How to Start Family Christmas Traditions

Christmas traditions are something you do every year that is special to your family. They bring families closer together and build the foundation for happy Yule time memories. Christmas traditions bring families together. If your family doesn’t have any family traditions, or you would like to start new Christmas traditions, it is actually fun and easy to do. Here is how.

Family Meeting
You may want to have a family meeting to brainstorm ideas for your new Christmas tradition. Make sure to have a pen and pencil handy to write down everyone’s thoughts. You may want to combine several ideas. For example, if one family member wants to start taking a sleigh rides every Christmas Eve and another wants to go on Christmas light viewing trips, then maybe you can book a sleigh ride that goes through a Christmas lighted area.

Ideas
Sometimes it is hard to come up with ideas for family Christmas traditions. Here is a list to get your imagination going:

• Get everyone together to make Christmas cookies. Make sure to have plenty of icing, sprinkles, and decorations so that the family can get creative with the decorating part. Perhaps you could leave out cookies & milk for Santa & reindeer food for Santa's deer outside on the lawn (pretzels, nuts, etc) before the kids go to bed on Christmas Eve.
• Learn how to make different Christmas bread every year with your family. The search for the new bread can be just as fun as making it. You could bake a birthday cake and sing "Happy Birthday" to Jesus to commemorate and remember what Christmas is all about.
• Create a Christmas memories book for your family where you document the events and happenings from each holiday season – be sure to include lots of pictures.
• Go on Christmas light viewing car rides, complete with a thermos full of hot chocolate.
• Go Christmas caroling with your family, group of friends or church group.
• Take the family mistletoe hunting. Read up about where they like to hangout on the internet or in books from the library.
• Go see a movie Christmas afternoon, or make sure that everyone in the family gets a new DVD as a present and have a Christmas movie night.
• Make popcorn, hot chocolate, chestnuts or whatever food your family enjoys and then watch a Christmas movie like "It’s A Wonderful Life", "Christmas Vacation", "Charlie Brown Christmas" or "The Santa Clause."
• Make homemade Christmas ornaments for your new Christmas traditions. Craft magazines will have plenty of ideas that even small children can do.
• Buy your child, niece, nephew, etc. a unique tree ornament each year. They will have fun putting the ornaments on the tree each year and the ornament collection will be treasured when the kids grow up and have their own Christmas tree to decorate.
• If you have small children, start making a plaster of Paris mold of their hand every year and use it for a tree ornament. The kids will love to see how much they have grown every year. There are many kits that you can buy to do this with very little mess.
• Visit Santa Claus and get a photo of your entire family sitting on his lap. This makes an excellent photo for all those Christmas cards you send to family and friends.
• Make Santa "footprints" from the door or fireplace to the tree or elsewhere in your house. After the kids go to bed, sprinkle baby powder or baking soda on a jelly roll pan, tray or on newspaper, then dip the bottoms of a pair of shoes/boots in the white powder and make prints on the floor. The kids will be thrilled to see evidence of Santa's visit.
• Go to a Christmas play or Candlelight Christmas Eve Service. Check your local paper or contact your chamber of commerce for ones happening in your community.
• Go ice skating together and finish off the day with a cozy dinner.
• If you are musical, teach your child a new Christmas song on the instrument of your choice.
• Let the children open one present on Christmas Eve or if you get gifts in the mail from Grandparent's, Aunts and Uncles, etc., let the kids open the gifts from out-of-town relatives on Christmas Eve. Some families give each child a pair of pajamas that they open on Christmas Eve so that they can wear them Christmas morning.
• Give back to the community and get in the Christmas spirit by involving your family in a charitable event or cause such as helping serve Christmas Eve dinner at a homeless shelter or buying presents for the local Angel tree. Perhaps let your child pick a child his/her age from the tree and then help you select a gift for that child.

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