about my childhood.

Check out our 25 Days of Christmas Countdown: Disney Movie Edition for all the best Christmas Disney movies.

Now a days you can just check out Hulu or Netflix and find tons of Christmas movies to watch together.

Some of our favorite Christmas Movies are:

  • The Original Christmas Collection (like the rudolph, snow man, etc)
  • The Grinch
  • Santa Clause Collection
  • Polar Express
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Volunteer at a local Secret Santa Workshop

I remember a local business turned into a Santa Workshop every year.

One year in particular, I remember this clearly because quite a few people I trained with at my martial arts school got together and we went and volunteered and wrapped gifts.

It was nice to give back to the community and feel involved as a group.

This would be a great activity for a family to do together. If you can’t find a workshop, look for churches or places that are donating gifts to families.

You can “adopt” a family and shop for the gifts for that family together.

Giving back this time of year brings extra special cheer to your life.

Advent Calendars

They make these in so many shapes and sizes now. It’s easy to find different ones for whatever will fit your family. Growing up, my mom got the chocolate advent calendars.

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Each day I got to open up a new little door of the calendar and get my yummy disgusting piece of chocolate. It was a tradition and I loved it, no matter the chocolate taste.

But, I know my mom has done the Lego Advent Calendar with my brother and I know for sure there are other cool ideas out there. This year we have one of the chocolate calendars “for Caroline”… who am I kidding- it’s for Dave and I!

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They make these in every shape and size. If you have a family full of teenage girls, you can use this 12 days of Christmas make up set from Ulta!

Check out all the other fun advent calendar ideas for the whole family!

Check out these awesome 8 Family Christmas Traditions to start this holiday season. We have fun ways to enjoy spending family time together during the holidays. Find out these fun ideas to do together with a family of all ages during Christmas. Find these fun things to do in December

Present Ball

I’ve seen this done throughout the year for various holidays. This is such a cute idea.

It has made it’s viral way around Pinterest and TikTok surely, you can find it there somewhere for ideas like it.

Head to your local store, buy a few small little gifts, simple things like hand lotion, chapstick, fidgit spinners, packages of gum, tic tags, gift cards etc.

Then you wrap them all up in a ball of cling wrap basically.

You keep the more exciting gifts towards the middle and spread the others out randomly. One person starts unwrapping while the next person is rolling the dice trying to get doubles.

Once they hit doubles, your turn is over and you pass the ball around and get to unwrap it.

If you get to a present in that time, you get to keep it. I have heard some families get really into this little game. Sounds like a fun time to me!

Christmas Card Supplies.

Christmas Cards and Newsletter

Sit down as a family and write our your Christmas cards together. This is a top family Christmas Tradition for me.

I had a couple of family members and friends who would include a little personal newsletter with each card every year.

I’m going to be completely honest here- those were the cards I was excited to get from the mailbox!!!!

I wanted to see what everybody has been up to throughout the year.

Just grab your family, your laptop and get to sharing the exciting events that went on that year.

Share where you went on vacation, any awards the kids got, any exciting news like graduation, learning a new skill, sport achievements, life goals, etc.

This brings all of your family together to look back on all of the things they accomplished that year.

You can also use this time for each person to write their goals for the next year. It’s a great family bonding experience.

What are 5 fun family Christmas Traditions?

This is a bonus section of fun family holiday traditions to start this year:

  • Create homemade ornaments like Straw Christmas Trees
  • Make some homemade Christmas Dunkaroo Dip
  • Make some homemade Mickey Mouse Gingerbread Cookies
  • Go through a couple family advent calendars
  • Read the Christmas Story from the Bible
  • Try some of these fun Christmas games

These are just a few ideas for you to get your family to do things together this holiday season.

I could write for days and share even more fun things to do together, but, I’d love to hear what your holiday family traditions are in the comments below?

Are you ready for the holidays? Do you need gift ideas for the female teens or preteens in your life?

No worries, we have you covered. We even have a post on educational and developmental gift ideas for the babies and toddlers on your list!

Have any new moms or moms to be to buy for? We have an Amazon only gift post idea and gift ideas in general for them.

Christmas tradition idea pinsl

Merry Christmas!
Happy Holidays- whatever you celebrate- celebrate as a family.

Filed Under: Parenting Victoria 18 Comments

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Comments

  1. Miranda says

    December 8, 2017 at 12:16 pm

    I love the idea of reading a different Christmas book each night. So much fun to read new and cherished book!

    Reply
  2. Nat says

    December 8, 2017 at 8:33 pm

    These are great ideas!
    At our workplace we used to do the adopt a family fundraiser but didn’t do anything this year ? I am not sure why as it has always been such an exciting time…

    Reply
  3. Bri says

    December 14, 2017 at 1:53 pm

    I love this list. We do a lot of these things already and have so much fun with it. The gift ball is new to me. I was introduced to “Pass the parcel” – an English game last year that is similar but each gift is wrapped in it’s own layer of wrapping. I think my kids would love it.

    Reply
    • onesharpmamablog@gmail.com says

      December 14, 2017 at 5:38 pm

      That sounds like a fun idea too! I’ll have to check it out. I have already started a second post of fun traditions for next year! As soon as I posted this, I had friends share even more fun ideas my way. So, I need to check out this Pass the Parcel!!! <3

      Reply
  4. Jenn JG says

    December 15, 2017 at 11:21 am

    I really like how you included volunteering in there. I think it is so important to get your kids into giving back at Christmas and all year round! Also love the pajama drive, going to have to do that since we have a very decorated neighborhood!

    Reply
  5. ERIN says

    December 15, 2017 at 2:26 pm

    These are all such great ideas! One of my favorites is the pajama drive to see the lights!

    Reply
  6. Tiffany Barry says

    December 16, 2017 at 2:53 pm

    Such amazing ideas! I love the present ball XD We’ll be doing that for sure.

    Reply
  7. Anna says

    December 16, 2017 at 8:24 pm

    I love this kind of idea. We do the drive through our neighborhood to see lights.

    Reply
  8. Shanika says

    December 16, 2017 at 10:25 pm

    I love your post! Such great ideas! I definitely want to do the 24 days of Christmas book reading with my little one. Thanks for sharing!

    Reply
  9. Courtney Kramer says

    November 16, 2018 at 9:21 am

    I’m excited to start some of these traditions with our daughter this year. She’s only one but it will be fun to get some books to start reading to her about Christmas.

    Reply
  10. Jen says

    November 16, 2018 at 11:09 am

    We definitely share some of these traditions, but I do love the idea of getting in pajamas when we see the lights.

    Reply
  11. Yolanda says

    November 16, 2018 at 12:04 pm

    I love this time if year and you have such good ideas. The present ball sounds fun. That would also be great at a party for the kids to – or an adult party! I’m also a huge fan of advent calendars and Christmas movie nights 🙂

    Reply
  12. Wendy Wallace says

    November 16, 2018 at 3:07 pm

    You’ve got some really great ideas. We always watch Christmas movies and give pajamas for Christmas eve. I’m still trying to go to see the decorations. They have a huge display at the race track which is an hour away and by night time nobody really wants to drive that far to see them, but this year I’m committed. You’ve inspired me.

    Reply
  13. ShootingStarsMag says

    November 16, 2018 at 4:31 pm

    Great ideas. I love that whole 24 days of books. I think I’d do that if I had kids! And you can’t go wrong with watching a fun, Christmas movie.

    -Lauren

    Reply
  14. Jennifer Love says

    November 16, 2018 at 8:48 pm

    I’ve never heard of that present ball idea! That might be fun to mix with the Advent idea, wrapping up 25 little gifts. Thanks for these ideas!

    Reply
  15. Lara says

    November 16, 2018 at 9:47 pm

    I love all of these ideas! I’ll definitely keep them in mind when I have kids. 🙂

    Reply
  16. Amber says

    November 18, 2018 at 10:15 am

    These are all great Christmas traditions! I will have to say that the present ball is my favorite! They’re so much fun for any occasion!

    Reply
  17. Adiga vincent says

    November 21, 2018 at 11:48 am

    Very nice ideas. I look forward to enjoy Christmas with my family, thanks a lot.

    Reply

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Hey, I’m Victoria Sharp!

A wife to a fairytale husband and a mama to 2 princesses and 1 prince. Sharing anything and everything I can to make parenting life easier.

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