This post is all about the best Christmas traditions for every family.
Do you have a family and want to start Christmas traditions? Do you already have Christmas traditions and want a new one? Maybe you just want to know what Christmas traditions there are in general.
I have 19 different Christmas traditions that you can read about and try. (You will most likely be doing most of these already.)
All these traditions are good for every family so don’t be worried about there not being one for you!
I love all things Christmas and you bet the Christmas Traditions are the best part.
Christmas is my favorite time of the year and having the traditions makes the holiday have so much more to look forward to.
This post is all about the best Christmas traditions for every family.
Disclaimer
All of the traditions that I list below are not intended to offend any cultures or religions. This is just what I grew up knowing about and how I was raised about the tradition. This post is for informational purposes only and should not be used to make any decisions. Everything is my personal opinion and is not a reflection of any culture or religion.
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Let’s begin.
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The Best Christmas Traditions For Every Family
1. Picking Out a Real Christmas Tree
Picking out a real Christmas tree is a very authentic Christmas tradition.
Real pine trees have that smell to them that tells you that you have is the real deal. (You’ll also feel like less of a phony.)
I have seen setups around my town that sell real Christmas trees so that you don’t have to find a farm.
I have never picked out a real Christmas tree before.
This is mainly because we don’t want to bring bugs into the house.
We also didn’t want the branches and leaves making a mess on our floor.
The biggest con to me with buying a real tree is that you have to buy a new one every year.
So, we opted for a reusable plastic one and it has served us well this far.
If you don’t want to buy a real tree for Christmas, you can just go to the places that sell them and look around instead.
I would go look around to fantasize about which I would choose and how I would decorate each one based on their height.
2. Tree Decorating
I’m pretty sure almost every family decorates a Christmas tree.
Whether it’s a really tall one that touches the ceiling or a small one that you can place on your desk.
Decorating a Christmas tree is so much fun because this is your chance to do an activity with your family members and not do anything wrong. (Unless you have a picky family member that is very particular about the ornament placements.)
My family likes to use all sorts of colors such as pink, blue, and purple, in addition to the traditional green, red, and white.
When I was in elementary school, our teachers would help us make our personalized tree ornaments out of popsicle sticks, glue, and glitter.
I got to hang those self-made ornaments up on the Christmas tree and it was very rewarding after my hard work as a child.
So don’t miss out on the Christmas tree decorating! (No matter how unfun it is to take all the ornaments down and put them back in boxes again.)
3. House Decorating
After you decorate the tree, you might want to decorate your house. That includes the inside and the outside.
Interior
You can have mini Christmas trees placed in every room of the house.
You can place stockings on the fireplace like how you see it in the movies.
Maybe you want to be extra and also change all of the household items to be Christmas-themed. For example, you could change all the cooking utensils, towels, and blankets.
You can go as all out as you please.
Exterior
You can hang Christmas lights around the edges of the roof or even cover your entire roof in Christmas lights (I’ve seen plenty of people do that.)
You could also place blow-up figures such as a blow-up reindeer or a blow-up snowman.
There are more sturdy figures that don’t require being blown up too such as plastic candy canes that can be placed along the sides of the driveway, the sides of the sidewalk, or sides of the path to the front door.
If your house has bushes in front of them, you can hang lights all over the bushes too.
I see a lot of front doors have hanging wreaths. My stepdad used to make his own hand-made wreaths out of newspapers, ribbon, and paint. It was cool but I always thought it was a lot of work.
4. Driving Through Neighborhoods
Driving through neighborhoods is one of my favorite traditions. I think it is so fun to see the different ways that people decide to decorate their homes.
Some people do a couple of decorations such as lights and a blow-up figure or two.
And then you have the other people that go all out with their house and have lights plastered all over the yard, the fences, the roofs, and anywhere else they can think of to lighten up the darkness.
There is this one neighborhood in Fort Walton Beach (I think it’s called Northgate Estates) that has almost the entire neighborhood decorate their houses for Christmas.
Whenever all the houses are decorated, there is literally a line of cars going through the entire neighborhood just to see the decorated houses (you can find me in those lines every year.)
Some people are too impatient to be in the car line and decide to ride their bikes on the neighborhood sidewalks instead (I think they’re smart to do that honestly.)
Some of the houses have even decorated their Christmas lights to flash in sync with the music on the radio. I think that is so cool.
If you come to Fort Walton Beach around the Christmas holidays, you should definitely check out this neighborhood.
5. Baking Christmas Treats
If you don’t bake around the Christmas holidays, you are missing out on a really good smelling house.
You can make cookies, brownies, cupcakes, literally any baking treat.
To make it more Christmas-themed, you can decorate the treats with sprinkles or frosting that are green, red, and/ or white.
I think baking makes the atmosphere really warm and cozy because it’s very cold outside and you get to feel lucky to be inside the comfort of your home with good smelling and warm treats.
My favorite treats to bake are Christmas cookies.
I take the easy route and just buy the Pillsbury cookie dough that is already pre-designed with Christmas trees or snowmen (hehe.)
They don’t taste as good as cookies from scratch but the warmth of the oven and smell of the sweetness makes up for it.
I also like to bake the traditional chocolate chip cookies to leave out at night for my parents to eat with their glass of milk. You can’t really go wrong with the chocolate chip cookies (unless you burn them.)
6. Building Gingerbread Houses
I used to make gingerbread houses in elementary school every year.
They would give you graham crackers, candy, and frosting for you to build your house.
I always loved being a creator and loved to build anything. Building a gingerbread house was no exception.
I would “glue” the house together with the frosting, decorate the edges of the roof with more frosting and sprinkles, and use the frosting to draw a walking path to the front door on the parchment paper.
One of the candies that they provided were the dots candy and I would use those to represent colorful bushes in the front yard too. I know, I know, I’m a genius.
You could also go the easier route and buy a gingerbread house kit. I know they sell a lot of those at Walmart.
If you need a fun Christmas activity to do with the kids or even your significant other, building gingerbread houses would probably be one of the most intimate ways to spend time with your loved ones.
You can all be super focused at the same time and share design ideas.
7. Christmas Movie Night
My family and I generally do movies throughout the month rather than on Christmas day.
During December, we still have school and work so we can only spend our weekends having movie nights.
We would have snacks ready such as popcorn, the bakery treats we made, soda, candy, and sometimes chips.
I know, I know, It’s all junk food but we normally have vegetables with our meals and fruit after our meals.
So the junk foods during our movie nights are our little cheat nights.
The Christmas movies that I absolutely love to watch every year are Home Alone 2 (not 1, I like 2 more) and Tinker Bell: The Secret of the Wings (lol Tinker Bell??)
There are a few more but these two are the all-time favorites that I cannot go a Christmas without.
I actually think Tinker Bell would top Home Alone 2. It’s so nostalgic for me.
I own the movie too which makes the experience so much easier to have.
I would highly recommend having a Christmas movie night because it is such a great way to wind down and spend time with your family and friends.
It’s even better for the shy people that don’t do well in conversations. Movie night requires no talking (hehe.) \
8. Matching PJS
I have not tried matching PJs with my family because I don’t think my family is into that kind of stuff.
But I definitely plan on adding this tradition into my household when I have a family of my own.
I have seen a lot of my friends do it and thought it was such a cute idea. But they all seem to go for matching onesies and I don’t think I could do that.
1. Because onesies get so hot very quickly.
2. It makes going to the bathroom a lot harder than it should be.
Whenever I start having to match PJs in my family, I would want the short-sleeve button-ups and long pants.
I specified button-ups because I like the design of button-ups and I feel like having the buttons takes the clothes a step above a regular t-shirt.
Having the combination of short sleeves and long pants is great because you aren’t too hot since you have short-sleeved shirts and you aren’t too cold because of the long pants.
If you haven’t tried matching PJs yet because it seems tacky, you should try it at least once to get the real idea of whether you like it or not (I’m talking to you, the family of mine.)
9. Taking Christmas Photos
You can take family photos in your matching PJs to have memories of the holidays.
You’ll also have memories of when you and all of your family members had something in common for once (*wink wink*.)
You could take photos in front of your Christmas tree or in front of your house.
My family has even gone out of their way to take pictures at a park that has Christmas decorations set up.
I have even heard about families taking Christmas photos at the beach.
It sounds a bit bizarre because Christmas is normally associated with cold winter and the beach is normally associated with the hot summer. But these people are taking Christmas pictures at the beach.
I mean the beach is pretty, but what’s Christmas about it? You do you, my friends.
10. Send Christmas Cards
Now that you have a bunch of Christmas pictures, you can use those and put them on Christmas cards.
You can make and send these Christmas cards to distant friends or family.
If they all live nearby then you can also hand-deliver your Christmas cards to them.
My family never did Christmas cards either but this is another tradition that I will be adding to my list of Christmas traditions to do in my family.
I was also told that Christmas cards can be used to update your distant family and friends on what has happened in your life in the past year.
For example, if you went on a big trip abroad over the summer, you could add that to the Christmas card.
Or, you can just make a simple Christmas card with a picture of you that says “Merry Christmas” on it (but doesn’t the other option sound more fun??)
I guess the only “difficult” part about having the Christmas card tradition is actually delivering them to all your people.
Also, I just want to make a little note to say that you would be sending these Christmas cards throughout December. Not on Christmas day (unless you want to.)
11. Christmas Games
I don’t think a Christmas celebration is complete without the Christmas games.
You have your classic secret Santa and dirty Santa.
Secret Santa is when everyone is assigned a person to be a secret Santa for. Then they have to go out to buy a gift for that person without them knowing.
I am more of a fan of dirty Santa because it is much more fun yet so nerve-racking.
The basis of the game is that you’re stealing presents from people until you can lock down a gift that others can’t steal anymore.
I think the hardest part about playing Dirty Santa though is that I have to give my awesome gift away.
I have only played the game a couple of times back in high school.
My Experience With Dirty Santa
This is going to sound terrible on my part but last year, I was planning on participating in a Dirty Santa game.
The requirements were that your gift was worth between $40-50 (The host wanted good quality gifts and wanted to make sure everyone was getting about the same value of a gift as they were giving.)
So anyway, because of the pandemic, I had the genius idea to buy $40 worth of Bath and Body Works foamy soap.
I went shopping when the soaps were on sale so I was able to buy 12 soaps for a little over $40.
Each soap was about $3.50. The original price of the soaps was $7.50.
What I wanted to do was only provide 6 soaps for the Dirty Santa game because:
1. Twelve soaps was a lot to give away.
2. I needed soap for my house too.
3. They were all my favorite scents. But then the host told me I have to have spent $40-50 total.
If I brought the 6 soaps, I would’ve felt like such a cheater (because that would technically be me only spending $20.)
So guess what I did? I didn’t participate and kept all 12 soaps for myself… (whoops.)
However, I did use some of my soaps to directly gift my friends (including the host of the party.)
Honestly, would they have realized if I only gave them 6 soaps? Probably not because each soap bottle says $7.50 on it.
The big reason I withdrew from the game is that watching ALL 12 expensive soaps go to one person was going to be very painful.
I was considering choosing my own gift to avoid giving it away, but someone might have taken it from me.
So much for trying Dirty Santa as an adult.
Back to Christmas Games
You can go even more classic with the card games, bingo, and musical chairs (but this is only good for larger groups obviously.)
All of the games except card games would easily be turned into Christmas-themed games.
There is this one tradition that one of my friends told me about and it was with jigsaw puzzles.
Her entire family would get together and work on a jigsaw puzzle together every Christmas.
I thought that was a really fun idea for spending time together.
But obviously, it only works if you have patient family members.
I would highly recommend you incorporate games into your Christmas celebrations.
12. Christmas Karaoke
I think it would be so fun to do a Christmas Karaoke night or something like that because you can see everyone’s wild side.
You’ll find out who the outgoing people are, who the shy people are, and who the people in between the two traits are.
I would personally be the person that is too shy and decides not to participate. But if there is someone else singing with me who is equally bad at singing, then I’ll do some karaoke.
There are also so many Christmas favorites that almost everyone knows so there is almost little to no room for confusion about what to sing along to.
You have been living under a rock if you don’t know Mariah Carey’s “All I Want For Christmas Is You.”
13. Host A Christmas Party
It’s Christmas time, one of the biggest holidays of the year. Why not have a party for it?
You can bake lots of treats and meals for the guests or you can do a potluck to make the process easier.
You can ask your guests to bring a dish or treat that relates to their culture. Having different cultural foods would make the food choices even more exciting.
Having a party would also make playing group games easier and so much more fun.
You’ll get to see how everyone reacts to game outcomes and have good quality time with everyone all at the same time.
You can also use this time to have all your friends and family gathered in one place to share your love and appreciation for one another.
If you want to be a little fancier, you could make it into a formal Christmas party.
Then, you would have to ask everyone to dress their best. But who doesn’t like to dress up?
14. Opening Presents at Midnight
Every Christmas Eve, my parents and I would stay up until midnight waiting for Christmas Day.
I know most people sleep early to give Santa time to come, eat the cookies, drink the milk, and put the presents down but my family didn’t work that way.
My family would place presents under the Christmas tree throughout the month of December (because we didn’t do the whole Santa belief.)
So throughout the month, I would just see presents piling up under the tree.
They were all the presents that we would be giving to our friends, family, and each other.
When I was younger, I always asked to open presents at midnight because it was the first moment of Christmas and I had been waiting a long time to open the presents (throughout the month of staring at them.) So it only made sense to open them at midnight.
Most of the time, they said no, or that I could only open one.
I like the idea of opening gifts at midnight because I can spend the Christmas day enjoying my gifts, focusing on my family, and enjoying the events that we had planned for the day.
However, now that I am older, I have started to realize that sleep is also important to enjoy Christmas Day and late-night presents aren’t as fun anymore (I mainly thought staying up late meant I was a cool kid.)
15. Opening Gifts Christmas Morning
Maybe you’re completely against the opening presents late at night.
There is also the option of opening gifts on Christmas Morning (which is what most families do I’m sure.)
I think I would have the tradition of opening gifts in the morning more because I have learned to love the early morning. I love how the sun shines through the windows to expose the new day.
In the mornings, you can also play Christmas music to set a happy mood while the presents are being opened. (You might get neighbor complaints If you’re playing loud music at midnight.)
I just feel like the morning is the most refreshing time of day. I think doing one of the most exciting activities of Christmas should be done at this time.
The ideal image that I have in my mind of how Christmas morning should go is based on the Christmas morning in Home Alone 2.
As soon as all the kids woke up, they all ran up the stairs to see all the presents that were suddenly sitting under the Christmas tree. Even the parents were feeling the excitement too.
I want that kind of Christmas morning.
16. Drinking Hot Chocolate
I am pretty sure I was not the only child in the world that saw hot chocolate as coffee for kids.
My favorite hot chocolate to drink was always mint hot chocolate topped with mini marshmallows.
Whenever I only had regular hot chocolate, I would drop one of those swirl mints into my hot chocolate and let it melt. Then I have my imitation mint hot chocolate.
The mornings are a perfect time to drink hot chocolate because it is normally chilling. The morning makes it so easy to get cozied up with a mug of hot chocolate and feel the warmth of the holidays.
If you don’t want hot chocolate as your first beverage of the day then drinking it at another time of the day works too.
Just don’t neglect the awesome and delicious hot chocolate.
You could even have a bonus experience by sipping on your hot chocolate by a fireplace or by your lit-up Christmas tree.
17. Family Get-Togethers
Planning a family get-together can make the holidays much more exciting because you can look forward to seeing all of your distant relatives again.
AND you’ll get to look at more presents under the Christmas tree if you know what I mean *wink wink*. (Yes, yes, the presents are not what Christmas is about but the presents are gonna be there regardless. You might as well be excited about them.)
Also, with a family get-together, you can do everything that I listed in the other suggestions.
You can bake, drive through local neighborhoods, have a movie night, play lots of games, etc.
Having a family get-together would make doing all these traditions so much more exciting.
Imagine seeing all 10+ family members in your house wearing the exact same piece of clothing.
That would bring on so many laughs and so many good opportunities for pictures.
18. Travel
Traveling is a great tradition for people that love to go to new places.
Maybe instead of being the person that hosts the family get-together, you are the person that travels to attend the family get-together.
You could also travel to a place with different weather.
I know that there are a lot of people that take the Christmas holidays as an opportunity to go to warmer climates (like Florida.)
I’ve met some people that came all the way from New York to Florida for the warmer climate.
If you’re someone in a warmer climate that wants to see snow for your Christmas Holiday, you can travel up north to New York. You’ll just “switch places” with the people that went down south.
For all of the Christmas’ that I have traveled for, I ended up going further down Florida to even warmer climates despite already being in Florida.
I still have yet to see snow so traveling north for winter to see snow is on my bucket list for sure.
19. Christmas Gift Shopping
You can make Christmas shopping a tradition by designating a day in December just for shopping for gifts. And then every year you would go shopping on that exact same day.
For example, you can make every first Sunday of December your designated Christmas shopping day.
But I’m pretty sure we all know that Christmas shopping starts on Black Friday.
I love to go Christmas shopping, especially during Black Friday because of the frenzy and holiday spirit that go with it.
But even if you’re not a Black Friday shopper, you can go shopping throughout December.
You can also see how all the retail stores have decorated for Christmas too (some stores get very creative.)
You can go Christmas shopping with your friends or your family. Or you can even go Christmas shopping alone.
Shopping alone is probably the best choice so that you don’t spoil any gifts for whoever you’re shopping with.
I guess if you are shopping with other people, don’t buy their gifts while you’re with them. (Don’t be a dummy.)
My favorite gifts to give are homemade and/ or useable ones (so that it’s not sitting in the closet all year.)
For a homemade gift, I once made all of my friends DIY snow globes out of mason jars, glue, glitter, and plastic trees.
I don’t remember the exact website I used but Shutterfly made ones that seem about the same as the ones I made.
20. Spend Christmas With Your Significant Other
I love this idea for a Christmas tradition because it will be only you and your partner.
You can do this for Christmas evening, Christmas Eve, or both!
This tradition would be easiest to do if you do not have kids yet and don’t mind spending the holiday with your other family members.
When you’re alone with your partner, there are plenty of activities you can do. You can pretty much do all of the suggestions in this post with your partner.
If you want to go fancier, Christmas is a great excuse for dressing up with your partner and bringing out the wine.
In the background, you could play generic Christmas music or romantic Christmas music. Anything works.
You could also prepare a lovely dinner for your partner or you could prepare the dinner with your partner. The latter seems like better quality time if you ask me.
If you aren’t the cooking type of couple then you could try to order take out but I doubt anything is open.
If you want, you can be smarty pants and buy the food ahead of time and eat it as leftovers.
To make your dinner even fancier, bring out the fancy and expensive plates that you barely use.
Obviously, you don’t have to wait till Christmas to have a lovely night with your partner but making it a Christmas tradition will give you another activity to look forward to.
I definitely plan on doing this with my partner at least once.
Ending Note
There are so many activities that you can turn into traditions for your Christmas experience.
I love all things traditions because it always gives me something to look forward to.
Pairing Christmas and traditions together is the perfect combination for excitement.
I hope you like these traditions as much as I liked writing about them.
The holiday season is almost here and you bet I am pumped for it.
Are there other traditions that I should know about? Are there ways I can improve the traditions that I have already listed and described?
Let me know in the comments below and have an exciting holiday!
This post was all about the best Christmas traditions for every family.
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