10 Last-Minute Christmas Traditions You Can Start Today

It is SO easy for the Christmas season to come and go and to look back and wonder if we were really present during that time.  I find that traditions can either overwhelm us or be used as an aid to help us focus on the true meaning of the season - Christ's birth.  This year, with a baby coming shortly after Christmas, we cut out any tradition we normally have that felt overwhelming to us and stuck with the ones with the most meaning.  However, I've found myself looking to see if there's any other meaningful tradition we could implement this year the last week before Christmas (or on Christmas day) that would deepen our understanding or appreciation for the holiday.

We won't be doing all of these traditions, but if you are looking for any leading up to Christmas, here are some ideas you still have plenty of time to implement!

This is something we do every year.  With our kids being young, we pay for the gifts, but the girls pick them out and are encouraged to be very thoughtful.  We set a limit of $15 per child, so for our three kids currently, that means we are letting each girl spend $30 total on her two sisters.  The girls LOVE this and absolutely adore wrapping the gifts, watching their sisters open them, and usually will add in some handmade items as well like bracelets, pictures, or other crafts which are so sweet.  With older kids, you could encourage them to save up some of their own money and set a limit of how much each will spend.  With a larger family, you could have them draw names and just buy for one person.  Either way, we want to encourage giving in our family and thinking about others, so this is a great way to start.

We read Little Christmas Carol this year and also go to see the play locally every year which is a wonderful tradition.  It's such a timeless read with some of the best themes about giving, selflessness, and changing direction in life when you have been going down the wrong path.  You could also substitute this choice with another book choice you read every year, but either way, it's fun to have a book you read every year at Christmas time.

We started this tradition when we first got married, and it's a favorite of all of ours!  Every year, we think back over the year (which is a great thing to do as a family anyway) and come up with a couple ideas of things we did that were new, amazing, or different and we buy an ornament to reflect that.  This makes decorating the tree each year extremely sentimental because we have so many special ornaments from years past!  This year, we picked out a camper ornament since we got a pop-up camper and went camping for the first time as a family this year.  We also got an ornament that says "Best Gift Ever" and put our baby's ultrasound picture in it since we are waiting for him to arrive right after Christmas this year.  We also typically try to buy ornaments on any vacations to help us remember those as well.

We have a Thanksgiving journal where we write what we are grateful for that year and can look back on years past, but it would be fun to start a Christmas one as well!  You could use it however you want!  I envision writing out the fun things you did leading up to Christmas, including photos, writing down the gifts you got from one another (because I often have a hard time remembering) and writing how God worked in your life that year.

Recently, my friend and Awana leader at our church read a book called The Sparkle Box to the kids which had me in tears!  I immediately added it to our cart!  You don't have to buy this book to implement this tradition, but it's a great launchpad to help kids think about giving.  Basically, a Sparkle Box in the book is where the parents wrote down acts of kindness their family did for others leading up to Christmas.  On Christmas day, they opened the box and remembered all the gifts they gave to Jesus by being kind and giving to others.  There are many ways to do this, but volunteering, buying gifts for less fortunate kids, donating money to different causes, etc. are all things you could do as "gifts" to Jesus. 

I recently heard about this idea and think it is such a fun way to reflect upon Mary and Joseph's experience before and after Jesus' arrival!  For a full break down on what a Bethlehem dinner is, you can check out this blog post, but it's basically a dinner where you eat foods typically eaten in Bethlehem during the time Jesus was born.  You can dress up if you wish, have a party with other families, and/or add other activities, but this would be a really easy and fun tradition to implement the week leading up to Christmas!

Instead of writing letters to Santa, your family could write letters to Jesus.  Instead of asking for physical gifts, you could thank Him for all the gifts He has given you that year (prayers answered, great things that have happened, etc.) and ask for "gifts" for your family and others (meaning prayers you would like answered beyond a physical sense).  This could be a really great activity for reflection on the last year and to really focus on what God has done for us the past year.

I have found that Christmas morning can be so fun but also devoid of meaning if we don't take a second to slow down.  This year, we plan to read Luke 2 before we open our presents and to spend some time praying.  We talk so much leading up to Christmas about the true gift of salvation and how we give gifts to represent the gifts Jesus was given and the gift Jesus has given us, but that meaning can easily get lost when we wake up on Christmas morning and don't mention Jesus until later in the day.  So, we plan to take a second to slow down and center our day on the true focus and why we celebrate in the first place before we open presents.

I know many families do this and I think it's such a fun idea!  Instead of a pie or other dessert, you could make a cake for Jesus and sing Him "Happy Birthday!"  You could also incorporate discussing the gifts you gave to Jesus discussed earlier in this post during this time.

 

This one is solely just for fun, but we did it last year and our girls are still talking about it!  If you have a doorway leading to wherever your Christmas tree is or where your stockings are hung, cover it with wrapping paper and let your kids run through it on Christmas morning!  Our living room has no good spot to do this, but we added the wrapping paper to do the large doorway between our kitchen and dining room since that is the doorway they have to use to get to their stockings on Christmas morning.  Our girls LOVED it and it was a super fun (and easy) way to start the day!

I hope these last-minute traditions sparked an idea you can implement easily for your family that will be a treasured memory for years to come!  Merry Christmas!