Family Christmas Traditions to Start This Year

The holidays are a perfect time to try some new family Christmas traditions! Here are 40 ideas for festive traditions to start with your family or friends.

Creating traditions with your family and friends around the holidays is such a worthwhile endeavor!

The togetherness that each of these family Christmas traditions brings is priceless, and the memories you’ll create even more so.

This year, comb through our list of 40 traditions and add one or two to your holidays to make them extra heartfelt and festive.

Psst — before you get the ideas, be sure to sign up below for my VIP group. I send these folks more of my very best holiday projects, ideas, and DIYs.

Jammie Breakfast

This tradition has been going strong in our family for almost a decade!

Every year, my mom invites all of her kids and grandkids to show up at her house one weekend morning in our jammies.

We all cook breakfast together and just hang out being silly and festive, maybe playing a game or doing a puzzle.

This is a great one if you have a busy holiday season and need a reason to get together and spend some quality time.

See a Show

Whether you love The Nutcracker, Handel’s Messiah, a great holiday jazz concert, or a musical, get tickets for the family to see a holiday classic.

This family Christmas tradition is wonderful to pair with a special lunch or dinner out on the town.

Decorate Together

Planning a special family tradition of decorating the tree together is one that you’ll always treasure!

Perhaps you can choose a traditional day to do this like December 1st, or even the day after Thanksgiving.

Make a Family Tradition Ornament

Crafting a special ornament together every year is a tradition that’s twofold — you get the joy of spending time together creating something, and also a collection of special ornaments that grows over the years.

I love this special ornament, which I made to look like our home.

Try a Special Recipe

Getting together with friends or family to cook a special recipe has the wonderful, cozy feel of the holidays wrapped up in it.

Whether you plan and cook a whole meal together, or just make the same delicious recipe each year, blocking some time out to try a recipe is a time-honored holiday tradition.

Christmas Karaoke

It might not be the most traditional way to celebrate, but dusting off your singing skills for a little karaoke makes for incredible memories!

If you have a crew of friends who comes home for the holidays, this is a particularly fun tradition to start.

Tea Party

As a kid, this was one of my favorite family Christmas traditions!

My aunt and grandmother would come to tea at our house, where we would drink out of fancy teacups and have little cookies. I love the idea of this tradition, especially to bring older and younger members of a family together.

Christmas Puzzle

In our home, we do a puzzle every holiday season. We have three or four puzzles (I love this one with gold foil) that we rotate, and every time we finish one, the person who puts in the last piece writes their initials and the date on the back of the piece.

You can also use these puzzle history stickers!

See Christmas Lights

Talk to friends and family about where to find the best holiday light displays in your city, load up the car, and head out to go light hunting!

This family Christmas tradition is extra cozy if you wear pajamas so as soon as you’re home you can just toss the kiddos right into bed.

Christmas Movies

Watching the same Christmas movies year after year is such a comforting, classic tradition.

Some of our family favorites are White Christmas, Home Alone I and II, Spirited, Elf, Jingle Jangle, and Klaus.

Hot Cocoa

Family Christmas traditions don’t have to be elaborate or expensive. One of my kids’ favorite things about the holidays is that I say yes to having a mug of hot chocolate just about every time they ask during December.

To them, that’s all the magic they need.

Christmas Books

If you have Christmas books for your kids (or yourself!), store them away with your Christmas decorations and bring them out for the season.

Just the fact that the books have been hidden away all year makes them feel extra special.

Make Snowflakes

A stack of plain printer paper can become an indoor snowstorm!

Spend an afternoon cutting paper snowflakes with your family and hang them up each year to create a flurry in your hallway or living room. Add a few snowflakes each year.

Christmas Day at the Movies

This is one of my husband’s family traditions!

On Christmas Day, after the flurry of morning activity (stockings, breakfast, church), they would meal prep a Christmas dinner and then go to the movies while it was in the slow cooker. So cozy!

Shop Local

There’s not much I love more than a Christmas market! If your hometown has an amazing holiday market, make it an annual tradition to skip the big box Black Friday sales and do your holiday shopping from local shops and makers.

Make a Gingerbread House

The sweetest memories come from this tradition!

Making a gingerbread house is something that is beloved by kids, adults, and everyone in between. Make a whole village and let everyone decorate their own little house.

Go to the Christmas Parade

Chances are there’s a parade to be found, somewhere near you! Our hometown has a nighttime parade where all the floats are lit up, making for a completely magical night.

Bundle up, bring a thermos of cocoa, and make this one of your favorite traditions each year!

Make a Christmas Bucket List Tradition

If December feels overwhelming, start a tradition that will help your family prioritize their favorite holiday events!

Make a family bucket list where every family member gets to choose one thing that they want to be sure to do during the month. That way, everyone experiences something special and you’re not stretched too thin.

Sing Carols

This is another family Christmas tradition that takes no money and no prep! If somebody plays the piano, plunk out some tunes and sing along.

If not, queue up a Christmas carol playlist and sing along while you all sip on something warm and delicious.

Nativity Scene

If your Christmas traditions involve a nativity scene, make a sweet tradition out of it. As kids, my sister and I loved setting out our nativity took so much care in setting it out just perfectly.

Advent Calendar

Advent calendars are such a lovely way to add meaning and tradition to your holiday season.

I especially love calendars like this, meant to encourage small acts of kindness. If you have teens, this is a perfect one to try.

White Elephant

Nothing livens up a party like a White Elephant gift exchange!

You might also know it as Yankee Swap or Dirty Santa, but no matter what name it goes by, it’s a super fun tradition to add to a holiday party – especially among coworkers or friends.

Secret Santa

And speaking of gift exchanges, a Secret Santa exchange is a lovely addition to a holiday gathering! I love this idea if your family is really big and it’s overwhelming to get gifts for everyone.

Suggest a Secret Santa exchange to add some intention and purpose to your gifting.

Matching PJs

If you love cute, aesthetic vibes, this might be the family Christmas tradition for you! Shop early for matching jammies and hand them out just after Thanksgiving so that you can enjoy them all December.

Cookie Bake-Off Family Christmas Tradition

Set aside a December Saturday to get all of the bakers in your family together, and bake your best batch!

You can have a taste test afterwards, or just bundle up variety plates for all of your neighbors and friends.

Wrapping Day

If I’m being honest, I really don’t like wrapping gifts. But with friends? That’s way more fun!

Get together with a friend or family member and have a gift wrapping day each year, when you wrap and gab and snack.

Christmas Crackers

Christmas crackers are a time-honored tradition in some countries, and I think it’s such a charming one!

You can make your own or get them pre-made.

Get a Family Photo

There are so many moments during December when you’ll probably find your family all in one place, dressed up, and feeling joyful! Don’t forget during those moments to grab a family photo.

They don’t have to be taken by a professional or staged in any sort of intricate way. Just snapping a photo to have those memories is tradition in and of itself!

Volunteer

The Christmas season is the perfect time to embrace the spirit of giving, and spend a bit of time volunteering for a cause or organization that matters to you.

If there’s an annual event near you that needs volunteers, that’s also a great way to make giving back to your community part of your family’s Christmas traditions.

Write Letters to Santa

If you have young children, this sweet tradition is such a charming part of Christmas.

Try to save their letters and compile them in a baby book or memory box, to look back at in future years.

Recap Your Year

Every year, my husband and I sit down together for a drink or meal, and talk through our year.

We think through our highs and lows, recap our favorite memories, take stock of the goals we met or didn’t meet, talk about future goals, and set some intentions for the year to come.

This is one of my favorite conversations of the whole year, because it helps us to stay connected and aligned on a future that we’re both excited about.

Make Gifts for Neighbors

Any time a neighbor brings a little holiday treat I feel so honored and cared for! It truly is the thought that matters, and to know that someone took the time to make you something is a special feeling.

Get your family together and make a gift that you can create in large batches (like these ornaments, bookmarks, or sweets). Then hand them out to your neighbors.

Perfect Your Simmering Spice Recipe

Simmering spices are a lovely way to bring major Christmas cheer to your home!

Try this all-natural recipe and your house will smell absolutely heavenly – these also make a great gift for neighbors or friends.

Light Holiday Candles

The comforting glow of a candle is undeniably one of my favorite parts of the Christmas season. During December I almost always have a candle or two lit around the house.

Pro tip: find holiday candles on a deep discount after the Christmas season and store them away for the following year.

Learn About Other Cultures

While you may celebrate Christmas, chances are that many of the people around you celebrate other winter holidays!

Take this incredible opportunity to teach your family about other holidays like Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Boxing Day, and more. You can also talk with your kids about how Christmas is celebrated in different ways throughout the world.

Send Christmas Cards

I started sending Christmas cards in college and never stopped! Start a family tradition of setting aside an hour or two to write Christmas cards to friends or family.

Younger kids can help by adding stamps or addressing envelopes.

Leave Milk and Cookies for Santa

Santa needs his sustenance!

Even for older kids, it can be a nostalgic family tradition to leave a little plate of cookies out for Santa to enjoy.

Feed the Reindeer

In our house, we always remember the reindeer!

Leave a few carrots (or whatever veggies you’ve got in the fridge) on your porch. Somehow, every Christmas morning our kids find most of the carrots gone, with some carrot crumbs left behind. Those reindeer are hungry!

Bake Ahead for Christmas Morning

I have a sweet cousin who is an incredible baker, and every year her Christmas eve gift to us is a dish of freshly made cinnamon rolls.

She gifts it in a tin so that we can just pop them in the oven and enjoy them hot on Christmas morning. It’s the most thoughtful gift, and I always apprciate that we have something ready to eat.

Try creating a little family tradition where you bake or prep something ahead of time that you can just heat and enjoy on Christmas morning. This oatmeal would be perfect!

Save a Special Ribbon

Choose a ribbon or box to reuse every year, gifting it to another member of the family as wrapping on their present.

This can become such a sweet tradition, and the ribbon can be used in other ways too — on bouquets at weddings, for baby showers, and more.

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