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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. Click To Tweet
Related Posts:
Seven Christmas Advent ideas for Couples.
The Husband Christmas gift guide
33 Things to do with your Children before Christmas.
Bake cookies
Make Gingerbread houses
Go to the snow
Hand write Christmas cards together
Coloring night in Christmas coloring books. (This is my favorite to do on Christmas eve with my kids)
Take pictures in Christmas Pajamas
Invite friends over to binge watch Christmas movies with hot cocoa and popcorn
Go to a Christmas play
Go to a tree farm (take some memorable pictures while you’re at it)
Read the Gospels (Mark, Matthew, Luke, John) together before bed
Visit a family member or friend that you don’t regularly visit
Volunteer at a Church
Donate food to a food bank
Go for a hike
Make s’mores
Take old toys to the thrift store – to make room for new toys
Take outgrown clothes to charity
Put up the Christmas tree
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)
Craft night – make ornaments, Christmas garland, ect..
Go get a cup of hot cocoa for each of you at Starbucks and drive around neighborhoods to look at Christmas lights
Have the kids help you make tins of Christmas baked goods to your neighbors
Throw a Christmas party with your family and friends (Ugly Christmas Sweater theme is always so much fun!)
Make a Christmas photo album together that you can display for every Christmas season
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)
Put Christmas lights up together outside. Little ones can do the tree shrubs and low branches
Give each child an allowance to go buy a Christmas present for a sibling
Write a list of what you are grateful for and your favorite memory of the year
Wrap presents together
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.
Shop for stocking stuffers together at the dollar store
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”)
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.
