The weekend after thanksgiving we go get a tree and decorate it

Advent calendar…you can do one w a Christmas-y activity for each day if you’re ambitious or just do a more simple one if you’re not as ambitious (we just have a felt calendar w Velcro figures/shapes for each day and the kids enjoy hanging each one up.)

Baking and decorating Christmas cookies (we usually just stick w gingerbread cookies and sugar cookies and use cookie cutters and bagged frosting and sprinkles…easy!)

Driving around looking at lights

Zoo lights

Once my youngest was about 4 or so we started involving the kids in shopping for each other. We split the kids up and each parent takes one kid shopping for the other kid and the other parent and then we switch kids and each kid shops for the other parent so that the kids each get each other a gift and each kid gets a gift for each parent too. I love this tradition as it teaches the kids to be think of the others in our family and what they’d like. The kids always choose to open their gifts from each other first bc they can’t wait to see what their sibling picked for them!

We always get an angel tree kid to buy gifts for and go shopping for them together.

Putting cookies out for Santa and carrots out for reindeer on Christmas Eve. A few times I’ve also made “reindeer food” (raw uncooked oats, red and green sprinkles) that the kids went outside and sprinkled on the lawn on Christmas Eve.

We always read some kind of Christmas story on Christmas Eve sometimes it’s the traditional Twas the night before Christmas and sometimes the grinch or some other story.

Zoo lights is very fun!

Pick something weird to put into their stockings every year. For as long as I could remember, my brother and I got a lotto scratch-off ticket and a thing of tic tacs, in addition to my typical stocking stuffers.

We always decorated cookies with my grandma and cousins.

My cousins who are still in college still love their Elf on a Shelf, though personally the idea of that one creeps me out a little.

Christmas carols and Christmas cartoons are great.

My family watches It's a Wonderful Life every year. My dad and I basically quote the whole movie to each other while we're watching it, which drives everyone else nuts.

We had a tradition of opening one gift each on Christmas Eve (these were the ones from Mom and Dad when we were little, since obviously Santa hadn't come yet then).

My kids are now 12 and 14.

Let's see...
Baking Christmas cookies "for Santa." I mean, they're tweens/teens but they still like the ritual.
A Christmas craft
Watching certain Christmas movies
Sugary cereal on Christmas morning. They each get to pick a box for themselves. And, yes, they occasionally have Fruit Loops or whatever during the year but we don't buy it and they like the specialness of it.
Advent calendars
Lights
Gingerbread houses, even though it's always a disaster of some kind

Anonymous wrote:I can’t believe how attached my teen kids are to Christmas traditions. Our family is pretty unsentimental in general but the traditions obviously mean a lot to them (maybe it’s dumb on my part not to anticipate this). It’s smart to think about what you actually like to do and maintain doing over the long haul.

Yes! I had no idea how much some of the silly things mean so much to them. My oldest is 21 now but still looks forward to Xmas pajamas on Christmas Eve, ALL.OF.THE.FOOD (including breakfast casserole baking while gifts are being opened, cookies of course, marshmallow fluff fudge, candy canes on the tree, etc), handing out the presents in order so we all watch the opening, watching certain movies as Christmas is closing in: first Home Alone, Home Alone 2, Elf, Rudolph, Charlie Brown, Prancer, and ending with It's A Wonderful Life on Christmas Eve.

Damn

Christmas pajamas
Advent calendars
Looking at lights (we look up the over the top houses online)
Baking cookies (mostly they like decorating)
Going to National Harbor to see all the decorations (we do not pay for all the overpriced activities)
Watching Grinch and Charlie Brown together
The trains at the Botanical Gardens
Zoo lights

Another fun Advent calendar for little kids is a storybook one, where you get a short Christmas themed story every night. We have a Disney one, but there are ones for Bluey and Paw Patrol too.

https://www.amazon.com/Disney-Advent-Calendar-Storybook-Library/dp/1837717060/r

Advent calendar, decorating the tree listening to the Chipmunks soundtrack, hot cocoa and movies, sledding, decorating Xmas cookies, Carmel rolls Xmas morning, reading the night before Xmas on Xmas Eve, holiday puzzles, holiday train ride,

Advent calendars. This one is great for a 2 year old: https://www.target.com/p/melissa-38-doug-countdown-to-christmas-wooden-advent-calendar/-/A-82439387?

Decorating Christmas cookies. They have pre-made icing in squeeze bottles, which is good for kids.

The lights at Bull Run are more fun when they're in forward facing carseats.

Santa Train/Polar Express in Strasburg PA or Baltimore.

I can’t believe how attached my teen kids are to Christmas traditions. Our family is pretty unsentimental in general but the traditions obviously mean a lot to them (maybe it’s dumb on my part not to anticipate this). It’s smart to think about what you actually like to do and maintain doing over the long haul.

Going to the lights display at Meadowlark and getting hot cocoa. Very stroller friendly too.

Our extended family gets together for Hanukah and after the candles, a couple of uncles pile all the kids in cars and take them to go see Christmas lights. In Syosset at least, there are houses on either side of a temple that go ALL out and those are the houses to go look at.

We read The Grinch as a family every year on Christmas Eve.

Personalized stockings

As they get older: looking at lights, gingerbread house building, make handmade ornaments

I have a 2 year old and 7 month old and would love to start having some Christmas traditions now that we're a bit more settled. It wasn't really a big thing for me growing up but would love to do something my own family.

Drop your favorites below!