10 Beautiful + Simple Character Education Activities to do at Christmas

The Christmas season can be a beautiful time to focus on simple, character education activities. This post details 10 simple, inexpensive ideas for intentionally teaching character at Christmas time:

1. To teach faith: Advent Reading
2. To encourage curiosity: Weekly Advent Challenge
3. To support generosity: Make Something to Give Away
4. To express encouragement and appreciation: Write Notes of Encouragement to Add to the Stockings in Your House
5. To reinforce the reward of work: Decorate the house and then enjoy a fun treat together
6. To build community within your household: plan and execute a special, unique dinner to eat together not on Christmas
7. To cultivate delight: go view Christmas lights
8. To experience the value of exercise and fresh air: undertake a Christmas scavenger hunt
9. To promote an appreciation of music: enjoy live Christmas music
10. To open an opportunity for awe and wonder: go star gazing

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Why Do You Include Character Education Activities at Christmas?

Christmas is an ideal time to teach some character education activities because people are so open to it.

Generosity is common, so people aren’t put off guard to receive generosity from our kids. A sense of community is also rich at Christmas time.

And there are plentiful culture-building opportunities with live music and artistic performances. Not to mention aspects of religion and faith that are essential to many people’s Christmas celebrations.

I find that Christmas time is already primed for teaching character education. As a parent seeking to live and model intentionality to my kids, I think it is a perfect time for honing in on some specific character building and character education activities.

This list is 10 ways that our family intentionally teaches character to our young children during the Christmas season. We don’t always do every single thing every year, but this are common ways we try to incorporate character education utilizing Christmas time opportunities.

2. To Encourage Curiosity: Participate in a Weekly Advent Challenge

In our home, an advent challenge is just a task or idea we write down, place inside a box, wrap up, and then open on Sunday nights during advent. They are things like “attend a Christmas concert” or “bake something for a friend.”

Advent challenges provide our family with an opportunity to unit around a common task or activity for the purpose of doing something outside of the ordinary. Sometimes it is even outside of our comfort zones.

The practice of having something to challenge us each week is a fun way to encourage our kids’ curiosity as each week we wait with some anticipation about what challenge we will have to “take on.”

Keeping something wrapped up and almost visible but not quite all through the season of advent is a great way to practice patience as well! The character education of both curiosity and patience are worthwhile things to plan activities for me.

3. To Support Generosity: Make Something to Give Away

Christmas is an absolutely fantastic opportunity for doing character education around generosity.

Our kids love to bake, and they love to eat their baking! They are always asking to make cookies because they know that usually means they have cookies in the house.

As a way to encourage generosity, I like to include our kids in a baking activity with the expressed purpose of giving away the goodies that we bake.

Usually, we choose at least one person or family to be the recipients of our baking, and then we try to brainstorm something delicious to make for them that we think they would like.

I almost always try to include cinnamon if I can, because it is such a Christmas-y flavor for me. But that isn’t essential!

If we have a friend who is vegan, we’ll find a vegan recipe. If we know someone is allergic to peanuts, we’ll make sure we avoid anything with peanut butter.

As much as possible, we try to customize it for the recipients. And I try to avoid having the kids eat any of the baked good if I can (cinnamon swirl bread is one of my favorites to make because I wouldn’t slice into a loaf of bread and then give the remainder of the loaf away!).

I feel the character education of generosity is extremely easy to facilitate at Christmas.

4. To Express Encouragement and Appreciation: Write Notes of Encouragement to Add to the Stockings in Your House

The character traits of appreciation and encouragement are two of my favorite characteristics to teach to my kids. Why? Because it usually means they appreciate and encourage me more!

OK, I’m mostly joking, but the reality is, a home culture that is rich in encouragement and appreciation is a pleasant, beautiful, kind atmosphere to live in. And I want that for my kids and our home as well as for myself.

So whenever I can provide an opportunity to educate and emphasize the character traits of appreciation and encouragement, I want to do it.

One of the ways we do this in our home at Christmas is we write notes of encouragement and appreciation for each other to put in our stockings and open on Christmas morning. Each person is expected to write at least one note for each other person in the house.

For those that cannot yet write (which up until this year has been all of our children!), Gabe and I will act as scribes to write down their kind words for each other.

We don’t require our kids to give gifts to each other, and we don’t do a lot of gift giving of physical items in our home because we live in a small space and try to embrace simplicity as much as possible.

But giving words of encouragement, appreciation, or other kind things don’t take up space, and they make our hearts feel good. Both the giver and the receiver benefit from articulating kind words.

So if you want to build up the positive atmosphere of your home, I think writing notes of appreciation is a great way to reinforce character education and move your home toward a love-filled place.

5. To Reinforce the Reward of Work: Decorate the House and then Enjoy a Fun Treat Together

We keep our Christmas decorations to a minimum, but even so, it is fun to decorate a little for Christmas. My kids love getting to be a part of activities I am doing, so when the decorations come out, they are so excited to join in.

To make the decorating efforts last a little longer (since we have so few!), and to make it feel special, we like to also have a special treat to enjoy together when we are done. Our typical treat is popcorn of some kind. Specifically, popcorn that is turned into caramel corn is always popular.

Our decorating turns into opportunities to take turns, practice patience, and stick with a task until it is done. All of these are character traits I desire to instill in my kids.

And enjoying caramel corn together while we admire the product of our work is a special way to savor the experience of working together.

6. To Build Community Within Your Household: Plan and Execute a Special, Unique Dinner to Eat Together (Not on Christmas)

We eat a cheese fondue meal together each year sometime in the few days leading up to Christmas. It has become our family’s “special” meal to enjoy together to mark the Christmas celebrations.

I use a simple fondue recipe, and the kids help me choose the foods we’ll have to dip in the fondue.

As they have become more capable, the kids enjoy helping me grate the cheese, slice the vegetables, set the table, and plate all the delicious food as well. It’s a dining event that everyone in the family can participate in the preparation as well as in the feasting.

Although we eat most dinners together, having fondue is special because Christmas is usually the only time of year we do it. It is also special because we dip out of the fondue pot, so there is a stronger feeling of community as we all lean in and dip.

We also utilize the rule that if you drop your food in the fondue pot, you have to give someone a kiss. This leads to much giggling around the dinner table.

We also have to practice patience, sharing, and serving each other by handing plates of food around the table.

One of the character traits that Gabe and I most want to instill in our kids is a commitment to the community of the family, and with that a sense of family unity. We want our family culture to be a strong force for identity and value in their lives.

Enjoying a special meal together around the Christmas holiday (but not ON Christmas, itself, because that seems to be an event that includes more people for us) is a sweet way to provide character education around the values of community.

7. To Cultivate Delight: Go View Christmas Lights

Although I am not a big Christmas decorators in my home, I do appreciate the work that other people do to decorate their homes at Christmas! And for my kids at the age they are now, there is something magical about seeing Christmas lights.

Driving around neighborhoods or walking through neighborhoods to view Christmas light displays is a fun family activity for Christmas time. And that simple activity can also be an opportunity to practice some character education, which is the characteristic of delight.

I think kids are much better at delighting in things than adults: my son gets delighted when we light the candle on our table as part of our Sabbath Practice. My oldest daughter delights in spotting rainbows from our deck.

As a parent, I want to reinforce that ability to take great pleasure in things my kids see or do, because pleasure is a God-given response to things we experience. And frankly, I am trying to relearn (as an adult) how to slow down and delight in things around me.

Christmas light displays are sometimes funny, sometimes magnificent, and sometimes simple, but regardless of our judgement of them, I think we can all practice taking delight in their cheery contribution to the world and the Christmas festivities.

So go ahead, pack the hot cocoa, put on the beanie, and go out and enjoy some Christmas lights. And really lean into that character education opportunity to teach your children the thrill of delighting in something.

8. To Experience the Value of Exercise and Fresh Air: Undertake an Outdoor Christmas Scavenger Hunt

I want my kids to cultivate an enjoyment of exercise, a value for moving and training their bodies, and positive relationships with nutritious, life-giving food.

And one of the best ways to transmit that enjoyment is to model those things! I’m thinking of the phrase, “More is caught than taught!”

So while much of Christmas is about indulging in delicious food and special treats and intentionally making memories with loved ones, I think we can push back a little against the idea of a holiday being entirely about consumption. We can enjoy the holiday by doing what is good for our bodies, too!

Making a Christmas Scavenger Hunt to participate in with the kids is a great way to educate on the character quality of stewarding our bodies well. Of course, you can do this in other ways, but it’s an activity kids tend to be quite excited about in my house!

Much like my kids will beg to participate in Easter Egg hunts, a Christmas scavenger hunt is not only engaging for the head and the brain, but also for the body.

I plan to create a bit of a scavenger hunt forage activity this Christmas. I will jot down a list of 8-10 things that will be around our home (indoor and outdoor), and divide the kids into teams of 3-4 people, with an adult in each one.

It’ll be a race between the teams to see who can get through their list first. I’ll plan to keep some items on the lists identical across all lists, and also have some unique items to each team.

However it looks in its final form, the goal will be to get everyone moving their bodies, working together in teams, and get them outside.

9. To Promote an Appreciation of Music: Enjoy (Live) Christmas Music

Christmas concerts are a great opportunity to get kids out in an environment to build their appreciation of music. I especially love that usually at least some of the music at Christmas is recognizable and familiar to kids.

We have enjoyed going to a local performance of a Community Choir for the last few years at Christmas. The first year I walked in (slightly late) with my girls, their mouths dropped open as they heard the a cappella harmonies.

Learning to appreciate the work that goes into musical performances, and learning to appreciate the beauty of performed music is a valuable character trait to pursue. I think Christmas is a great opportunity to reinforce kids’ appreciation of music during a particularly music-rich season.

Before we started going to live concerts, though, we tried to purchase a new Christmas album each Advent season to help us appreciate musical abilities. It is the best when you have friends (hi, George!) that are featured in excellent music.

10. To Open an Opportunity for Awe and Wonder: Go Star Gazing

With the connection to the star of Bethlehem fresh in everyone’s minds at Christmas time, it seems an ideal opportunity to take kids out to gaze at the stars.

I love taking my girls out to look up at the night’s sky. We speculate how long ago the light left a star. It’s always an awe-inspiring activity as it reminds us how BIG the universe is.

As a person of faith, looking at the stars and being reminded of my own smallness in the vastness of space is something that inspires awe and wonder at how HUGE God is, and yet how personal he is, proven in the birth, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.

Star gazing during the Christmas season is a great way to reinforce awe and wonder as we ponder the reason we celebrate Christmas and what it symbolizes.

What about you? Are there any activities you love to do with your kids to give opportunity for intentional character education? Do any of these ideas strike a chord with you? I’d love to hear about it in the comments below!