Christmas is one of my favorite holidays. The colorful decorations & lights, the cheerful people, the belief in Santa my kids still have, coming together as a family, food, and the classic movies we all love watching.
This year my wife and I are looking to make Christmas the most epic, jaw-dropping experience we can. We want our kids to know that even in a world that’s hurting as it is, as long as we are together we can and will keep the magic of Christmas alive.
Below are ideas and plans that might assist you in making this Christmas an epic one for you and your family as well.
Realize It’s About The Time Together
It’s all about spending time together, making happy memories, and not about the present. The sooner you get your kids to think that way the better. I see too often, my kids included, they always talk about the presents they want and hope they are going to get. Which is fine is a way but I want them to also realize that this holiday and others are about spending what little time we have together.
Each year I aim to carry on the traditions I remember. For instance, classic Christmas movies. Even the new Christmas movies because maybe my kids will love them and relate it to spending time together as a family. I keep the one present on Christmas Eve going with my family. Funny enough my wife had the same tradition.
We listen to music and discover ones we all love like Dominic the donkey”, or “I want a hippopotamus for Christmas”, and of course the traditional ones as well.
We love driving around and look at lights or go to candy cane lane where they decorate nearly every house on the block.
Santa photos every year are a must. We all dress up in new holiday clothes and make a day of it at the mall do a little last minute holiday shopping while we wait.
Plan Ahead For The Month
I’ve alway been terrible at this. However, this year we did it for the month of October & Halloween and it made a world of difference.
When you don’t know what to do you end up doing nothing or you get so stressed out because you’re winging it.
Come up with the weekends first and see if it’s enough or if you want to sprinkle a few things in there during the week. Also pay attention to TV show time schedule, when the holiday movies are playing. It can be heart breaking when you didn’t get to see you favorite holiday movies.
Take Photos & Videos
Take tons of photos as the season passes. You’ll be surprised how often you look back at them. You’ll get ones that make you look back at it every year. I got one of my eldests’ first Christmas. Her walking out of the bedroom, and the shock on her face with all the presents under the tree.
Decorate Early
We found out last year that we have been falling later and later behind each year when it comes to decorating. We usually wait for the tree but we ended up doing that about two weeks before Christmas last year because of rain.
Trust me, start in November. My wife, as of November 1st, is already decorating for Christmas mixing it with Thanksgiving.
Wait what? You might ask. But those holidays can’t mix, one is fall and one is winter how can you do that. It’s all about style folks. If you go with a rustic farmhouse feel and keep the winter selection smaller to the amount of fall decor you have out it can fit in perfectly.
When are we going all out on Christmas? The day after Thanksgiving. Which allows us to find more decorations to put up.
We love going as a family to shop for decor. Our favorite and the ones that we’ve found have the best prices, least in our area, are Michael’s, Joanne Fabric, and Target (both the front seasonal and the back of store seasonal).
If going to Micheals or Joannes make sure you sign up for their email and get their app. Only buy when they have a good sale because their regular price is expensive.
One last thing is if you like something get it when you see it because it probably won’t be there next time. We ran into that problem last year.
Get A New Ornament Every Year
We go out and find a new ornament every year. This way we have a timeline of our lives together and we hope our kids keep the tradition alive. Now we don’t put them all on the tree. I try but my wife says it looks like I vomited colors on the tree because I try to put everything I can on it.
What we end up doing, ok my wife does, is hang some up in other areas of the home. For instance, across the top of the tv stand, book shelves, kitchen bar top, the beds headboard, walls, and the bathroom.
Decorate As A Family
Yes, it can be a pain sometimes but the kids love it. Let them hold the lights that are plugged in as you lay them on the tree. However make sure they are not biting them…. As my youngest did this year. Allow them to walk the ornament from you to your spouse who is hanging them. Anything they can do to help that they see adults doing helps them feel involved and strengthens the bond. We also get them mini trees so they can decorate their own with small ornaments.
Get Your Decor Organized For Next Year
This one is for after the hustle of the holiday. When you are taking down everything from the holiday season make sure you organize in a way that makes sense. If you start decorating in November or your fall holiday decor coincides with your winter holiday label the totes so you know what tote to grab. It makes it easier for you to quickly get your house decorated without looking through everything.
Make A List Throughout The Year
Have a list on your phone so every time your spouse says “hey I like that” or “isn’t that pretty” you pop it in the list and by the time you want to start shopping you have a go-to list. For me, it took some of the stress out of the holidays. I use to run through the mall or stores in hopes I find something she likes. It may be late for this year but start now and your list will be ready for Birthdays, Valentine’s Day, Anniversary, and next Christmas.
Start Shopping Early
This Christmas is upon us quickly and might be too late to start shopping early this year. However, you can start getting ready for next year. I start as early as July-August for my wife and we start in February for the kids (just after 2 of their birthdays). Trust me on this one getting it done early relieves a ton of stress. Not only that but you can also stretch the budget out over those months to get those things your spouse wants. Most years it seems like it’s December and you both are working on the same budget. You might still have a bunch to do before Christmas but you will have the big gifts out of the way.
Handmade Gifts
I love making gifts for my family. I usually do it for Valentines’ Day, like this but it works well here too. I’ve done jewelry organizers, bracelets with special dates, and I have just recently gotten into woodworking so look out for additional ideas coming from that after the holidays. This can even go with the decorating tip. Make things with your kids. little trees out of scrap wood even if all they can do is sand or paint they will love the memories of the decorations every year when you pull them out.
Wrap Early
If you want to drop 50% of the seasons’ stress do this, wrap as many of the presents you can before Christmas Eve. You have no idea how many Christmas Eve’s I have spent wrapping present till 3 am Christmas morning.
25 Nights Of Stories
25 stories for 25 nights of Christmas. You could do 12 if you don’t want to find that many Christmas books, they don’t have to be Christmas books though. I like the classics but they also have a lot of new ones coming out every year that the kids love. They might turn into books they will remember forever.
One added tip to this is buy a few of the same if you think they will love it because kids are prone to destroying books with ease.
Movie Marathon
This is my thing. I love movies and sharing my joy with the kids has been especially special this year to me. The older my daughter gets the more we bond over movies. Other then the classics we love The Santa Clause with Tim Allen, and the original Home Alone movies. The little ones really like Mickey’s Christmas Carol, I also like the Mighty Ducks and Harry Potter series, and the Die Hard series for after they go to sleep.
A Virtual Christmas
When you are so far away from loved ones and especially this year with Covid you might not be able to be with your loved ones in person but you can set up a virtual celebration using the tips similar to the one I have in this post about Tips for celebrating Thanksgiving. We are hoping we can get the TV set up to steam her family and mine so they can see the kids on Christmas morning.
Find Local Festivities
We love finding what there is to do around where we live. The Balboa boat parade, Candy Cane Lane, communities that have drive-thru house lightings, and the mall Santa. Even though this year doesn’t have a lot of those things you can still drive around to see the lights and some places have drive-thru light shows.
Things You Can Do As A Family For Fun:
Candy Santa Sleighs
Take 2 candy canes for the runners of the sleigh, a Kit Kat bar for the base of the sleigh, a chocolate candy Santa, and Hershey nuggets as presents all hot glued together. See link here to the one I followed from About A Mom
Craft Paper Chains
These are an obvious but fun to make with the kids and they can use them to help decorate the tree or their room.
Christmas Letters To Santa
Another obvious but absolutely necessary part of Christmas.
Elf/Stitch On The Shelf
Most people do elf on a shelf but we get a Stich on a shelf last year after Christmas so we are doing it this year. Just know it is a little bit of work trying to for one remember to do it every night and secondly what to do every night. This first night you should have him give Christmas PJ’s. He boxed up the two oldest and had a tiny Stich stuffed into our youngest pj’s and we had a good laugh about that one. We use give them pj’s on Christmas Eve but that doesn’t give them very much time to wear them so doping it at the beginning of December gives them more nights. We’ve done a snowball fight using cotton balls and other toy ( we used their dinosaurs), we would have done marshmallows but our cats would eat them. It’s good to have home get into mischief as well like pulling out a string of lights and getting wrapped up in them.
Santa Hat Or Reindeer Head Rice Crispy Treats
You can’t go wrong with rice crispy treats.
Gingerbread House
We’re going to try it for the first time this year. We are all getting one, wife and I included, and will see how many candies actually make it on the houses. Mine included, I love candy.
Santa Cookies
I always have my kids help make Santa some cookies. The BONUS is I get to eat cookies that night!
Really you can just type December Kids crafts in the Pinterest search bar and get millions of ideas
I hope you find these tip helpful and I hope you all have the best possible holiday this year, even if it have to be social distanced.
