It’s that time of year again, my favorite time of year! The time when we start to prepare for Christmas, get in to the holiday spirit and really focus on what it means to be a family. To do this in our house, we have countdown activities every day in December leading up to Christmas. In years past we have focused on crafts, but last year I felt we were a little too commercial for my taste, so this year our focus is just on spending quality time with one another and creating lasting memories. My biggest wish would be for this to become a tradition my children enjoy with their own kids someday.
Here’s a list of what we’ll be doing this year, I have not associated specific dates because I like spontaneity and because well, sometimes things change! Feel free to borrow any ideas and I will try to blog about as many as possible to show you how they went. If you do any of these activities with your family, I would love to hear how they turned out.
- Reindeer Thumbprint Ornament (C)
- Trim the Tree (T)
- Decorate the House & Yard for Christmas (T)
- Christmas Socks Day (T)
- Christmas Movie Marathon & Christmas Cookies (T)
- Snuggle up & Read Christmas Stories (T) My absolute favorite
- Paper Christmas Trees
- Popsicle Snowflake Ornaments (C)
- Dollar Store Shopping (O) *
- Kids Wrapping Party (C) New Technique*
- Christmas Movie Matinee (O)
- Tree & Snowman Shirts (C)
- Hill Country Holidays at Westin La Cantera (O)
- Make Gifts for our Neighbors & Y Friends (C)
- Go Visit Santa (O)
- Make Gingerbread Men & Gingerbread Girls (T)
- Afternoon at the Carnival w/ Kinder Class (O)
- Riverboat Ride (O)
- Christmas Light Spectacular Car Ride (T)
- Christmas Celebration at Sea World San Antonio (O)
- Snowman Sundaes for Happy’s Birthday (T)
- Christmas Pizza Night (T)
- Helping Hands Wreath (C) *
- Family in Jammies Party (Y)
- Jesus’ Birthday (T)
(*) Notes about a few of our traditions: (T = Together Time, O = Outing, C= Craft)
Dollar Store Shopping – each year we take the kids to the dollar store to let them shop for people on their list. We make a lot of gifts also, but shopping is part of the fun too. Here they can pick out anything they want and not worry about the price.
Kids Wrapping Party is another fun tradition we have. The kids make all their own paper and then wrap as many presents as possible on their own. Our wrapping has evolved over the years and now includes a 10 ft Christmas mural we work on a few days before the party.
Helping Hands Wreath: This is a great project and is very similar to the way we build our nativity manger for baby jesus. When the kids do something especially nice or helpful they get to cut a small piece of tan yarn to add to our manger for baby jesus. The more good deeds they do, the more comfortable he will be when he arrives. This year the kids will also get to cut out a hand from green construction paper when they help around the house. When we’re done, we’ll use these hands to create the wreath.
I hope you find some inspiration here and some new ideas for your family. If you’d like even more ideas, check out our ideas from 2010 & 2009.
{ 14 comments… read them below or add one }
Stacy, I love your list and ideas. I’ll have to steal at least a few. Thanks for keeping me organized this holiday season!
Yay! Glad I could help, thanks for sharing and being such a sweet friend.
Great list! Thanks for the great kid friendly ideas
Thanks Adele, hope they help! I added a few new ones yesterday to make it more useful. Check them out – Reindeer Thumbprint Ornament and Snowman Sundaes
Lists are terrific means to prioritize and get it all done. I love yours! Thanks so much for sharing.
Thank you Pamela, so nice of you to share this link as well. I wish I was organized enough to do something special with my kids every day all year long, they look forward to the activities so much … at least for one month out of the year I get my act together
I love your family tradition! How fun! I miss having our family traditions as I was growing up. But now that I have my own little family its definitely time to get the ball rolling with new and fun traditions.
BTW the new blog design is adorable!
Thanks sweetie, so nice to see you here! One of the best parts of being a grown up is deciding which traditions you’ll hold on to and which new ones you will incorporate.
Wonderful ideas, Stacy! I love your tradition of going to the dollar store and the making of wrapping paper. It teaches them that it’s not about how much you spend, but the thought and effort that goes into gift giving. Lovely!
It’s one of my favorite parts too, something passed down from when I was little. I was adopted by a man old enough to be my grandfather who had a really large grown family of his own already. Every year he would take me in to town, give me $10 and let me pick out something of my very own for every on my list. I remember how fun it was finding just the right gift and how cool it was that nothing was off limits. I could purchase anything in the store!
P.S. – The new blog header is really cute. Love how you streamlined the layout, too.
Thank you! That means a lot to me
I’ve been tweaking it all week, trying to clean things up and let the header do a better job describing the site. There’s still a few more changes to come, so glad you like it!
dollar store! perfect place to lots of little gifts!
what a long list of traditions – sounds like you guys have lots of fun!
meant perfect place for lots of little gifts!
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