It’s six weeks until Christmas time and it’s definitely creeping up faster than we all expect. Every family holds their own Christmas traditions, something that they do every single year.
Some families go out and play a game of cricket, others watch Christmas movies and some open presents at a specific time. What Christmas traditions do you celebrate in your family?
Read a story
As Christmas time nears, there are so many different tales that your child can listen to and everyone loves to hear. On Christmas Eve, you can read your children The Night before Christmas or Charles Dickens’s The Ghost of Christmas Past. If your children are still littlies then why not read them something that they can relate to like Spot’s First Christmas which has little flaps that the children can take turns at opening. If your children are older and love a challenge, then you can read the story and have them act out the scenes from the book.
Host a family movie night
Most family members love watching movies and it’s an activity that is easy and relaxing. Why not start a new tradition and spend the whole day watching Christmas-themed movies? Years ago, one thing I used to love was spending Christmas Day watching Christmas shows. Create a new tradition with your family by watching favourites like Santa With Muscles, I’ll Be Home for Christmas, Home Alone and Jingle All The Way. Take some time to think about what type of Christmas movies each of your family members would love to watch at Christmas time.
Create christmas decorations
As Christmas time nears, why not start a new tradition where each family member creates their own Christmas tree decorations. Whether your family is into stars or baubles, gather them all together and get creating. We did this at work as an end of year activity two years ago and it was enjoyable. One of the staff members had cut out about 20 stars and had a variety of different embellishments and items available to decorate the stars and, like snowflakes, no stars were alike. Each Christmas since then, we have used those stars in decorating our library and Christmas trees at Christmas time.
Dress-up time
Another fun and enjoyable tradition that everyone loves is dressing up. Have the whole family do a Christmas-themed dress-up. There are so many different Christmas ideas that people can dress up as, you have Santa Claus and since NZ and Australia celebrate Christmas in summertime, why not have a summer Santa outfit complete with stubbies and a wife-beater singlet and flip flops or a female Mrs Claus in a sleeveless Santa dress .
This Christmas, why not add a compilation of new traditions to the old ones and, who knows, the new ideas might take off and in 20 years your children will be celebrating them with their families.
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