How to Make Christmas Magical for Kids: Our Favourite Family Traditions

I love Christmas, and I’m definitely not someone who tries to make the season magical by doing less.

I love traditions, the Christmas books, the baking, the movie nights, the little surprises, the outings, and all the tiny things that make December feel completely different from the rest of the year. Yes, it takes some planning. Yes, I probably do more than I technically need to. But creating those little moments for my family is genuinely one of my favourite parts of the season.

For me, Christmas magic isn’t about creating one perfect morning. It’s about building anticipation all month long and filling December with things my kids will hopefully remember years from now.

So if you also happen to be the kind of person who wants to make Christmas a whole experience, here are some of my favourite ways to make the season feel magical for our family.

Start the Magic Before Christmas Day

Don’t save everything for Christmas day! Christmas day can be so busy as it is it’s hard to pack even more into it. So spread your outings or activities out throughout the weeks and months leading up to the day. For my kids I also find it helps them understand the meaning of the season beyond “the day we get a lot of presents” when we’re prioritizing lot’s of special cozy time together before the day itself.

Make December 1st an Event

For my family December 1st pretty much marks the official beginning of the Christmas season. And while I do start decorating in November (it’s too much work to only enjoy for one month!) and our local Santa Claus parade is typically in November, it is after December 1st when I really turn up the magic and most of our traditions take place. When we wake up on the 1st our elf has usually brought our December 1st boxes which are packed with items and activities to use or do throughout the month and this really gets every one into the Christmas spirit! If you’d like to read more about what we put in our December 1st boxes click here.

Create Christmas Traditions They’ll Remember

Rather than trying to fit in every single tradition you see on social media or Pinterest, choose things that really fit your family specifically. If your kids aren’t particularly outdoorsy, trudging through the snow to the back forty of a cut your own Christmas tree farm may feel more like a yearly punishment than a tradition to look forward to. And maybe what they would want to do year after year is picking out a pre cut tree, or getting out the artificial tree, putting on some Christmas music and decorating together while drinking hot chocolate with all the fixings. It matters so much more to choose things you will all enjoy instead of trying to keep up with every single idea out there.

Plan Cozy Nights at Home

You don’t even have to leave the house to make magical memories together! One of the traditions my kids love (and start asking about as soon there’s a chill in the air in the fall!) is our Christmas living room campout. We choose a night in December, collect all the blankets and pillows we can, lay out some air mattresses, get into our matching pajamas and stay up late watching Christmas movies, eating snacks and drinking Hot chocolate with only the Christmas lights on until we all fall asleep. It’s so simple, doesn’t cost us anything except some snacks and the pajamas we would have bought anyways, and yet it’s easily a crowd favourite tradition in our house.

Plan a Few Special Christmas Outings

The nice thing about Christmas is that there tends to be a lot of inexpensive outings that feel really special. Whether that’s a drive through light show, a Christmas market that feels like something out of a Hallmark movie, or even watching a Santa Claus parade together. You don’t have to spend a lot of money to choose a few outings you will all enjoy together.

Make Room For Baking and Christmas Treats

Getting the whole family involved in making some special treats is a great way to create some magical moments together. We love to bake our gingerbread houses together from scratch every year and it’s so fun to see it go from just ingredients to their beautiful creation. If you are the kind of person who bakes a ton of treats to gift to all of your family and friends it might not be efficient to have the kids help with all of it, especially if they are younger, but having them choose someone special to them who they can bake a treat for, getting them involved in age appropriate ways is such a great way to let them experience gifting to someone else!

Add a Little Magic to Ordinary Days

A really beautiful thing about Christmas is, it comes with a lot of simple ways to make every day feel really special. Putting on some Christmas music, making hot chocolate in Christmas mugs with whipped cream and sprinkles, or wearing matching hats or Christmas pajamas can make even the most ordinary days feel full of Christmas spirit. Even just taking the time to slow down and notice the magic around you together can feel very special. You can run outside together when you notice it’s snowing to catch snowflakes’ on your tongue, or take a stroll around your neighborhood after dark to look at Christmas lights. What matters more than all the activities and outings you can plan, is slowing down and being intentional in all the little moments too.

Capture the Christmas Memories

Don’t forget to take photos of all the magical things you do! Even if they aren’t always the most aesthetic or things get a little messy, you’ll be happy to have it documented in years to come. I love keeping a simple folding tripod for my phone that I can quickly set up to record videos that I can later go back and take stills from the best moments. This let’s me get into the frame easily as well instead of always being the person behind the lens, without having to ask someone else to take photos for me.

Plan Ahead So You Can Actually Enjoy It

The biggest thing when you’re trying to do A LOT of Christmas magic in one month AND be able to enjoy it rather than feeling stressed and like you are constantly scrambling is to start planning early. If you can start the month of December knowing everything you are going to do and when your are going to do it and have everything you need prepared ahead of time, you can actually take the time to enjoy all the little magical moments along side your kids.

You Don’t Have To Do It All

I personally do a lot throughout the month of December and it honestly gets a little crazy. I do it because I love Christmas so much and I want my kids to have soo many good memories from it and if they have kids someday I hope they continue some of their favourite traditions with them too. But you really don’t have to do it all to make it magical. You can choose one or two things your family loves to do around the holiday and make it into a yearly tradition. Sometimes even the simplest moments can the biggest impact just because you took the time to slow down and enjoy it together. That intentional time as a family is so much more special than flitting from one outing to another if everyone is stressed out or tired.

I know I do a lot for Christmas. But honestly, I love it.

I don’t wrap 24 Christmas books, plan Christmas activities, bake treats, create traditions, and fill December with little surprises because I think every family needs to do those things. I do them because creating memories is one of my favourite parts of raising a family, and Christmas gives me an entire month to run wild with it,

Your version of Christmas magic might be completely different. Maybe it’s one special movie night every year, driving around to look at lights, baking the same cookies your mom made, or spending Christmas Eve piled together on the couch.

The traditions themselves don’t have to be elaborate. What makes them special is doing them again and again until one day your kids say, “Remember how we always used to…?”

That’s the part I’m after.

And if you’re also someone who loves going a little overboard at Christmas, my Christmas Planner & Memory Book was made for exactly that, to keep all the planning, traditions, lists, and memories from the season together in one place.