7 Intentional, Simple Christmas Traditions to do with Kids
Christmas can be a beautiful time of year to focus on intentional and simple traditions, such as:
- Advent Readings
- Holiday Baking
- Writing Notes
- Decorating
- Eating Food
- Family Time
- Outdoor Fun
What are easy, sustainable, cheap and intentional Christmas traditions?
Christmas is a busy time of year, and the last thing we parents need is to exhaust ourselves with trying to make memories that ruin our December budget!
So if you’re looking for simple, cheap, easy traditions to implement into your family, I’ve got some ideas for you.
We’re a family with four young kids (6 years, 4 years, 2 years, and 5 months, as of this writing), and we are all about simple, meaningful traditions that are also cheap and sustainable.
And ideally, relatively healthy!
So making sugar cookies together or decorating gingerbread houses is NOT on this list because, frankly, I get stressed over that much powdered sugar and that long of a process. And we definitely don’t need that much sugar around to be eaten!
Don’t get me wrong, some years I do make sugar cookies with the kids, but it is not a tradition I want to emphasize and therefore need to repeat each year!
So these are my healthy, simple, wholesome, SLOW Christmas traditions that we do with our kids. But just to encourage you, we don’t necessarily do ALL of them EVERY year.
If it sounds daunting for you, don’t stress! These are just things we come back to and talk about together. I hope it’s a good idea-generating list for you and your family.
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Christmas Tradition #1: Advent Reading + Weekly Advent Challenge
This tradition requires the most advanced planning because Advent starts several weeks before Christmas. So this is the first tradition we start each season as we approach Christmas.
Last year we read Shadow and Light: A Journey Into Advent by Tsh Oxenreider at dinner time each night. I plan to read the same book this year.
We love the interactive aspect of listening to music and viewing art each reading.
For our weekly advent challenge, I utilize some of the other Christmas traditions to help with that. I love opening gifts, but I like to enjoy and savor the process.
So to bring that aspect of savoring into our Advent tradition, I put together four “advent challenges” (or sometimes it’s more of an experience) into little boxes. Then I wrap the boxes up in wrapping paper, and we keep them on the window sill near our stove.
Each Sunday of Advent, we open one of the little boxes so we know what challenge we are completing during the week.
This year, baking something with cinnamon will be one of the challenges. And writing notes of encouragement will be another challenge.
We will probably also go to a Christmas music concert or live music of some kind. And we’ll go view Christmas lights one evening. Those will be our four Advent challenges to open and participate in.
Marking Advent is a beautiful time to slow down and create memories together as a family. It’s become one of our favorite Christmas traditions.
Christmas Tradition #2: Make + Giving Away Something Cinnamon Flavored
Cinnamon Rolls, Cinnamon Swirl Bread, Cinnamon Maple Brown Sugar Focaccia, Cinnamon Cookies, Snickerdoodle Cookies, Cinnamon Flavored Granola, even Hot Cocoa Powder with Cinnamon…
There are plenty of options, and we adapt each year to make it work for us! But cinnamon is the flavor of Christmas, in my mind, so we like to make SOMEthing with cinnamon in it.
And then we give it away! I like to use this themed-baking for Christmas gifts for our family friends.
The kids usually help me with some aspect of this process. When I’m ambitious, I’ll let them do the baking with me – particularly the mixing.
If I am not ambitious (or I’m running behind and I’m doing baking a night after their bedtime as Christmas approaches), I have them help me package the gifts up, draw little Christmas-y tags, and deliver the baked goods or hand them out on Christmas day.
However it unfolds, it is fun to have something tangible and registering with multiple senses (smelling, tasting, touching, etc) to mark the Christmas season. Making something with cinnamon in it is an easy, fun way to participate in Christmas baking traditions.
Christmas Tradition #3: Write Notes of Encouragement + Place in Hanging Socks
We have our kids choose a sock (one of their own socks). I use command hooks to hang them near the stove and near the advent challenge gifts.
Then we plan a time (after Breakfast on a sabbath, or after dinner on a slow evening) and we help the kids write notes of encouragement to each other. Each person writes a note to every other person in the family.
Since most of our kids can’t actually read or write (and one of them can’t talk yet!), Gabe and I serve as scribes to write what the kids say.
Usually their notes are very simple, sometimes just one sentence long. But we try to write exactly what they say!
They get excited to have come up with something special for their siblings and parents. And I love the fact that this Christmas tradition helps reinforce kind words and encouragement among my children.
The notes get folded up and stuck into the appropriate person’s sock. And then we open the socks on Christmas morning in lieu of stockings.
Christmas Tradition #4: Felt Christmas Tree Decorating + Carmel Corn
Since we live in a small space, we don’t get an actual Christmas tree (real or otherwise). But we do have a felt Christmas tree with felt velcro-on ornaments that we hang on the back of a door.
So our decorating process is VERY simple! To elongate this tradition a little, I have the kids help me make microwave caramel corn first.
Once the caramel corn is made, we turn on some Christmas music and all sit on the floor around the caramel corn. Then each kid takes turns choosing an ornament from the stack and velcro-ing it onto the felt Christmas tree.
Usually we start with the youngest (mobile) kid, and work our way up to the oldest. The older ones tend to get really into cheering on the younger ones.
All total, this tradition takes about 20-30 minutes. I tend to do it the week leading up to Christmas. It is extremely simple, but maybe because it is so simple, it has become a much-loved Christmas tradition for our family.
Christmas Tradition #5: Christmas Eve Fondue Dinner
My kids enjoy dipping things, and the Christmas tradition of fondue dinner on Christmas Eve allows them to dip to their heart’s content!
We aren’t sticklers on the exact date – sometimes it is December 24th, sometimes it is the 23rd or 22nd – but in the few days leading up to Christmas, we make a way to fit in a fondue family dinner.
This tradition was born out of a desire to make Christmas traditions for our household that were different than any of the traditions Gabe and I grew up with. Since we live overseas from our families right now, we didn’t want to try to replace or duplicate a family tradition from “home,” just create a new, special tradition.
The menu is typically quite simple – roasted potatoes and cubes of bread, along with a handful of raw or slightly steamed vegetables. Fondue is most complicated part of the meal, but even that isn’t too hard.
We didn’t use an actual fondue pot until last year when some new neighbors kindly loaned us theirs. Previously, we just served the fondue out of the pot we made it in.
Since we have small kids, no meal is ever extremely drawn out, so it worked just fine to dip fondue out of the pot and not have a way to keep the cheese melty.
We usually dress up in something red or green, and listen to some Christmas music while we have dinner. Chocolate fondue is not usually on the menu these days, but we do like to have ice cream afterward!
Christmas Tradition #6: Family Sleepover + Book Reading in the Living Room
We keep white Christmas lights up in our living room all year round. So at Christmas, we take advantage of our all-the-time decor and pretend it is something specifically Christmas-y!
It isn’t usually on Christmas Eve (I want maximum sleep before the fun and celebrations of Christmas day!), but sometime during the week before or the week after Christmas, we have a family sleepover in the living room.
We turn on the Christmas lights, and we pull out our read-aloud book.
Everyone climbs into their own bed (we drag all the mattresses out to the living room, which makes our living room wall to wall mattresses). And we read our book until my voice goes hoarse!
Last year we read The Wind in the Willows. Someday in the future, I want to read A Christmas Carol.
For now, it’ll probably be whatever we happen to be reading at the time. But the story itself doesn’t matter so much.
What matters is the thrill of reading as late as we want, and then the novelty of all falling asleep in the living room. Apparently it is so fun, it’s become one of my kids’ most requested Christmas traditions!
Christmas Tradition #7: Boxing Day Outdoor Time
Our tradition of spending the day after Christmas outside started when Gabe and I were first married. After spending Christmas Eve with one side of our family, and Christmas day with the other side, we decided we needed a third day for the two of us to plan something special and fun.
So we began packing a picnic lunch and taking a small hike on December 26th. At the time (in the northern hemisphere), it was usually a short hike because the days were short and cold!
Here in New Zealand, since it is several weeks into beautiful summer, we have developed the day into an opportunity to either head to the beach with friends, or take our kids for a longer hike and picnic lunch.
We love spending the time outside, enjoying the beautiful country we live in and enjoying our family.
I imagine that if we were in the northern hemisphere, this tradition might look more like puddle stomping and then coming home to drink hot cocoa! But either way, it always feels good to get outside, especially after rich holiday meals.
Spending Boxing Day outside has become one of my most treasured Christmas traditions because it means I leave the house and the to-do lists I have there and focus on making memories and spending time with my husband and kids.
I hope some of these ideas are helpful for you as you consider how to prioritize and focus your energy in the Christmas season. Let me know in the comments below if you’re going to try any of them, or if you have other longstanding Christmas traditions you enjoy with your family.