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33 Things to do for Christmas with your kids on a Budget.
One of my favorite topic of conversations with my husband is to talk about our childhoods. We were both blessed to have had great childhoods. Even through times of poverty, lost of family members, and life altering changes within our families, we both came out of our childhood with happy, joyous moments and events with our families.
Practically anything can bring up the conversations that will lead us to tell each other about happy memories from our childhood but I would have to say, during the Christmas season is when we share our most cherished memories over and over with each other.
Not sure if it’s because we both came from low income families or because life was just simpler then but we had similar family traditions. Because of how much we loved the traditions, we vision our children loving the same activities and to hopefully one day reminisce just like we do. We hope they appreciate how we as parents took more time investment into building family traditions than we did in financial investment.
Listed are 33 Things you can do with your family before Christmas (on a budget).
As a family of 7, when I say budget, I really do mean budget. Because we love to do as much as we can during the holidays keeping everything cost effective begins to pay a big factor into what we can do.
We do not get to do all 33 every year but there are a few on the list we MUST do every single year (like driving around looking at Christmas lights through neighborhoods with hot chocolate from Starbucks), but each one are ones that we enjoy and have experienced together as a family.
33 Christmas Traditions to start with your kids this season on a budget. Share on X
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The Husband Christmas gift guide
33 Things to do with your Children before Christmas.
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Bake cookies
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Make Gingerbread houses
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Go to the snow
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Hand write Christmas cards together
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Coloring night in Christmas coloring books. (This is my favorite to do on Christmas eve with my kids)
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Take pictures in Christmas Pajamas
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Invite friends over to binge watch Christmas movies with hot cocoa and popcorn
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Go to a Christmas play
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Go to a tree farm (take some memorable pictures while you’re at it)
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Read the Gospels (Mark, Matthew, Luke, John) together before bed
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Visit a family member or friend that you don’t regularly visit
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Volunteer at a Church
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Donate food to a food bank
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Go for a hike
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Make s’mores
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Take old toys to the thrift store – to make room for new toys
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Take outgrown clothes to charity
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Put up the Christmas tree
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Decorate your kids bedrooms for Christmas together (The dollar store will sometimes have some great pieces to start with and shopping together will get the kids excited)
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Craft night – make ornaments, Christmas garland, ect..
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Go get a cup of hot cocoa for each of you at Starbucks and drive around neighborhoods to look at Christmas lights
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Have the kids help you make tins of Christmas baked goods to your neighbors
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Throw a Christmas party with your family and friends (Ugly Christmas Sweater theme is always so much fun!)
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Make a Christmas photo album together that you can display for every Christmas season
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Have the kids write their Christmas wish list. (My kids love it when I give them Holiday toy Catalogs from places such as: Target, Wal-mart, Macys)
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Put Christmas lights up together outside. Little ones can do the tree shrubs and low branches
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Give each child an allowance to go buy a Christmas present for a sibling
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Write a list of what you are grateful for and your favorite memory of the year
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Wrap presents together
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Have a Christmas scavenger hunt either driving around or inside the home after all the Christmas decorations are up. You can use the décor as items to look for.
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Shop for stocking stuffers together at the dollar store
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Make a Christmas Trivia game you can play together or buy a fun Christmas theme board game. (Every year I make a jeopardy theme game with different Christmas topics and categories, it is always a big hit at our Christmas party. I include categories such as “Most famous Christmas movie quotes, Fictional Christmas Characters, Christmas Songs”)
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Encourage your kids do a act of service for your neighbors
I hope this lists gives you some great ideas of what to do with your kids before Christmas. Let me know how it goes, which ones you tried.
These are great ideas!
I grew up literally in the middle of nowhere on a mountain…every year, we would walk around our 160 acres, looking for that perfect tree. Most years, we got to do this in the snow..I would get freezing cold and most of the time, my mom didn’t like the one we would finally find (which meant we had to go out and keep looking) but this was my favorite thing to do all year…I am so excited that we started this tradition with our own kids a few years ago. And, they only cost $5!
I love this list because traditions don’t have to be expensive and creating those family memories are so important!
I think the best traditions to create are the ones that cost no money. It’s the ones that only requires quality time. Funny how it things can be uncomfortable for us but yet still our favorite memories. =)
We add a new Christmas story to our collection each year!
That is really good idea Hannah!
I LOVE this list! Great job compiling it. There’s enough possibilities on there for multiple Christmas seasons.
Oh yay!! So glad you liked it and found enough to start with for the season!!
My family has a lot of the same traditions! Our Christmas tree is full of handmade ornaments. It’s a miss matched Christmas wonder, but I love it, so many precious memories. Thanks for sharing! I’ll be adding a few of these ideas in this year.
Your tradition reminds me of a recent post from Joanna Gaines on her Instagram about her favorite tree in their home. A tree that is full of handmade ornaments throughout the years as a family. I just thought it so beautiful!
Timely post in which I needed to hear. Thank you for sharing these great ideas!
Awesome! Thank you!!
Love this list!! Such a fun idea 🙂 We are planning a cookie decorating and gingerbread house making night with some friends but I love how simple and sweet many of these ideas are! Especially the coloring one!
Yay, to you liking how simple they are. I was nervous that they could be too simple for some readers but truth be told, all on the list are things I LOVE doing every year with my family. The coloring one is probably when I take the most pictures during the season. Christmas Eve morning is always a relaxed morning for us so ahead of time I buy Christmas coloring books from the dollar store and we will color together as a family in our pajamas. You can see my Instagram post from last year of us doing it and I definitely plan to do another one again on Christmas Eve. =)
Nah.. simple is BEST! The holidays are SOOOO busy (at least most years): the last thing we need is to add complicated things-to-do to our already packed schedules. These ideas are awesome largely BECAUSE most of them are simple– and often incorporate things we NEED to do (like decorating). I know this post is from a few years back, but it’s new to me and I am thankful you posted it– thanks!!
That’s a great list.
Awesome and fun ideas! Simple things make amazing memories that will last a lifetime. Lots of pictures of each activity would be great as well.
Yes, the pictures would make every activity even better. I am horrible at taking pictures but thank goodness my husband never misses a moment.
Thank you so much for this list! It’s great to have so many options for things to do as a family during Christmas that don’t cost an arm and a leg 😉
Yes! Exactly! I feel like there are so many Christmas activities that is costing so much money these days. We love to do something every weekend during the season with our kids so we have to get creative with affordable outings.
I love this list. Every year on Christmas eve we wrap new PJ’s for Christmas I’m going to include a coloring book this year thanks for that tip! Sharing with our Living Our Priorities community.
I am so glad you are going to add the coloring book. I love doing it with my kids. Coloring is so relaxing to me so its awesome when we all do it together. Thank you for sharing!!
This is a fantastic list. My favorite would have to be “Go to the snow.” We would do that at times when I lived in Arizona (I lived in a part that didn’t get snow). What a treat to see the snow up in the mountains! My family enjoys painting ornaments (or nutcrackers found at Hobby Lobby) and watching Christmas movies. My personal favorite tradition is to watch all the Christmas episodes (or winter ones) from the old TV Show MASH. 🙂
I love Christmas episodes to my favorite TV shows. I was just telling my sister the other day that I wish Netflix would have binge watching to Christmas episodes to the most popular TV shows. That would be so much fun, sitting on the couch all day just watching Christmas comedy!!
thanks for the post some new ideas here. We also play christmas carols in the house and do “Christmassy” painting which we display 4 that season. We also wear our Christmas jumpers and do a family photo shoot includes our dog.