The holiday season is the perfect time of year to focus on creating family traditions. Christmas traditions are memory-makers and give your family and friends stories to share for years to come. Those shared memories help tell the story of your family. They can be passed down through generations to come—and hopefully become part of their traditions, too. Are you looking for some new memory-making traditions to start?
Here are 10 Christmas traditions ideas:
1. Make a family recipe together.
Does your family have a secret recipe for an amazing dish or is there a meal everyone requests to have when they are home for the holidays? Spend some time in the kitchen together recreating that special meal. Take photos and share them with everyone involved to always have photos to represent that time in the kitchen.
2. Decorate the tree with ornaments that have been passed down.
Have you collected family ornaments throughout the years? Take some time to tell your children stories about the ornaments you remember. Maybe your parents spent a vacation on a beach and brought back a palm tree ornament that you now place on your tree each year, or you have your first ornament as a married couple to show your children.
3. Make a donation as a family.
If your children are small, maybe set aside an amount of money each holiday season for each of them to donate to a charity of their choice. As adults, they’ll remember how it felt to give to people or animals in need and share those memories with their own families. If your family is grown up, choose a new charity each year that you can volunteer your time to as a group, or you could adopt a family in need each holiday season.
4. Leave a small gift for neighbors.
From a small treat bag of goodies to a poinsettia plant, your neighbors will remember your generosity and the holiday cheer you bestowed upon them by leaving them a small gift during the holidays. The more neighbors who participate in your holiday tradition, the more merriment there is to go around!
5. Add a new family photo to the tree each year.
A cute family selfie is all you need to start this tradition. Simply take your family photo and place it in a photo ornament that has the year engraved on it. Each year, add a new photo ornament to your tree and watch as your family grows and changes over the years. Each photo will hold memories from Christmas that year that everyone can think back on.
6. Join together around a Christmas campfire.
Invite the family over for a campfire night and take turns sharing memories from holidays past. You can also ask each person to bring something that reminds them of their favorite holiday memory and then do a show-and-tell.
7. Bake holiday cookies together.
Invite friends and family to join you for a cookie baking day. Have each person bring his or her favorite cookie recipe and ingredients and ask them to share why it’s their favorite.
8. Have a gingerbread house contest.
A little gingerbread house competition during the holidays can add a festive touch to your celebrations. Set up the ultimate decorating station—candy and sprinkles galore—and after the houses are built, have everyone cast a vote for the best gingerbread house, the most creative, and the most challenging. This is sure to spark some fun memories to share.
9. Put together a photo book of the entire year.
Take some time curating a photo album for the year and then have it printed as a photobook. When your book arrives, spend some time as a family looking back over the past year and sharing stories from birthdays, anniversaries, holidays, and more.
10. Create a family memories jar.
Cut out long strips of paper and have everyone in your family write down their favorite memories from the year and add them to a jar. Then, you can pull a sheet of paper out from the jar one at a time and enjoy all the amazing moments you shared over the year.
Does your family have a special holiday tradition that you enjoy every year? Share in the comments below!
