Family Christmas Traditions to Start and Keep

The ones I grew up with, and fun ideas for starting your own

Christmas is my favorite time of the year, and I know it is for many of you too. Something comes over people in December. It is almost as if they have been sprinkled with fairy dust, and for a few weeks everyone seems a little friendlier and a little lighter on their feet. You can even catch them singing along to the carols on the radio. I call it the magic of Christmas, and the surest way I know to hold on to it is through family Christmas traditions.

Traditions are what we remember long after the decorations come down. They build anticipation, they bring the whole family together all through the holiday season, and they turn ordinary little moments into the ones you talk about for decades. Below are my favorite family Christmas traditions, most of them handed down from my grandparents and my mother, followed by some fun ideas for starting new Christmas traditions with your own family.

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Advent Calendars

As a child my siblings and I each received an Advent calendarr from our grandparents. They were the little book shaped cardboard ones with a whimsical scene or the manger on the front, and behind each window was a piece of chocolate. Every morning we jumped out of bed and ran to open a window, counting down the days until Santa came.

Several years ago I gave my step-grandchildren one made of 25 little mittens, with room in each for a treat, a note, or a lump of coal if you were bad the day before. If you have never had an Advent calendar, this is an easy tradition to start with your own kids or grandkids. You can buy one, or make one, since Pinterest is full of simple DIY versions.

My favorite Advent calendar idea is to wrap 25 books and let everyone open one each night, then read it together. I promise it makes memories that last a lifetime. If you need ideas for which books to wrap, I put together a list of Christmas books.

Decorating the Christmas Trees

At the family homestead we put up the tree on Thanksgiving or the day after, which leaves the whole weekend to decorate it slowly. We gave up real trees a long time ago. One year, a week before Christmas, we woke up to find almost every needle on the floor and the ornaments scattered across the living room.

Thankfully we were able to buy a floor model from Marshall Field’s. We walked out of the store with a completely decorated tree and stuffed it into my mom’s SUV, sort of like the Grinch. Needless to say the ride home was not comfortable, but the tree was beautiful.

My mom has two trees. The formal tree in the living room has an ever evolving look, some years gold and white, other years all white, and one year just hundreds of white lights and snow. The other we call the kids tree, and it is the one I love most. It holds the ornaments we made over the years and the ones we give each other every year, plus funny little clay ones that depict the kids, the grandkids, and the grand pups as they joined the family.

The most sentimental ornaments go on that tree too: clothes pin reindeer from second grade, clay frogs from third grade, and button and brick a brac ornaments made on a snow day when we lived in Alaska. We laugh out loud when they come out of the boxes, marveling at our young talent with buttons and glue. Decades later we can still say exactly where we lived when we made each one, and why. A snow day, a sick day, a rainy afternoon.

Under the kids tree, in a place of honor, sit the stuffed animals from our childhood. My brother’s raggedy little dog Ralph, wearing a blue sweater made from a sock. My sister’s Big Bird, a little faded but still smiling. My Raggedy Ann.

Family Movie Night, Every Night

We love a movie night, or really a movie every night that we are together over the holidays. We watch the same classics we have watched for years, with a bowl of caramel corn made from my grandmother’s recipe. Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer and Frosty the Snowman come first, then White Christmas, Miracle on 34th Street, The Bishops Wife, Holiday Inn, and It’s a Wonderful Life. The newer additions that have earned a spot in our Christmas movie marathon are Elf, Love Actually, and Little Women.

Baking Christmas Cookies

My grandmother baked for weeks and weeks before Christmas. There were dozens of different Christmas cookies., plus stollen, chocolate salami, cinnamon rolls,, breads and more. Everything was stored in decorative tins in a closet until Christmas Eve, when it came out on large platters to eat before Midnight Mass. I will be honest, I snuck into a few of the tins ahead of time and ate one or two of my favorites.

All these years later I still bake many of her recipes and send them to family and friends, just as she did. Every time I pull out one of her handwritten recipes I feel as if I am standing right next to her, rolling dough, basking in her love.

On Christmas Eve day we also have a sugar cookie decorating contest. My brother or I make tons of cookies and frosting, and there are bowls and bowls of jimmies, sprinkles, and every other thing a beautiful cookie could need.

Our Family Cookie Exchange

Now that my grandmother has passed and we no longer gather at her house on Christmas Eve, we hold a family party and cookie exchange a weekend or two before Christmas. Everyone brings their favorite cookies, and a dozen for every other person taking part. Did I mention my mom is from a family of ten kids? That means a lot of baking and a great many cookies to carry home, some of them new recipes and some old family favorites.

I recently held a virtual cookie exchange with blog friends and shared my Viennese Whirl cookies.

Christmas Concerts, the Nutcracker, and A Christmas Carol

We go to one or more Christmas concerts or entertainments each year. The Nutcracker,, A Christmas Carol, the symphony, and my personal favorite, an early music concert at the Cathedral, with the Christmas carols echoing up into the ceiling.

Christmas Eve

On Christmas Eve we have an open house, and friends and family come for dinner and a long table of desserts. When I was growing up my grandparents did the same, though theirs started just before Midnight Mass and carried on well after the walk home. Ours starts around six, after the early Christmas Eve mass for kids, with an Italian buffet. We play games, or work on puzzles which is one of our favorites, and spend the evening visiting with relatives.

We each open one gift on Christmas Eve, and it is typically new pajamas, just as it was when we were children. Then it is off to Midnight Mass, some years at the very church my grandparents attended and other years at the Cathedral with the Archbishop. If the weather is going to be bad, we go to the early mass instead. Afterward it is home for a cup of cocoa and bed, with carrots and cookies set out for Santa and the reindeer and, I hope, visions of sugar plums.

Looking at the Christmas Lights

My favorite holiday tradition of all is going to see the Christmas lights, one my grandfather started. When we were little he took us out on Christmas Eve to see the lights before dropping us off at Midnight Mass. We still do it to this day.

When I am home, my mom and I go almost every night. I bring a hot chocolate and she brings a coffee, and we drive all over town, along Lake Michigan and past the decorations downtown, with Christmas music on. We talk, we laugh, and we reminisce about times past. It is one of my favorite things to do with her.

Christmas Morning

On Christmas morning we still wake up early to see what Santa brought. These days the excitement over Santa comes mostly from the youngest members of the family, and not so much from the adults, who got home from Midnight Mass only a few hours earlier. We all creep down the stairs and follow the trail of candy that Santa dropped from his pack on his way out, from the fireplace all the way to the tree.

We open gifts to the sound of my niece and nephew’s laughter and shouts of joy, with hot chocolate and cinnamon rolls fresh from the oven, made from my grandmother’s recipe. I love it as much now as I did when we were kids. By Christmas Day itself we are in our pajamas reading, watching our favorite Christmas movies, and eating.

Once it gets dark we go caroling with the kids and have a little Christmas parade around the neighborhood. More family members arrive for dominos and puzzles and a second round of eating, including cousins who have come from near and far, since Christmas is when almost all of us are home. Over the rest of Christmas week there is sledding or ice skating, and my mom takes the grandkids on a few adventures so that my siblings and I can go shopping, see old friends, or slip off to a favorite restaurant or museum.

Fun Family Christmas Traditions to Start This Year

If you do not have family Christmas traditions yet, or you want to add a new tradition to the ones you already keep, start small. Pick one idea this year and see whether it sticks. The best Christmas traditions are rarely the fanciest ones. They are the ones you repeat, and the ones that make special memories.

Give everyone in the family a new ornament each year, chosen to reflect something that happened to them in the past year. A new ornament is the tradition that rewards you most slowly, because the real payoff comes decades later when you unwrap them together and remember. The same goes for a small family photo taken in front of the tree every year, in the same spot, whether or not anyone feels like smiling.

Try a family game night at the kitchen table with board games and a plate of Christmas cookies, or a Christmas movie marathon with everyone in pajamas. Build gingerbread houses and let them be lopsided. Burned cookies and imperfect gingerbread houses are remembered far more fondly than flawless ones.

For families with younger kids, a nativity scene they arrange themselves, with the baby Jesus held back until Christmas Eve, is a quiet one that stays with them. A scavenger hunt for the best Christmas light display in the neighborhood turns a drive into a game, and works well with older kids, who usually need a reason. If you use a real tree, a trip to a Christmas tree farm, with hot cocoa in a thermos, becomes an outing the whole family looks forward to. Write Christmas cards together at the kitchen table, with Christmas music playing, and let the kids add their own names.

Not every tradition has to involve a crowd. Some of mine are for one or two. A walk after dinner to look at a light display. A candy cane stirred into a mug of hot chocolate. A tradition can be as small as reading one Christmas story aloud on Christmas Eve, in the same chair, every year.

Here are a few articles you might find interesting.

How 25 Christmas Traditions Got Their Start

If you find yourself overwhelmed at the holidays my friend Brenda of Cosy Little House shared 10 Tips to Stay Sane During the Holidays.

I also shared 5 ways to survive and enjoy the holidays. 

P.S. Don’t forget to make a holiday bucket list!

Keeping Family Holiday Traditions When You Cannot Be Together

These are just a few of my favorite family traditions. We have many more, woven into my life, and they are what make the holiday memorable, special, and bearable on the years when we cannot celebrate together. If you cannot be with your whole family, do one of the traditions on the phone, or by video. Open a gift at the same time, or read the same story. It counts.

Creating meaningful traditions does not require perfection or Pinterest-worthy execution. What matters is showing up consistently and making the effort to celebrate together. Start small, adjust as you go, and simply enjoy being together. That is where the real magic lives.

If you would like more to read, Brenda of Cosy Little House shared 10 Tips to Stay Sane During the Holidays. I also shared 5 ways to survive and enjoy the holidays.Here is the Christmas tree I ended up loving and a list of ways to get ready for Christmas early. There is also a piece on how How 25 Christmas Traditions Got Their Start. And do not forget to make a holiday bucket list!

What are your family Christmas traditions? Do you have a favorite? Are they ones from your childhood, or ones you started once you had your own family? Do you add a new tradition every year or stick with the old favorites? I would love to hear what you and your family do to celebrate.

You can also keep up with me on Pinterest, Instagram, and Facebook. And last but not least, if you like Pinecones & Acorns share it with a friend!

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