40 Christmas Traditions for Families (Eve and Morning)

The best Christmas traditions for families are the small ones you can repeat every year without planning: new pajamas on Christmas Eve, the same breakfast on Christmas morning, a drive to see the lights.

Christmas Eve traditions

Christmas Eve is when kids are most excited and least able to sit still, so these are short and cozy.

Before dinner

1. Start here Open one present on Christmas Eve, and make it new pajamas for everyone.
2. Drive or walk around the neighborhood to look at the lights, with hot cocoa in the car.
3. Make one dish together every year, the same one, so the kitchen smells the same every Christmas Eve.
4. Set the table with the kids and let them make the name cards.

After dinner

5. Read the same Christmas book aloud every year, with everyone in pajamas on the couch.
6. Watch one Christmas movie together, and let a different kid pick it each year.
7. Play one game after dinner. Our Christmas games for the whole family has 40 to pick from.
8. Call a grandparent or a cousin who lives far away and let the kids tell them what they hope Santa brings.

Getting ready for Santa

9. Bake cookies for Santa and let the kids decorate them, however messy.
10. Put out a plate of cookies, a glass of milk and a carrot for the reindeer.
11. Write a short note to Santa and leave it next to the cookies.
12. Sprinkle oats outside so the reindeer have something to eat on the lawn.

Right before bed

13. Look out the window for the sleigh, and point out the brightest light in the sky.
14. Take a photo of the kids in front of the tree in their new pajamas, in the same spot every year.
15. Hang the stockings together, even if they’ve been up all month.
16. Say one thing each person loved about this year, before lights out.

Christmas morning traditions

The morning goes fast. A few rules and rituals make it feel like a day and not a ten-minute storm of wrapping paper.

Waking up

17. Set a time before which nobody goes downstairs, and a song that plays when it’s time.
18. Line the kids up on the stairs, youngest first, and take the same photo every year.
19. Open stockings first, in bed or on the couch, before anyone touches the presents under the tree.

Presents

20. Open one present at a time, taking turns, so everyone sees what everyone else got.
21. Let the youngest child hand out the presents as Santa’s helper.
22. Keep one small present hidden and bring it out after all the others are open.
23. Save the bows and stick them on the youngest family member for a photo.

Breakfast

24. Make the same breakfast every year: cinnamon rolls, pancakes or a breakfast casserole made the night before.
25. Eat breakfast in pajamas, at the table, with Christmas music on.
26. Let the kids make a menu card for Christmas breakfast and serve it like a restaurant.

The rest of the day

27. Go outside together for a walk, a sled ride or a bike ride on a new bike.
28. Write thank-you notes or draw thank-you pictures in the afternoon, while the gifts are still new.

All-December traditions

These run through the month, so the season feels long and not only one day.

Counting down

29. Use an advent calendar with an activity instead of candy. Our advent calendar ideas has 24 activities, one for each day.
30. Bring a scout elf back on December 1. Our Elf on the Shelf ideas has 75, one for every night.
31. Hang a paper chain and tear off one link each night.

Making things

32. Build a gingerbread house on the same weekend every year. Our gingerbread house ideas has 30 ideas kids can actually make.
33. Make one new ornament each year and write the year on the back.
34. Make paper snowflakes for every window. Our Christmas crafts for kids has more ideas from things you already have.

Giving

35. Pick a toy each child no longer plays with and donate it before Christmas.
36. Choose a name from a giving tree at school, church or the library and shop for it together.
37. Bake cookies for a neighbor and let the kids ring the doorbell.

Family time

38. Pick out the tree together on the same weekend every year.
39. Have a night of Christmas music, with everyone choosing one song.
40. Read a Christmas book every night in December, from a basket of wrapped books.

I find that the traditions kids remember aren’t the big ones. They’re the ones that come back every year exactly the same, like the same song on the stairs.

A few notes on these traditions

Most of these traditions are free. The few that cost something, like the pajamas and the gingerbread house, are the ones families tend to keep for years.

For more December ideas, see our Christmas games for the whole family and the advent calendar ideas. The rest live in the Family hub, and we explain how we write these lists on How we pick.