Christmas Traditions for Small Families

Family Traditions are extremely important, especially at Christmas time. It doesn’t matter if your family traditions involve the whole extended family with Grandma, Grandpa, Aunty Ethel, and strange Uncle Jim with their even stranger children, or you have a small family Christmas with just the two or three of you. It is important to hold time-honoured traditions that will enrich your family. Children love traditions. This is because it offers them a sense of security and belonging. According to Family Life Educator Amy Griswold, “Research shows us that routines and traditions are part of healthy families. Traditions give security to young people, providing a sense of continuity and routine that they can depend on year after year… Children will remember the special experiences of family traditions more than toys and gifts.”

That is so true. I only vaguely remember the gifts I had as a child, but I will always remember waking up on Christmas morning and seeing the stockings filled with gifts and the tree had been decorated. My parents would do that job at night and said it was the Christmas fairies who did it.

So here are some Christmas Tradition ideas to participate in during the first three days of Christmas for a small family.

For ideas on things to do leading up to Christmas read our post 24 Things to do in Advent.

Pick a Theme this Christmas

Sops and I love having a theme every Christmas. We have had a ‘nature theme’ where I tried to make felted Christmas decorations and they turned out to be mutant beasts.

If you choose a theme each Christmas you can spend Advent making decorations related to that theme. This will save you money and help you make special memories with your child. Here are some of the themes Sops and I have tried in the past or ideas we have in the future:

• Nature – You can make cute woodland creatures and pick greenery from your local woodlands.
• Disney – There are so many affordable Disney decorations you can buy, especially in Primark.
• Gingerbread and Candy – We did this theme last year. I used clay to make a lot of gingerbread decorations for the tree. The Range had quite a few Gingerbread and candy decorations.
• Victorian Christmas – use Victorian cut-out images for decorations. Pinterest is a great place for images
• Decadance – Everything should be superbly beautiful as if you are super rich. Use peacock feathers, glittery balls, and stunning figurines. John Lewis and Notcutts offer beautiful decorations.
• Scandanavian – Have a Hygge Christmas, with homemade wooden toys, gnomes and candles. Make your home extra cozy this Christmas.

24th December – Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve is the start of the Christmas season for quite a few European and South American cultures. They tend to have their main Christmas dinner and open their presents on Christmas Eve. For others, Christmas starts from midnight on Christmas Eve. They may go to midnight mass. They will encourage their children to lay out their stocking, and treats for Santa Clause and his reindeer. Here are some traditions to try on Christmas Eve.

• Pack a Christmas Eve box for your child to open. It could include treats for your child and a book to read before they go to bed.
• If you have a nativity set, then place baby Jesus in the manager after your child has gone to bed. I always put the baby Jesus figurine in Sops’ last advent box on the 24th of December.
• Watch The King’s College Cambridge Carol service on TV.
• Read a Traditional Christmas Eve book to your child.
• Lay out snacks and a drink for Santa and his reindeer. Put up your stockings.
• Eat traditional dishes from another country – The Italians eat the Feast of the Seven Fishes. The Germans eat Potato Salad with sausages and Hispanic people have a full feast called Nochebuena
• Bring in your Christmas tree and decorate it, (if you haven’t already done it).
• Wrap your spinning wheel with evergreens to prevent you from working during the 12 days of Christmas (The Tudors did this).
• Hang up some mistletoe and other evergreens.
• Host a small party with your friends and neighbours

25th December – Christmas Day

It’s the big day! The day your child has been counting towards by using their advent calendar. The day you have been preparing for all month long. Sometimes, I feel that there are so many social events and celebrations before Christmas, the day itself can be a bit of an anti-climax. So here are some ideas to make Christmas extra special:

• Spread the gift-giving over Christmas day or even over a few days. If you open all the presents first thing in the morning then some of the excitement and surprises of the day have already been spent.
• Sing along to a favourite song as you prepare the Christmas dinner.
• Encourage your whole family to get involved in preparing the Christmas dinner. Sip some sherry as you baste the turkey. Take away the stress of cooking dinner by writing a list of what to put into the oven and when using a timer.
• Create homemade Christmas crackers – I do this for Sops and me, so I choose a small gift to put in the cracker that is personal, plus a joke and a paper hat. I even add a Lottery scratch card to each cracker.
• Wear matching clothes e.g. PJs or cheesy Christmas Jumpers.
• If you have an Elf on the shelf get silly with him, and maybe hide him so your child can look for him.
• Put on a puppet show with your only child.
• Attend a Christmas Church Service or watch it on TV.
• Watch The Monarch’s Speech (if King Charles III carries the tradition on).
• Watch a dated Christmas Special comedy like Only Fools and Horses or Morecambe and Wise. These used to be on television at lunchtime, whilst my mum cooked dinner.
• Play with your child and their new toys.
• Make a mini-movie that you will treasure forever.

26th December – Boxing Day (St Stephen’s Day)

Traditionally, Boxing Day was the day people would open the poor box from church and distribute alms to the poor. You can read about this tradition in ‘A Tudor Christmas’ on our competitions page.

Nowadays people tend to watch football matches on TV on Boxing Day or go for a walk to burn off the Christmas dinner, or go shopping.

Here are some ideas for Boxing Day Traditions to try:

• Go shopping in the sales – although quite a few retail shops remain closed on Boxing Day too.
• Play a board game as a family.
• Invite friends over for a turkey salad dinner.
• Go fox hunting (that’s an old tradition, but I wouldn’t recommend it)
• Watch Football
• Play football and other sports (In Tudor times people were allowed to play other games during the 12 days of Christmas. Throughout the rest of the year they had to practice archery).
• Open presents from friends. (This was one of our Boxing Day traditions)
• Serve the needy. If you want to follow the old Boxing Day tradition of helping those in need, our post 10 Ways to Paying it Forward This Christmas, may inspire you.

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We hope you have found this post helpful. Another tradition you could adopt is to give your child a copy of our Christmas Activity Book. We produce one every year. It is completely FREE to download. Just sign up to the form below.