7 Intentional, Simple Christmas Traditions to do with Kids
Christmas is a season filled with excitement, but it doesn’t have to be busy or overwhelming. Some of the most meaningful memories come from simple Christmas traditions for families: the kinds that bring connection, joy, and peace without adding stress or stretching your budget.
In our home, we’ve found that these seven traditions have been both easy to keep and deeply meaningful. Whether you’re looking to start new family Christmas traditions, create special moments with young kids, or focus on Christ at the center of the season, these ideas can help:
- Advent Readings
- Holiday Baking
- Writing Notes
- Decorating
- Eating Food Together
- Family Time
- Outdoor Fun
Each of these Christmas traditions is simple, budget-friendly, and adaptable for families with toddlers, young kids, or even bigger kids who still love the magic of the season.
(This post was updated in September 2025 – these traditions are still going strong in our home!)
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Why Simple Christmas Traditions for Families Matter:
Christmas can quickly become overwhelming, between activities, parties, and all the sugar. The truth is, we don’t need to exhaust ourselves with over-the-top traditions that drain our December budget and leave us stressed.
If you’re looking for simple Christmas traditions for families, ideas that are easy, budget-friendly, and meaningful, I’ve got some to share.
We’re a family with four young kids (ages 7, 5, 3, and 1), so we’ve learned to keep things simple and sustainable. Our favorite traditions are fun, wholesome, and often healthier alternatives to the sugar-heavy holiday classics.
That’s why you won’t find things like elaborate gingerbread houses or endless trays of cookies on this list. Don’t get me wrong, sometimes we do bake cookies! But I don’t want the pressure of repeating it every single year.
Instead, these are the family Christmas traditions we come back to again and again. Not every year includes all of them, and that’s okay! Think of this as a flexible, inspiring list to spark ideas for your own family’s traditions.
#1: Advent Readings: A Christ-Centered, Simple Christmas Tradition for Families
One of our favorite Christ-centered Christmas traditions for families is marking the weeks of Advent. It requires a little planning ahead since Advent begins before Christmas, but it’s a meaningful way to slow down and prepare our hearts for the season.
For the last two years, we’ve read Shadow and Light: A Journey Into Advent by Tsh Oxenreider during dinner each evening, and we plan to read it again this year. We especially enjoy the interactive aspect: listening to music and viewing art that goes along with each reading.
Alongside the readings, we add a simple weekly Advent challenge to help us savor the season.
I put together four small boxes, each holding a challenge or experience, wrap them up, and place them on our living room windowsill. Each Sunday of Advent, we open one box together to discover the week’s challenge.
Some of our favorite Advent challenges have been:
- Baking a holiday treat to give away
- Writing notes of encouragement to our family members
- Attending a Christmas concert or live music event
- Driving to see Christmas lights as a family
Marking Advent this way has become one of our most treasured family Christmas traditions. It’s simple, Christ-focused, and gives us space to create lasting memories together.
(For reference, in 2025, Advent starts on Sunday, November 30, so if you can, I recommend planning your weekly Advent challenges before Thanksgiving!)
#2: Baking Cinnamon Goodies: A Simple Christmas Tradition for Families with Kids
One of our coziest simple Christmas traditions for families is baking something with cinnamon each year and then sharing it with others. Cinnamon just feels like the flavor of Christmas, and it fills our home with warmth and comfort.
Some of our go-to treats have been:
- Cinnamon Swirl Bread
- Maple Brown Sugar Focaccia with Cinnamon
- Chocolate Chai Swirl Bread
- Orange Spice Focaccia
- Homemade Granola with Extra Cinnamon
Each year we adapt the recipe to fit what sounds fun and manageable, but the tradition always ends with giving it away. The kids love helping, sometimes with mixing and baking, other times with decorating tags and packaging the gifts to deliver to friends and family.
Whether or not they’re fully involved in the kitchen, this tradition lets them participate in the joy of giving. It’s a simple, sensory-rich way to mark the season while keeping Christmas baking fun and meaningful.
#3: Simple Christmas Traditions for Families: Writing Notes of Encouragement in Socks
Another one of our favorite simple Christmas traditions for families is writing notes of encouragement to each other.
Instead of filling stockings, we use our own socks, hang them with command hooks near the stove, and take time throughout Advent to write little notes to slip inside.
We usually set aside a slow evening or Sabbath morning for this tradition. Each family member writes (or dictates) one note of encouragement for every other person.
Since most of our kids are still little, my husband and I act as scribes, writing down exactly what they say, which is sometimes just one sweet sentence.
It’s such a joy to watch our kids light up when they think of kind words for their siblings or parents. (All four of our kids share one room, so we focus a LOT on intentional sibling relationships!)
On Christmas morning, we open the socks and read the notes aloud. It’s a simple, Christ-centered way to practice kindness, encourage one another, and replace the pressure of stocking stuffers with something far more meaningful and bonding as a family.
#4: Felt Christmas Tree Decorating: A Fun and Simple Family Christmas Tradition
Another one of our favorite simple Christmas traditions for families is decorating our felt Christmas tree.
Since we live in a small space, we don’t keep a real or artificial tree, but our felt tree (with velcro-on ornaments) has become just as meaningful. We hang it on the back of a door and make an event out of decorating it together.
To make it extra special, we start by making a batch of microwave caramel corn. Once that is ready, we turn on Christmas music, sit around the caramel corn, and take turns adding ornaments to the felt tree. The youngest child goes first, and the older kids love cheering them on as everyone takes a turn.
The whole tradition takes only 20–30 minutes, which has been perfect for our toddlers. But it’s always a highlight of our Christmas season.
It’s fun, simple, kid-friendly, and perfect for small spaces: a great reminder that family Christmas traditions don’t have to be elaborate to be meaningful.
#5: Simple Christmas Traditions for Families: A Fondue Christmas Eve Dinner
One of our kids’ most memorable simple Christmas traditions for families is having a fondue dinner on Christmas Eve (or a night or two before – whenever it fits into the week of Christmas before “official” gatherings start).
My kids love dipping food, and fondue gives them plenty of chances to dip to their hearts’ content!
This tradition started because we wanted to create new Christmas traditions that felt uniquely ours, rather than trying to duplicate the ones my husband and I grew up with. Since we currently live overseas, fondue became the perfect way to mark Christmas Eve in a way that’s simple, fun, and different from our extended families’ celebrations.
Our menu is usually straightforward: roasted potatoes, cubes of bread, and a handful of raw or lightly steamed vegetables. The cheese fondue is the most complicated part, but even without a fondue pot (which we don’t own), it still works beautifully served straight from the cooking pot.
To make it feel festive, we dress up in something red or green, turn on Christmas music, and enjoy dinner together.
Chocolate fondue isn’t usually part of the plan, but we often end the evening with ice cream. Simple, cozy, and fun: this has become a much-loved family Christmas tradition.
#6: Simple Christmas Traditions for Families: Reading Together at a Christmas Sleepover
One of our kids’ favorite simple Christmas traditions for families is our living room sleepover. We keep white lights strung up in our living room year-round, but during Christmas we let them take center stage as “Christmas lights.”
Sometime during Christmas week (usually not Christmas Eve, since I want everyone well-rested for the big day), we drag all the mattresses into the living room until the floor is wall-to-wall beds. Everyone gets cozy, and we read our current family read-aloud together until my voice gives out.
Last year we read The Wind in the Willows, and someday I’d love to read A Christmas Carol. But honestly, the book itself doesn’t matter as much as the atmosphere: reading as late as we want under twinkly lights, then all falling asleep in the living room together.
(If you’re interested in some of our family’s favorite readalouds, I’ve got a list on my “Favorites” page)
This simple tradition has become one of my children’s most requested Christmas activities, and I love how it creates space for both rest and togetherness in the middle of a busy season.
#7: Family Christmas Traditions: Enjoying the Outdoors on Boxing Day
One of our favorite simple Christmas traditions for families is to spend Boxing Day outdoors together.
This started when my husband and I were first married: we set aside December 26th as “our day” after busy gatherings with extended family. We would pack a picnic lunch, a thermos of hot tea, and head out for a short hike, even in the chilly northern hemisphere winters.
Now that we live in New Zealand, this tradition has shifted into summer adventures. Some years we head to the beach with friends; other years we take a family hike and enjoy a picnic in the sunshine. Either way, it’s become a beautiful way to slow down after the bustle of Christmas Day and focus on time together.
I imagine that if we lived in the northern hemisphere again, this tradition would look like bundling up for a winter walk, splashing in puddles, and then coming home for hot cocoa.
The setting might change, but the heart of the tradition is the same: enjoying the outdoors, leaving the to-do lists behind, and making simple memories as a family.
Spending Boxing Day outside has become one of my most treasured Christmas traditions. It gives me space to pause, breathe, and be present with my husband and kids—something I hope you’ll find in your own family traditions too.
Bonus Christmas Tradition: Shepherd’s Dinner to Begin Advent
Last year we began experimenting with a new tradition: a Shepherd’s Dinner to launch the Advent season.
We invited friends over (costumes optional, but encouraged!) and shared a simple meal that reflected what shepherds or ordinary people in ancient Israel might have eaten: bread, cheese, fruit, nuts, olives, and lentil stew.
As we ate with our hands, we reflected on how the shepherds were the first to hear the news of Jesus’s birth. This Christ-centered Christmas tradition gave us a chance to slow down and remember what the season is truly about before the busyness of December began.
I’m not sure yet if it will become a permanent fixture in our family traditions, but it was meaningful enough that I wanted to share it with you.
Simple Christmas Traditions for Families to Treasure
At the end of the day, Christmas traditions don’t have to be expensive, elaborate, or Pinterest-perfect. Some of the best memories are made in the simplest moments: reading together by Christmas lights, baking something with cinnamon, writing notes of encouragement, or getting outside on Boxing Day.
I hope these simple Christmas traditions for families spark some ideas you can adapt in your own home. Remember, you don’t have to do them all—and you don’t have to do them every year. Even one or two small traditions, repeated over time, will give your children a deep sense of joy, stability, and togetherness.
I’d love to hear from you: What are your favorite family Christmas traditions? Are you planning to start any new ones this year? Share them in the comments below—I’d love to be inspired by your ideas!