Christmas Traditions for Families

I guess all families have their Christmas Traditions unless of course you are Elsa and Ana who seemed to be distinctly lacking in that department. Is it is just us who has watched Olaf’s Christmas Adventure a million times?

So how do you ring in the season? I’ll stop now honest…. Honestly though I virtually know this movie off by heart. In fact the twins may have made this one of our family traditions!! I digress though.

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Our Christmas Traditions

…are an amalgamation of old and new and come from our joint experience of the Christmas season. Recently we have started to create our own traditions with our children and that has been fun.

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I am looking forward to many happy if loud and slightly crazed family Christmases.

Christmas Stocking Staples

Is it the law that every Christmas stocking must contain Chocolate Money and a satsuma?

3 out of 4 of my kids don’t like satsumas and yet I feel like I must include them in the stocking every year – why? because it is a Christmas tradition. It is also clearly compulsory to have a chocolate santa or snowman in there. My kids favourites are these Lindt ones:

Last year our loft space was really warm due to a computer server being in there and on Christmas Eve I discovered big chocolate lumps in foil instead of the Christmas santas that I had put in there…. Lessons were learnt!

We also always include a myriad of lego figures for the boys. Now that the girls are a bit bigger we need to come up with a good equivalent for them as they are not so enamored with lego figures as their brothers.

They are my little pony obsessed right now so there will be a pony finding its way in their, but I am sure that won’t become a tradition.

The Family Christmas Card

There was a time when I hand wrote Christmas cards and sent them out to everyone by post, but over recent years I have done a lot more sending cards digitally and that is kind of a shame I think… It is nice to receive an actual card don’t you think. I love a personalised card though and so holiday photo cards are a fun idea for the family Christmas Card. Sending a cute family Christmas picture out to the relatives every year in a photo card is a super sweet way to mark the passing of time and update the family on how big these kids have gotten 🙂

Christmas Dinner

We stick to a fairly traditional Christmas Dinner which always includes the obligatory turkey and roast potatoes. There is always have a cooked ham, but I must admit that I am not great at preparing it. Fortunately my mum always does one for me. We add to that all the traditional sides like pigs in blankets, sausage meat and stuffing. My husband is also obsessed with Yorkshire pudding and so we always have to have those too which is rather odd!

Christmas Breakfast

Our Christmas traditions for breakfast involves a fry up and a good amount of Champagne. As children I remember that Christmas was the only time that we ever had bacon and eggs. That might not be even close to true, but that is my memory. Our Christmas breakfast is pretty traditional, but includes a couple of differences. We always have Irish sausages and white pudding.

Now if you haven’t had or haven’t heard of white pudding you are missing out! I think it might be my favourite bit of Christmas. Thank goodness I’m Irish.

Which reminds me I need to head to the Irish shop asap or that particular tradition will be cancelled this year!

After Dinner Presents

My mum started this tradition to stop my sister and I from getting bored and derailing Christmas. Now that I have my own kids I can really see why kids can get bored on Christmas day. They get all of this excitement with presents in the morning and then are expected to sit through what is really quite a long dinner once you factor in starters and dessert. It really works to have them still have a gift to look forward to and so after dinner we all have another present. This was usually a small toy or a movie for us to then watch and of course a selection pack….

Christmas Puddings

A new Christmas tradition that we have started is that my husband makes the Christmas pudding every year. It started as at the church we go to they do a men’s pudding night. My husband went once as I thought it would be a good way for him to meet some people locally – so basically I forced him!! However, he had a good time and so started to go every year. During this evening they drink an awful lot, but also make rather good Christmas puddings and so that is his contribution to the Christmas feast and I think a lovely new Christmas Tradition for our family.

Christmas Eve Box

This is on of our new Christmas traditions in our family. We just started doing it last year. It was actually really lovely to have something special on Christmas Eve. We always go to mass on Christmas Eve and honestly it is carnage as the kids are so very excited by then so last year I got some nativity sticker books to keep them occupied and frankly quiet!

Christmas Traditions for families; Christmas Eve Box

This year I have created some Christmas Coloring sheets and an amazing Christmas Activity pack.

The girls have already test driven the activity pack and its a big thumbs up from them.

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34 Christmas Themed Coloring Sheets

Christmas Activity Pack

I will also be including some Christmas tree cookies to decorate and of course the Christmas PJs. I am also thinking of including a family movie for us to watch. Finally I have some edible glitter which I have mixed with oats and will be masquerading as reindeer food.

So for us the Christmas Eve box isn’t about getting more toys or even any toys. It is about an activity to do as a family and then something practical for keeping the little people occupied.

Creating a photobook for the year

So this one is more of an end of year tradition, but it starts at Christmas so I have included it here as photo books also make a fantastic thoughtful gift for grandparents for example. In our house the tradition is for me to collate all of the photos from the year and make a photo book that we can have for the years to come. Sure we could just keep the photos on our phones, but there is something just lovely about having these year books to look at.

Christmas Traditions for families that we borrowed from Norway

When I was little we lived in Norway. They really know how to do Christmas! It is lovely in everywhere I have been in Scandinavia during the Christmas season. So we have borrowed some of their Christmas Traditions for Families and popped them right into our English Christmas.

The Gingerbread House

We make a gingerbread house which we decorate with sweets and then the kids smash on New Years Eve. This is a family tradition that we brought back from Norway where we lived when I was little. You can get the recipe and the history of the Peperkaka House by checking out this one:

Gingerbread House Recipe

The Tomte Nisse

The Tomte Nisse are those cute Christmas Elves (not to be confused with the Elf on the shelf who I am not a big fan of) that you see in anything to do with Scandanavia at Christmas. They are part of an ancient folklore tale of a mischeivous sprite, but over time this has evolved to be the JuleNisse who is a friendly character not dissimilar to our Santa Claus who visits Scandinavian Children on Christmas Eve with toys and asks if there any good children in the house. This year I went back to Bergen where I lived and bought an adorable Nisse for our home, but we have also been making our own Nisse and they are perfect to make with children. Click to find out how…. How to make a JuleNisse