This Posts may contain affiliate links. This means we earn a commission from sales made via product links in this post. For more information click here.
Get everyone into the holiday spirit with these fun Christmas activities for families. Includes crafts, decorations, DIY gifts, acts of kindness, fun Christmas games, crafts, and loads of free printables. Want to make memories that will last a lifetime? Click through for the best ideas on the web.
I love the holidays. Bring on cheesy music, The Muppet’s Christmas Carol, and eating way too much homemade Almond Roca.
The countdown to the holidays is the perfect time to enjoy some special Christmas activities with your family. Well it was in our house. Once I figured out how to simplify our holidays I finally had time to enjoy the days leading up to Christmas.
What Should I Do With My Family For Christmas?
I’ve scoured the internet to find the best Christmas activities for families.
If you are feeling overwhelmed, It doesn’t really matter what you do as long as you do it together. If you are looking for really simple Christmas activities try these 24 Simple Christmas Traditions for Families.
Christmas Crafts
Make Ornaments
Every year my boys and I would make ornaments together. It was a lovely afternoon activity and we still hang many of these decorations on our tree. The trick to making Christmas ornaments is to keep it simple.
- Kids of all ages can adapt this homemade felt and button Christmas tree ornament. It only requires a few materials, is easy to set up, and adds some festive color. Felt And Button Christmas Tree Ornament.
- Make up a whole batch of these Easy Kid Made Wreath Ornaments With Paper Straws and ribbons.
- Use green pipe cleaner, fun jingle bells, and a bit of ribbon to make this simply fun jingle bell wreath ornament.
- Combine cinnamon sticks with a few extra rustic pieces to make these naturally scented Cinnamon Stick Trees
- These DIY Christmas ornaments are no fail. While they use wedding invitations, kids can substitute book pages, festive trinkets or other fun elements.
- This Santa’s workshop ornament is a cute and original ornament to add to your gift-giving.
- All you need is 2 ingredients to make these super simple and easy Homemade Cinnamon Ornaments! A great DIY holiday craft or fun Christmas gift for both kids and adults to make and customize!
- Everyone can make a masterpiece with these easy finger-paint friendly ornaments, especially toddlers!
- Super cute pipe-cleaner Christmas Trees. These make great little ornaments or combine them with a DIY Christmas card. Also great for fine motor development! You can easily adapt this one to make adorable snowflake ornaments.
- Make gorgeous clay cookie cutter Christmas ornaments – these make wonderful keepsakes to make and give each year. Maybe decorate gifts for homemade cookie parcels with these too?
Make Your Own Christmas Decor
Making gingerbread was one of our favorite Christmas activities. This is something that continued for many years, even when the boys grew older.
Sometimes we would have a party, and each boy got to invite a friend. We used the recipe and instructions from Canadian Living Magazine. If you want to make things easy on yourself skip the gingerbread and use Graham Crackers or even pretzels.
- Spread the joy and consider hosting your own Gingerbread decorating party.
Need a few other ideas for decor you or your kids could make?
- These Dollar Store Topiary trees are easy, look adorable – and are a high impact cheap craft!
- If you are looking to start a new Christmas tradition this year, why not make this easy Toilet Paper Roll Nativity?
- This colorful Christmas stocking craft is a fun and simple craft for toddlers and preschoolers to make for the holiday. Kids will have a blast using leftover paper from your scrap bin to help decorate their cute stockings.
Make gifts
Making gifts together is a wonderful Christmas activity. One year we made cinnamon sugar to give to the boy’s teachers. It is super easy to do and was very much appreciated by the recipients. You can find an easy recipe here.
- This Reindeer Mulling recipe is simple and makes a cute homemade gift. Kids can mix spices, scoop into the orange and create the reindeer shape- with very little help.
- Have a go at air drying clay, with these wonderful reindeer pinch pots! Too cute and super easy to make.
- Gorgeous Pop Up Christmas Tree Cards – you will be surprised to learn how easy these are to make.
For more ideas check out my Pinterest board: Gifts That Kids Can Make
What Are Some Fun Christmas Activities?
Kids are always open to new ideas and activities. Try some of these scavenger hunts:
- This post includes lots of fun activities, including a special Christmas Light Scavenger Hunt.
- Gingerbread Scavenger Hunt using a printable gingerbread man (read the post for several ideas on how to do with your family or other small group).
- Enjoy a walk through your neighborhood as you scout out holiday decorations with this Christmas Scavenger Hunt – can you find all the items?!
Or work on other activities to keep the kids from going stir-crazy:
- These Christmas Finger Puppets are adorable! Use them as puppets or add them to packages or candy canes for an extra bit of holiday fun.
- Use your oven with regular candy canes and delight the kids by Bending Candy Canes into all kinds of ornaments and shapes.
- Gather the family around for some gut-busting fun this holiday season. Everyone will love creating their own ugly sweater with these party ideas!
- Families will love this magical family activity. Kids will be amazed the seed they plant will “grow” into a candy cane!
Advent Calendars
- Consider shifting your advent calendar to a more Eco-friendly option: 58 eco-friendly and clutter free advent calendar ideas. Many are free to low cost, and very family friendly!
Christmas Inspired Play-Doh Fun
Grab/make some Play-Doh and a few supplies and let your kids go wild.
- Create your own Make a Tree kit for the kids in your life using green play dough and other sparkly accessories you can bag up ahead of time.
- Or make your own Reindeer Playdough kit using brown play dough and printable antlers plus some other fun bits you likely already have around your house.
- Take the same idea and put together an Invitation to Create a wreath instead if you like!
- This set of five gingerbread play dough mats featured here is perfect for the holiday season.
Free Printables
- Enjoy a sweet treat and have a free printable for a free ice-breaker game.
- Looking at Christmas light is such a fun thing to do as a family during the holidays. This free printable Christmas light scavenger hunt will help make it even more fun!
- This I spy activity is perfect to keep the kids busy while waiting for the Christmas meal to be served.
- Play an easy game that the whole family can enjoy with these free printable Christmas Count-it cards!
- Super fun and easy Elf Paper Puppets! Make these adorable little puppets – choose from “colour your own” or full color ones. These make a great toy or connect them all for a quirky elf garland.
- Use this Roll a Reindeer free printable along with a pair of dice to play a fun game with your kids (and help them learn their numbers too).
- This free printable Christmas Matching Game will help your kids have fun and practice their own memory skills.
Learning Activities
You can combine Christmas crafts and games with learning.
- This easy Rudolph Races Christmas activity is a must try for families with kids of all ages! It’s a game and experiment designed to educate and entertain kids of all ages.
- Flying reindeer! Race your reindeer or just see how fast you can get it to go with this easy STEM activity your whole family will love.
- Bring some STEM learning through this Christmas science experiment. How much water does a Christmas tree drink?
- Practice the letters of the alphabet with this matching upper and lowercase reindeer letter matching game.
- This simple Paper craft Christmas tree paper craft doubles as a fun Geometry lesson for kids!
- Design your own Christmas tree magnet maze game as a fun way for kids to learn about physics and magnetism through play.
Family Together Time
Host a game night
I know this isn’t the most original idea. Still, most kids love board games and the Christmas break is the perfect time to dig them out. Let each family member choose their favorite. Alternatively, try some of these fun Christmas games:
- Using just the ornaments on your tree, you can play a fun and easy, relaxing game with your kids and this ‘I Spy Ornament Game‘.
- Have fun with these fast-paced and entertaining Minute to Win It Christmas Games for players of all ages.
- Playing this Pin The Star On The Tree game can mean lots of fun for the whole family!
- There are lots of variations on this classic, but here you’ll find a cute and free printable so you and your family can play Christmas Bingo
- Easy to set up and fun to play – this Christmas themed Minute to Win It game is a great activity for families during the holiday season!
Have a Movie Night
- Something a little special: The Dating Divas have created a special movie night inspired by the movie The Polar Express—complete with (free!) printable “train tickets,” games, and yummy snacks and beverages. Get the details here.
- Make it super easy: Make some popcorn and put on your favorite holiday movies. Honestly, your kids will enjoy it just the same either way.
Fine-tune Your Routines with a bit of Holiday Cheer
Listen to a Christmas story at bedtime
Choose a Christmas audiobook and listen to it each night. My boys loved snuggling under blankets by the Christmas tree to hear the story.
Audio books are a busy parent’s best friend. Your kids get to hear a wonderful story and you get to relax by the twinkling lights of the tree and cuddle with your kids. FANTASTIC.
I’d love to hear from you
What is your favorite activity at this time of year? Do you have any fun Christmas activities for families? What special family traditions do you enjoy?
Looking for More Ideas?
Follow My Christmas Pinterest Board: Christmas
Did you enjoy this post? Was it helpful? Please share and tell a friend! Drop me a comment if you’re going to try some of these tips. Bonus points if you leave a comment!
Thanks for the link! I love the snowman lunch too. Our family has almost too many fun traditions to count, but one of our favorites is our memory tree. On each vacation we collect an ornament. For each big event, like when our daughters danced in the Nutcracker Ballet, we collect an ornament. For things we always want to remember, like the births of our children, including our sweet stillborn baby, we collect an ornament. Then when we decorate our memory tree each year we share stories and memories of all our family’s history.
I love the idea of the memory tree – sharing stories together is so important for families. I loved it when my parents did that with me. It gave me a sense of who I was and helped me understand that I belonged.
My daughter is 25, and is coming home for Christmas this year. When I asked her if she wanted to do anything special, the answer was to make a gingerbread house. I would make the ginger bread, she would come up with the idea of the structure, and together we’d build it. Then she’d love to take the candies to decorate it. (We built a stable, castle, log house, even a working windmill) Then after it was all done, and it did its stint of decorating, we would take it to church for the kids to obliterate at coffee time. Good memories.
I can’t wait to see what you make this time!
What a great list of ideas to really make the holidays special! Thank you so much for linking up to Discover & Explore!
I have started a tradition with my grandchildren making gingerbread houses. This will be our third year. The first year we made a traditional gingerbread house. Last year we made a gingerbread train. This year I got some cookie cutters from Ikea that make stand-up Christmas trees, stars and reindeer! We will also make a small cabin to complete the scene! It is a lot of fun and gets easier as the grandkids get older 7 years and 4 (almost 5) years old now! BTW – that picture of your boys is hilarious! I had three boys also and I have seen that kind of silliness before! Such joy!
Oh I love this tradition! What a wonderful thing to do with your grandchildren! I loved having 3 boys, we had loads of silliness!
Stopping by from the Family Friday linky. I like the idea of taking the family to a store and letting everyone choose a decoration.
We are putting out tree up next week and I’m going to enlist the kids’ help to make some ornaments. I’m armed with green paint chip samples from Home Depot! LOL
I’m going to try your gingerbread recipe! Mine hasn’t come out well the last couple times and it’s SO disappointing!
Let me know how it works for you