How to Start a Christmas Tradition with your Family

Having a young family is a perfect time to start your own Christmas traditions, to build excitement and anticipation in the run up to the big day.

While you may want to pass down favourite festive customs from your own childhood, it’s also fun to create new special family rituals everyone can look forward to each year when Christmas comes around.

What is a Christmas Tradition?

A Christmas tradition is an act or activity that you repeat every year, in the run-up to and over the festive period.

While some traditions are based on religion, such as attending a Christmas church service, most are family activities based around spending time together.

If you’re wondering how to start a Christmas tradition with your family, remember that Christmas traditions don’t have to be expensive or complicated. Most of your festive activities can be simple, cheap, and most importantly, fun.

What Are The Most Popular Traditions?

The most popular traditions are often simple, but will create excitement in the run-up to Christmas Day.

Writing A Letter To Santa

Writing and sending a letter to Santa is a time-old Christmas tradition and is a fun way of your child telling Santa exactly what they are hoping to find under the tree each year. The Royal Mail has a special address for all Santa letters, with a guaranteed reply from the man in red himself.

Decorating The Christmas Tree

Decorating a Christmas tree has historically symbolised life and hope during the winter months, with the lights adding warmth and brightness to the darker days. It’s a joyful tradition to mark the start of Christmas that your family can share together, and one you can look forward to year after year.

Writing Christmas Cards

Writing and sending Christmas cards to friends and family is an easy way of keeping in touch and sending a traditional seasonal greeting. Buying charity cards is a good way of donating to your favourite charity each year, too.

Hanging Your Stocking On Christmas Eve

Hanging your stocking by the fireplace before you go to bed on Christmas Eve is a historic tradition, but did you know it was inspired by Saint Nicholas? It is based on a legend that he secretly dropped gold coins down a chimney of a poor family, where they landed in stockings that were drying by the fire. This has inspired generations of children to hang empty stockings – or leave a shoe in some cultures – in the hope that Santa will fill them with small gifts, sweet or fruit overnight.

Leaving Food Out For Santa

Leaving food out for Santa beneath the tree is a long-standing family Christmas tradition, but its origins trace back to Norse mythology, where offerings were made to Odin’s horse. What you leave out varies by culture, too: in the US it’s typically milk and cookies, while in the UK it’s often a mince pie with milk or beer, plus a carrot for the reindeers.

Family Tradition Ideas for Christmas

The following are ideas for family Christmas traditions, which are also easy Christmas activities for kids.

Making Christmas Decorations

You don’t have to spend a fortune on festive decorations each year. An annual Christmas crafting session is a fun way of spending time with your children, and you’ll end up with festive things to decorate the house with too. Paper chains are as simple classic and incredible easy to make – just loop together strips of coloured paper. You can also make paper snow flakes by following paper squares into quarters and snipping out small sections (keep an eye on the scissors!). Salt dough and air drying clay can also make brilliant Christmas-shaped decorations that, once dry, you can decorate in Christmas colours and hang on the tree.

Watching Your Favourite Festive Films

Watching your favourite Christmas films or TV specials is a fun and nostalgic tradition everyone will want to repeat every year in the run-up to the big day. Family-friendly festive picks include Home Alone, Elf and The Christmas Chronicles, then there’s always the classic animated short The Snowman. Just add some hot chocolate and snuggle on the sofa together.

Going To The Pantomime

Going to your local pantomime is a fun, and very family-friendly tradition for everyone to look forward to every year. Keep an eye out for announcements about your local production early in the year, and book tickets for as near to the big day as possible.

Go On A Light Safari

Once winter darkness descends, wrap everyone up warm and take a local walking tour to look at Christmas lights on local houses. There’s always one of two houses that go all out with lights and decorations, and you can spot trees in windows or even count wreaths. It’s a free, fun and magical way of brightening up your evening and working off some energy.

Bake Christmas Treats

Christmas is a great reason to get in the kitchen with your children, and an easy festive tradition. What you make depends on how old they are – younger ones can decorate shop-bought biscuits with icing pens and sprinkles, while older ones might relish the challenge of something more complicated like festive gingerbread. Whatever you make will result in tasty treats, and you can even wrap them up to give as gifts to relatives.

Christmas Eve Tradition Ideas

The excitement of Christmas Eve is a great time for traditions, as everyone will have reached peak anticipation at this point. It’s a good idea to have fun Christmas Eve activities for kids up your sleeve to keep everyone occupied and busy.

Have A Christmas Eve Breakfast

Why not get the day before Christmas off to a good start with a family breakfast? It will help you have a calm start before the excitement of the day. You could make everyone’s favourites, like pancakes or waffles, and spend some time together as a family.

Make Reindeer Food For Santa's Animal Helpers

Rudolph and his reindeer friends have a long night ahead of them, so get your children to help you make something special to help keep them fuelled up for present deliveries.

To make reindeer food, just mix up porridge oats, seeds and dried fruit. Then gather everyone round to sprinkle this in your garden. Make sure you steer clear of glitter though, as this isn’t good for birds and other animals.

Plan A Pre-Christmas Trip To The Park

Excitement levels will peak on Christmas Eve, so plan a pre-Christmas trip to the park with friends to help burn off some energy. Wrap everyone up well and take flasks of hot drinks for the adults, and try to encourage as much running around as possible. Hopefully everyone will sleep well in the evening!

New Christmas Pyjamas

While Christmas pyjamas on the day before Christmas are a relatively new idea, for lots of families they are now a key part of the build up to the big day, and a fun and cosy tradition. Some families opt to have everyone matching, while others just might go for bright patterns and colours. It can be fun for everyone to have new nightwear to put on (whatever time of day it is!).

Track Santa Online

Following an online Santa tracker is a relatively new tradition, but one that lots of families now take part in. Once Christmas Eve arrives, you can track his sleigh, see him fly across the sky and keep an eye on how many millions of presents have been delivered. It’s also a great incentive for everyone going to bed early, as you can see that he’s on his way! Google’s Santa Tracker and the NORAD Santa tracker are two good options.

How to Maintain Your Traditions

It’s easy to maintain your Christmas traditions – just do them every year. While you may have to adopt or change your traditions as your children grow up, you can still do a version of them each year, with added nostalgia each time.