Favorite Christmas Traditions

I love Christmas. Really I do. I tend to make a big deal about most of the holidays but I fricking LOVE Christmas!

Because of my obsession love of Christmas, family traditions are a big thing for me. When I was younger, we would always go to my grandparents Christmas day afternoon. The whole family would be there and I loved it. But, Now that we are all older, and starting families of our own, we all have our own Christmas traditions.

This will be mine and Liam’s 4th Christmas together, however it is Molly’s first Christmas and our first as a family of 3! Liam has his family traditions and I have mine. Over the years we have put the two together and made ones of our own, now we get to start more new ones as we have a child! So here are some of our Christmas traditions we either do, or plan on starting this year..

Put up your Christmas tree/decorations together.

Create a playlist of all your favorite Christmas songs, get the Christmas decorations from the loft. buy some mince pies and have a day/evening of putting your Christmas tree up and making your house look like Santa’s grotto! This totally gets you in the Christmas spirit! We are putting up the tree when get home with the in laws and I can’t wait!

Buy meaningful ornaments throughout the year.

Search for them throughout the year, not just during the festive period. It could be something to remember a holiday you went on or the places you’ve visited, or something about a memorable life event like the birth of a child, engagement, getting married or even getting one when someone you love passes away so you can remember them. Get creative. They can create a memory treasure trove of your life at different stages.

Put hot chocolate or coffee in a thermos and drive around looking at the Christmas lights.

A quiet drive at twilight, a thermos of something hot, and a chance to snuggle. It’s lovely. And you can admire the beauty outside and the beauty of the season together, too. This is something I used to do with my family as a child and something I really wanted Liam and I to start doing together once we had children.

Its so much fun. Some people just put a few pretty lights around their windows, and then there’s always those one or two houses that do Christmas BIG. They have every Christmas character you can think of lit up and Christmas music playing full blast. Those are the houses it’s always fun to return to year after year.

Watch some Christmas movies together – and make one YOUR Christmas movie

Everybody has their favorite Christmas movies. There are just so many to choose from…Father Christmas, The Grinch, Elf, Home Alone and so much more! We have already made a list of Christmas movies and plan to watch them all over the course of December.

Watch some movies together and make that your Christmas movie, the one that you’ll come back to year after year. For example, me and my sisters used to watch Ray Briggs Father Christmas every Christmas Morning whilst growing up. It is our Christmas Movie that brings back so many happy memories.

Bake some cookies together.

I love a bit of Christmas baking! Baking some festive treats together each year can quickly become a annual tradition! Wait, why stop at cookies? Mince pies, gingerbread men, cakes and more! Experiment, go nuts and have fun!

Create a Christmas Eve box to open together

You can either have a family one, or make the child their own individual one. This year we are making Molly her own one. You can put literally anything in them. A Christmas movie to watch that night, New Festive jammies, Chocolates, Small toys, books – the possibilities are endless!

Gingerbread Houses.

fun activity that can get you and your family in the Christmas spirit is decorating gingerbread houses. This is an activity that can be carried on for years to come, especially as your family grows. To make this activity even more exciting, make it a competition for the best decorated gingerbread house! Liam and I are both quite competitive  – this could be interesting!

Make your own wrapping paper and name tags.

Over the last few months, Liam and I have been trying to be sustainable and Eco friendly. I decided back in November that we would make our own gift wrap and name tags this year. I got some brown paper, some paints and we had a blast making hand prints, footprints and fingerprints! With the name tags, we just made up a batch of salt dough and cut them into hearts and gingerbread men, left them to dry out on a super low temp in the oven. We plan to decorate them once home form holiday! Its such a personal way of wrapping up and decorating gifts – also, so better for the environment!

Make your own Christmas decorations.

There are so many ways that you can make your own decorations. You can use fruit, cinnamon sticks, sticks with ribbon, salt dough, clay and so much more! You can buy paper/card baubles and paint them or cover them with glitter. You can go out into the local park and bring the outdoors in – pine cones, Holly leaves, twigs and decorate how you wish. Great thing is, is that it’s more personal and the items from outdoors that cant necessarily be kept for the following year can be recycled or popped into the compost heap to decompose. You can buy Eco friendly glitter too as glitter is a microplastic making its way into our seas and affecting marine life. Save those fishies!

Commemorate Your First Christmas Together

If it’s your very first Christmas as a couple..or as a married couple or like us as a family of 3! Here are a few ideas on things you could do.

Make an impression of your first house/flat key in some salt dough and make an ornament out of it. If you use a real tree, cut a slice off the bottom and write the year and 1st Christmas together on it.You can take a family photo and pop it in a clear glass Christmas ball and hang it on the tree.

What are your family traditions?