I wrote this blog, because as a mum with a young family I think it is important to start traditions for all sorts of special events.
It just so happens that Christmas is my favourite time of year and so I begin my search for traditions to help build my own family traditions and in turn help you build yours. Please let us know if you plan to adopt any AND if you have any new ones.
These traditions have been gathered through our Facebook page and through my general chattering among friends and the Brisbane Kids team.
Weird and Wonderful Christmas Traditions
1. Track Santa on Christmas Eve using the NORAD app
2. Place a Gift under the Kmart wishing tree- then place the card you get on your own Christmas tree at home.
3. New pjs, clean bedding and a bubble bath for everyone on Christmas Eve
4. On Christmas Eve, give the family a fun new board game
5. Host a December 1st Christmas Feast Extravaganza with all the trimmings as a prelude to the big day- also good for those that don’t get to host the big meal. Decorate the tree, watch elf and have a December 1st feast.
6. Visit the Brisbane Christmas lights.
7. Make a Christmas playlist
8. Make cookies for Santa and put out reindeer food on the letterbox… (oats with glitter in it is a fun idea < edible environmentally friendly glitter please)
9. Watch Polar Express on Christmas Eve
10. Let the kids stay awake and go to midnight mass
11. Get green and red handprints from your child- save them as a record in a spiral-bound display book
12. If you have friends with lots of kids, start a tradition of gifting their family a new Christmas decoration every year.
13. Drink cold iced chocolates while opening presents. If you are lucky enough to be having a White Christmas (aka not in Australia) then substitute with hot chocolate.
14. Dad can the kids out to search for the sleigh in the sky while playing secret Santa Music you can find here.
15. Have a treasure hunt to track down the presents from mum and dad and just put Santas presents under the tree.
16. Pack tiny presents in MASSIVE boxes.
17. Put potatoes in the stocking for all the “naughty” times we had in the year”. The bigger the potato the bigger the present u missed out on
18. Have a real tree (at least once) so the house smells like Christmas
19. Go into the city each year and have the kids choose a new decoration
20. All the adults stay up on Xmas eve and have a drink and open their presents at midnight
21. Take a trip into the city to see the Myer Xmas windows
22. Dress up in your ‘Sunday best’ for Christmas lunch- even if it only stays that way until the end of the meal.
23. Make batches of rocky road/coconut ice (whatever) for friends and family.
24. Take a Christmas photo every year of the whole family, you will thank yourself later.
25. Whenever you drive around at night play the Christmas lights games which is similar to the Jacaranda tree game where whenever you spot lights you have to yell “Christmas lights” and score points.
26. Have a Christmas day novelty secret santa – everyone buys a $10 silly present and draw out of the hat to decide who gets what.
27. All the neighbours get together for a champagne breakfast.
28. Put a gold/coin surprise in a Christmas pudding for someone to find.
29. Have a family game of water volleyball/cricket (or whatever) after Christmas lunch.
30. Make your own bonbons.
31. Play board games or festive-themed Christmas Games with Kids.
32. Light a candle on Christmas Day for anyone no longer with us
33. Make sure Santa’s wrapping paper doesn’t match yours (more of a tip than a tradition- but we love it!).
34. Want, Need, Wear and Read Gifts.
35. A Christmas Eve feast followed by a leftover Xmas lunch where everyone brings a plate
36. Go to a performance of Tchaikovsky’s “The Nutcracker” ballet
37. Take the dogs to the beach on Xmas day
38. Put the Christmas tree up November 1st and have the Christmas magic in your home for even longer
39. Watch the Grinch on Christmas Eve
40. Let the youngest put the star on top of the Christmas Tree
41. Attempt to make a gingerbread house every year
42. Gift everyone a Christmas mug on Christmas Eve and use for the entire month of December
43. Have stuffed eggs for Christmas Lunch
44. Challenge the kids to do a random act of kindness at some point in the month of December leading up until Christmas
45. Play cards in the afternoon/evening
46. Relish in a hot roast lunch regardless of the heat
47. Enjoy chocolate for breakfast
48. Bake something from the past like Nanna’s Trifle
49. Make and drink creaming soda spiders on Christmas Eve
50. Help out a charity by donating some money or time for their cause – Christmas can be a hard time of year for many
51. Having the kids make their own bauble every year
52. Read the Night Before Christmas on Christmas Eve
53. If you are hosting Christmas, get everyone to bring a salad or dessert so you can relax!
54. Go to church
55. Open one present on Christmas Eve
56. Go swimming in the afternoon
57. Make an early batch of Rum Balls…and then several more batches..
58. Head to a local community carols event
59. Bring out the elf and the shelf (or substitute) and have fun moving the elf to different spots every night
60. Give the neighbours novelty jellybeans as a present.
Regardless of the Christmas Traditions you do OR DON’T adopt – we wish you and your family the best, safest and most magical Christmas you could hope for.
Tracy Tunney
we give the kids an early present on Christmas Eve every year and it’s always brand new pyjamas so they look great for the early morning santa’s been pics ;D
Mez
Great list of traditions. We also do a gingerbread house 2-3 weeks before. Borrowed a great easy kit about 4yrs ago to do our first one and loved it so bought the mould kit myself. It is one of the highlights now. Each of our children can invite a friend to help us make it. I do a second batch of g/bread and we also do g/bread men and then guests take home what they made.
The ginger bread takes pride of place on side board until Christmas day when we start eating and all visitors can take a piece.
Natalie
Hi Ngaire
An amazing list of fantastic traditions 😉 We love Christmas too, thought I’d share a few:
* Christmas Photo with whole family, great to look back on each year
* Advent calender with freddo frogs
* Dad cuts out a wooden outline of santa, everyone paints it, put it out front to spread the christmas cheer.
Have Santa holding a list so you can put your family names including pets on it.
* Champagne and Croissant breakfast filled with ham, cheese, avocado and tomatoe
* Christmas Cards or Emails to friends and family away, send a picture of your favourite memory from the past year.
* Help out a charity by donating some money or your time for their cause, Christmas can be hard time of year for some.
* Remember a little pressie for your pets
Karli Pearson
Make presents for neighbours, work colleauges and extended family (past years it has been Christmas puddings, wheat/heat bags, biscuits, “Dammit Dolls”, etc)
Secret Santa with any family members who turn up to the family Christmas gathering (we do one where we draw numbers out of a hat and then pick presents from the pile in order, the catch is that the second person can steal the first person’s present or take one from the pile, the third can steal from the first or the second or take from the pile, etc. It gets good when someone way down the leist steals from someone who steals from someone, who steals from someone etc. We do have rules about how mant times a present can be stolen and you can’t steal from the person who steals from you. The game stops when someone takes the last present in the pile.)
Each year a different family member buys an ornament for the tree (We have one for every year since my husband and I were married)
No ornaments can go on the tree after the angel is on.
Put up tree 1/12 and pack up 1/1.
Make our own Christmas cards and presnt labels (Santa buys his because he’s so busy)
Encourage the kids to play with each item or really check out what they got before they get the next present. It can take us days to open all the presents.
REad Christmas stories in the days leading up to Christmas.
Check out the local light displays.
Go to a local carols event (kindy, primary school or community)
Nicole
LOVE the stealing secret Santa present idea! We do normal secret Santa for the extended family every year and that sound like heaps of fun!
Tamara Sinigaglia
In the past couple of years my 5 year old son and I have our own Christmas traditions:
Every year we choose a present to place under the Kmart Wish tree.
We write and decorate Christmas cards for family and friends.
We make fresh pasta to have on Christmas day with family.
We sing in the Parish Choir on Christmas day
Presesnts to close family members are usually bvased on beautiful memories like portrait or collage of photos ,image books or personalised Christmas tree decorations
We have hot crossaints and Nutella for breakfast and Panettone for afternoon tea!
We gather at my parents house and place all our gifts in front of the fireplace with biscuits and milk for Santa and Reindeers
We put together a real Pine Christmas tree and an amazing handcrafted Natiity and we create the whole village surrounded of creeks,mountains,desert etc,,,a real wonderful experience to put together,very secial moment for the whole family with a real meaning and feeling of Christmas!
Christmas evening we gather together and play Tombola and card games…
I love our Christmas!
Tamara & Anton
Anwen O'Donnell
We had to wait until everybody was up to open our pressies. For early risers, we were allowed to raid our stockings, which were always stuffed full of lollies and chips and juices..
Christine Rae
When our boys were young, after our Christmas Eve meal we would turn out the lights, light a candle, and sit around the Christmas tree to read the story of Jesus birth from either a children’s Bible, or story book. Then we would pray a simple prayer of thanks, sing a couple of carols like “Silent Night” and “Away in a Manger” before going to bed full of excitement. On Christmas morning we went to church, then the whole family gathered at Grandma’s house for morning tea – fruit mince pies, white Christmas and fruit cake. Christmas dinner was always traditional, no matter how hot it was outside, – turkey, baked potatoes, pumpkin, carrots & greens etc, then plum pudding in a cloth (Great Grandma’s recipe, made 6 months or more before) with custard, cream and icecream. Grandma inserted a few boiled 5 cent pieces before serving. We had to wait until after dinner to open our presents! (Grandma ruled – OK?)
DISQUS1987
Our tradition is we celebrate Christmas on Christmas Eve (Dutch) with a roast lunch/dinner and traditional roast veggies (despite the heat), trifle for dessert, and trifle and Coke for breakfast on Christmas day! My family isn’t big on ‘involvement’ so I can’t start something everyone will be part of… But, new traditions for my family now that I have my own 😉
AwesomeGuy99
Half of these things i don’t do with my family, but the things that we do, we do quite alot. I should maybe start doing some of them.
AwesomeGuy99
These are so true, I do them every year.
Donald Trump
In America we don’t do many of these things!! It is amazing to see the differences of America and Australia.
Ngaire Stirling
Glad you enjoyed it Donald 🙂