How To Make New Holiday Traditions With Your Kids

See the neighborhood lights

Holiday traditions change as kids go through different stages of life. So how can you create traditions that evolve, but stay...traditional?  Here are a few ideas.

1. Neighborhood with lights.  There seems to be one neighborhood in every community that has a gaggle of homes that go all out with the outdoor decorations.  Take a drive at night.  Little kids will enjoy the lights and might even fall asleep in the car before you get home.  As your kids get older, make a tradition of adding hot chocolate into the mix or going for ice cream after viewing the houses.

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Visit local holiday displays and nativity scenes.

2. Visit local displays.  Living in Southern California, there are plenty of options.  We would visit the Santa Monica nativity displays before it was banned by the city.  ICE! or Art Below Zero or something similar generally has a presence in many major cities where visitors can see impressive ice sculptures, slide down ice slides and go ice skating.
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Holiday cooking!

3. Cook.  Food and Christmas always seem to go hand in hand.  Select something you love and make it a part of your Christmas celebration every year.  Teach your kids how to make it and let them help in the fun.  At our house we make Almond Toffee every year.  And it ONLY gets made a Christmas.  So that first batch ALWAYS makes the house feel like Christmas.  And it gets less and less messy each year as they get older.

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Use tech to share the Christmas story.

4. The Nativity.  Use tech to share the Christmas story.  Break out the iPad and pull up a video version of the story of the birth of Christ.  It's a great way to remember the true meaning of Christmas while putting those screens to use in a quality, family-time kind of way.  Here's an 8-minute version of The Nativity that is well done and about as non-denominational as you can get.

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Play board games such as Camping with Sasquatch.

5. Games! No list would be complete without board games.  You generally have a couple weeks with the kids at home and lots of extra time!  Create a tradition of giving a new board game each Christmas and spend time playing those games.  This is a tradition that is very easy to grow with your children.  Play basic games when they're little and the complexity can grow as your kids get older.  Of course our favorites include What The Film?! and Camping with Sasquatch.  ​But by next year, perhaps there will be a few new favorites to add to the mix!

Merry Christmas!

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