It’s almost December, and I can’t wait for the festive 🎊 mood to set in! Spending quality time with my family, and especially my kids, is what I look forward to the most during this time.
The little ones are excited for Christmas when Santa 🤶🏽 comes with their gifts. I also try to make them do festive stuff throughout the month.
December Activities
If you are also a full-time mom looking for seasonal fun Christmas 🎄 activities to keep your kids engaged, look no further. I am jotting down some of my favorite things to do that I hope you will find useful, too!
In this blog post, I have compiled 50 Christmas activities that I generally do during December. See how many you can relate to. Let’s start this joyful ride!
Making Pine Cone Ornaments
Ask your kids to collect pine cones and dry them out. You can use glue and glitter or spray paint to decorate them. We have these creative art sessions on wintry December afternoons where we make beautiful Christmas tree 🎄 ornaments together.
Making a Christmas Onset Decoration
You need church candles 🕯️, holders, and ivy leaves to make a decorative set for your mantelpiece. We often use tinsel and glitter bits to add to the glam. Every Sunday in December, we light new candles, and it’s so pretty!
Making Christmas Food Gifts
If you want to experiment in the kitchen and think that your kids will love to help you out, you have the best activity ever! You can make cookies 🍪 or bake a cake 🍰 together. Your kids get to learn, too.
Pro Tip:
Homemade fudge and flat Christmas bread are a great hit in my household!
Making Santa Ornaments
We often make ornaments out of lollipop sticks, paint, cardboard, strings, and glue. We keep them for hanging on the Christmas tree 🎄 or gifting other kids. Trust me, this is a fun activity that your kids will love to do!
Painting Snowflakes
Have you ever tried making handprint snowflakes ❄️ with your kids at home? You just need to paint six handprints within a circle and draw three white lines using your finger. When you connect the opposite ends, you get a star.
Going for a Tree Walk
I often take my boys out for a walk 🚶🏽♀️during December evenings. We roam around the neighborhood, watching how beautifully everyone’s decorated their trees 🌳. The front yard of every house is lit up, and it is delightful to look at.
Making Mulled Drinks
Your kids can’t drink wine. True. But you can always make it fun for them by making spicy apple juice 🧃. Trust me, the house smells delicious, and they enjoy the drinks very much. You can simply look for recipes online.
Pro Tip:
Try serving the mulled wine with orange slices.
Making Christmas Tree Ornaments
We have a tradition of sending Christmas tree ornaments to our family and friends when we give them gifts. We use stuff lying around the house, toilet paper rolls, and decorative material. My boys get very creative if they want to.
Wrapping Up
No, I’m not ending the article. I’m talking about wrapping your Christmas gifts 🎁. Ask your kids to work with you, and consider it a tradition. Experiment with wrapping styles and color variants. We always have a fun time doing it.
Watching the Christmas Lights
A local cafe is famous for its Christmas lighting 💡. My kids love visiting that place, and we often spend a beautiful December evening sipping coffee and enjoying the twinkling lights. You can find a similar one in your area online.
Going Ice Skating
We often go ice skating 🏂 on weekends in December. The local venue even has special rinks for kids. Find out if your area has one, too, and take your kids for a fun evening. The entire family will love it!
Making Penguin Masks
This is another craft that my kids love. We use paper plates, yellow paper, glue, and elastic to make penguin 🐧 masks. Don’t be afraid of getting a bit messy. That’s what doing arts and crafts with kids is all about!
Singing Christmas Carols
Kids should know the Christmas carols, which are an integral part of our traditions. Sing 🎵 together and teach them the lyrics. Caroling with your kids during a winery December afternoon is another great way to spend quality time with them.
Movie Night
The best way to teach your kids about Christmas is a movie 🍿 night. Snuggle up in front of the fireplace and watch something that sets the festive mood right away! ‘The Muppet Christmas Carol’ is one my boys love the most.
Baking Cookies
If your kids enjoy baking, you can make Christmas-themed cookies 🍪 together. We often make chocolate chip cookies and cranberry cookies. My husband loves everything my boys make in the kitchen. You can use a cookbook or check for recipes online.
Pro Tip:
My favorites are Deck The Halls and Christmas Slide.
Watching ‘The Snowman’
I reserved a special place for this one because whenever I talk about Christmas, this is what comes to mind first. If you are watching with your kids, it’s obvious they will love an animated film 🎥 more than a normal one.
Game Night
If you are looking for ways to entertain your kids in December, you can always play holiday-themed games 🎮. Throw a surprise party where you invite all their friends and host a fun game night so that they can enjoy themselves!
Making a Gingerbread House
My kids love making gingerbread houses 🏠. I have taught them how it symbolizes family and a happy home. They often end up making a village! We use gingerbread, paint, ribbon, figurines, etc. This is a fun craft you can try.
Making Bird Treats
Plenty of birds visit our backyard during winter. My kids’ first thought of making bird 🐤 treats for them. I realized that it is also a fun thing to do with your kids. You are also doing your bit for the environment.
Putting on a Skit
I often ask my kids to put on a holiday-themed play or puppet show 🎭 for the family and our friends at the Christmas party. We spend days rehearsing it on weekends and making sure the performance and presentation are perfect.
Pro Tip:
Try keeping Christmas-themed characters like the Reindeer 🦌, Snowman ☃️, Elf, or Santa 🧑🏽🎄.
Visiting Santa
You can always take your kids to visit Santa 🤶🏽 at the mall or a Christmas market. Kids believe in a magical world, and as parents, we should make their dreams come true. They only stay like this for a while!
Donation Camp
Kids must learn the value of sharing. Ask them to put together toys, clothes, books, and stuff in a box 📦. Make them give those gifts to the charity themselves. Kids learn the value of kindness and empathy from their parents.
Reading Christmas Books
I have Christmas classics and novels that come out most often during December. I use the kids’ bedtime to connect them with books 📚. Mostly, they read out to me. They learn new things, and this activity also improves their vocabulary.
Making Holiday Cards
If your kids give cards 🎴 to their friends and teachers, you can make this a fun activity. Use your winter afternoons to make those cards instead of just buying from the store. Teach your kids the essence of handmade gifts.
Making Special Cards
You have family members and friends who are extra special to you. You can ask your kids to make personalized, special cards 📇 using stamps, glitter, and paint to make a set of Christmas gift cards exclusively for your most loved ones.
Making Orange Pomander
My kids often make orange 🍊 pomanders studded with cloves. We give them to our friends or keep them in our home because it adds a beautiful festive essence. This is perfect if you want the holiday mood to set in.
Pro Tip:
Ask your kids to poke holes in the oranges using a toothpick.
Sending Christmas cards
Don’t take over the pressure of sending Christmas cards all by yourself. Set an assembly line with your kids and ask them to write ✍🏼 up the addresses or keep a list to make sure everyone gets their cards and gifts.
Keeping a Christmas Newsletter
If you have family members and friends abroad, you can also ask your kids to help you snake a newsletter 📰. You can print them later and add them to your Christmas cards. You can also post them online for everyone.
Making Reindeer Food
You can mix porridge oats with edible glitter in an envelope, and you have your reindeer 🦌 food. I tell my kids that we are doing this so that Rudolph and other reindeer can easily find our house and bring gifts.
Pro Tip:
My go-to choice of cereals for this activity is Corn Chex.
Making Gingerbread Men
Your kids can easily make embellished gingerbread men. They are super fun and easy to make and eat. Not to mention that your house smells amazing, very Christmassy. December is the time to get creative, so give it a try!
Making a Snow Globe
You can take a small snowman ⛄️ figure and glue it to the inside of the lid of a jar, add baby oil and some glitter, and then fill it up with water. Screw the lid super tight and shake thrice.
Making Gift Tags
I consider this a recycling craft project for my kids. Me and my kids reuse last year’s Christmas decorations and cards to make new ornaments, and especially gift tags 🏷️ for Christmas presents we send out to our family and friends.
Making Reindeer Poop
Trust me, it makes a funny gift for your kids and their friends. Fill a jar with chocolate-coated raisins or Maltesers, and decorate it with ribbons. Put on a label that says ‘Reindeer poop’ 🦌💩 and give it to the kids.
Pro Tip:
Another fun alternative is a jar filled with white marshmallows labeled as Snowman poo!
Making Christmas Dinner
My kids love to experiment in the kitchen, and they are old enough to cook 👩🏽🍳🧑🏽🍳 something on their own. So, I often ask them to prepare a holiday-themed dish 🍲 for the family dinner. Ask them to start with a dessert.
Pro Tip:
You could also have fun naming your favorite Christmas recipes after a family member, e.g., Teresa’s Terrific Trifle or Sammy’s Sage Stuffing!
Christmas Coloring
You can easily find Christmas-themed coloring 🖍️ pages online and print them for your kids. We put up a coloring station at home where the boys put together pens, markers, and crayons. They pretend they are working for an art gallery!
Cracking Christmas Jokes
Who doesn’t want to hear a good joke? And that, too, from kids? So, you can ask your kids to write up a few Christmas jokes 😂 and puns by themselves. Make them do an impromptu standup at the family dinner.
Writing a Christmas Magazine
Well, whatever it takes to make your kids bring out the creativity in them! You can keep a family magazine 📓 and ask your kids to write stories or add pictures. It would be a nice reminder of your December memories.
Keeping Track of Santa’s Progress
A fun thing you ask your kids to do is use Santa trackers. There are plenty of websites available online, and they can track Santa’s location📍during his global journey to bring presents to little ones. Keep building the excitement!
Try Christmas Apps
There are plenty of fun and exciting Christmas apps📱available for children where they can play games, solve riddles, or watch Santa videos. You can download them and let your kids play while you are busy doing some important chores.
Head to a Panto
Every locality has a panto for kids to enjoy themselves during the holiday season. You can take your kids there for a fun-filled evening. Make them practice Boos and “He’s Behind You!”. You could get a surprise celebrity visit!
Reading ‘The Night Before Christmas’
It has become quite a Christmas tradition in our household to read this all-time favorite book 📖 at bedtime. You can get your kids in their cozy pajamas, get them some hot chocolate, and snuggle up in bed with this classic.
Clearance Day
Before you start making preparations for Christmas and buying new stuff, have an afternoon where you put together everything you don’t use- old toys 🧸, clothes 🧣, books 📖, ornaments. You can either recycle them for decorations or donate them later to charity.
Building a Santa Grotto
You can turn your backyard shed into a Santa 🎅🏽 Grotto. Your kids will love it, and it gives your home a festive makeover. You can decorate it with ornaments, put in a small Christmas tree, and keep gifts lying around.
Collecting Holly
If you love gardening, you can take your kids out to the woods or a hedgerow, if available. December is the best time for Holly. Collect these plants 🪴 and you can decorate your centerpiece or the mantelpiece candles with them.
Stargazing
December is the best time for stargazing. The skies are clear, and when night falls, the stars ⭐️ dazzle up. You can look online for the perfect time to gaze at social constellations. Your kids will love the elegant night sky.
Making Mince Pies
Rather than buying everything from the store, you can try making mincemeat and mince pies 🥧 at home. Your kids can help you with the recipe, and you have one of the best Christmas desserts to eat at the dinner table.
Making a Christmas-special Family Video
If you have relatives abroad who can’t come to your Christmas party, you can always record a special video 📹 message for them together. I get my husband and kids to wear matching sweaters before we start recording our special message.
Making Christmas Slime
We all know how kids love slime. My boys love playing with this goo, especially during the holiday, because we get these special reindeer, Snowman, or even Grinch-themed slime. You can even try making them at home with DIY packets.
Playing Christmas Bingo
Bingo is one lowkey indoor game 🎲 that you can personalize for almost any festive occasion you want. So, during the holidays, we often spend afternoons playing a Christmas-themed iteration. You can buy it from a shopping mall or stationery store.
Writing a Letter to Santa
Every December, before Christmas, I ask my boys to write a letter ✉️ to Santa, a special message they have for the lovely old man who brings them gifts and treats. I read them later, and trust me, it’s great fun!
Conclusion
So, this is it. I have put together the easiest and most enjoyable December activities you can do with your kids.
December is the holiday 🎉 season, and there is so much to do. You get to spend quality time with the little ones as well as teach them about the traditions of the festive season you learned from your parents.
I would love to know your views regarding the activities I’ve discussed in this article. Leave a comment and share anything you want. Can’t wait to hear back from you! ✨️
🎄Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year in advance!🎄
More To Explore:
I’m a former teacher (and mother of Two Childs) with a background in child development. I’m here to help you with play-based learning activities and crafts for kids ages 0 – 8. ( Cledemy.com is my Next startup on Pre to 8th Grade Printable and Worksheet Education Resources)
