With Christmas break coming up soon you might already be thinking “What am I going to do with these kids?!” Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered! Here are 7 of our favorite family activities at Christmas time!
1. Go on a Christmas Light Scavenger Hunt
We’ve do this just about every year and the kids always enjoy it! It cost you nothing at all too. Just print out this list or pull it up on your phone and drive around and look for the listed items in the Christmas lights you see. You can stay in your own neighborhood or get out and visit new neighborhoods, but we’ve noticed that we usually see more lights the closer it gets to Christmas, around December 22nd-24th.
2. Create a family Christmas Bucket List
Don’t put too much on your list! I know, I know, there are SO many options of things you can do at Christmas time and tons of people are fighting for your attention, but Christmas is NOT about being busy and wearing yourself out to the point of exhaustion. Our bucket list has only 7 spots for Must Do’s and 3 Maybe’s so really stop and ask your kids and spouse what they enjoy doing during the month of December. Make it a family meeting or just ask them in passing, but ask them and let them have input on what you are doing this month!
3. Watch your Christmas movie classics
What are the classics you ask? Well, that depends on your family. For me, I would always watch National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation with my stepdad, Joe, so I try to make sure I watch it each year with my family. I know it’s not all family friendly, but my kids are getting older now, 12 and 18. For my husband, his Christmas movies are Miracle on 34th Street and White Christmas. My son’s go to Christmas movie is The Santa Clause with Tim Allen. For my daughter, her Christmas movie is Die Hard. YES, it IS a Christmas movie! Some of our other favorites are Scrooged, Home Alone, and the classically animated The Grinch Who Stole Christmas.
4. Baking
I’m not sure who doesn’t like baking, but we don’t do it much other than holidays. We usually like to bake Christmas cookies such as sugar cookies or gingerbread men. We usually cut them into classic Christmas shapes, bells, trees, stars, etc like these from Amazon. This year we have bought the Gingerbread Ninja Cookie set and we’re looking forward to decorating those!
We also like to bake a birthday cake for Jesus. After all that is what we are truly celebrating at Christmas. The birth of a Savior. It helps us to show honor for what He did for us because in remembering His birth we are also remembering His sacrifice on the cross for us.
5. Gingerbread house building competition
So maybe it’s not that serious of a competition, but we enjoy buying gingerbread house or village kits and building them together. We clear off the table and get to work. Sometimes it’s funny, sometimes it’s frustrating, but it always ends up fun in the end. One year we did a minion gingerbread house, one year we did a whole little village. We never actually eat the houses though because we let them sit out for decoration on the kitchen table for a week usually. You can usually pick the kits up at most stores or Amazon. (I mean Amazon has almost everything, right?)
6. Candle light service
One of my favorite Christmas traditions is to attend a candlelight service. Lots of churches offer candlelight services, but it may be easiest to ask people in your community that you know who attend church if they know of a candlelight service. Our church traditionally has there candlelight service on Christmas Eve and we enjoy the time together with others singing songs, worshiping, and remembering what Christmas is truly all about.
7. Read the story of Jesus’ birth
My favorite family Christmas tradition goes all the way back to my childhood. We never really did bedtime stories at our house when I was growing up, but on Christmas Eve all of the kids would gather around the lights of the Christmas tree in the living room and listen to my stepdad, Daddy Joe, read the story of Jesus’ birth to us. It was usually from a children’s Bible so the message was nice and clear to us kids. I have such warm memories of it that I have tried to continue the tradition with my own children. Once again it helps us remember the true meaning of Christmas.
What are your family’s favorite Christmas activities?
