10 Fun Christmas Activities for the Whole Family

The most wonderful time of the year can quickly turn into one of the most stressful months. Your long to-do list can make you feel like a character from a Christmas movie who's about to move to a small town and relearn the meaning of Christmas.

Thankfully, you don’t need a small town to replace the stress of the holidays with memorable moments with your loved ones.

Here are ten ideas to connect with others, celebrate the season, and keep the true meaning of Christmas in mind.

1. Create Annual Holiday Cards

This year, ditch the traditional family photo shoot for something more fun where you’re capturing your relationship with each other rather than a stiff family portrait. For example, you can hire a friend to accompany you on your next sledding trip or visit a Christmas tree farm for your next photo shoot.

These images are more natural, the smiles are genuine, and you’ll have fun in the process.

Use these pictures for your annual holiday cards.

2. Make Customized Ornament Gifts

Christmas trees are like a blank canvas and you tell stories through creative ornaments. Each year, create a new decoration that captures your big moments of the year. You can also gift your ornaments to others.

Some fun ideas for DIY ornaments include:

• Filling glass balls with glitter, feathers, or ribbon
• Painting wooden ornaments
• Creating salt dough ornaments
• Crafting marbled ornaments

3. Play Christmas Games

Liven up your holiday celebration with one of these trending games from TikTok:

• Christmas Gift Challenge: Circle a line of gifts and call out actions. End by shouting, “Gift” as everyone lunges for a gift.
• Oven Mitt Christmas Challenge: Each person gets 30 seconds to try and unwrap a gift. However, they have to unwrap it using oven mitts. The winner gets to keep the gift.
• Candy Cane Game: Each player tries to balance a candy cane on their finger while trying to knock their competitors’ candy canes off their fingers.

4. Write Christmas Cards

Santa isn’t the only one you can send letters to this Christmas.

Consider changing your traditional letter writing to include others who would appreciate a holiday greeting. For example, this Christmas, you and your family can design cards and write notes to the troops to encourage those who can’t make it home to their families for the holidays.

You can also write letters to those in nursing homes, hospitals, and in difficult situations who could use an encouraging note letting them know someone is thinking of them during the holidays.

5. Host a Cookie Exchange

Baking four dozen sugar cookies seemed like a good idea until you’re a few weeks into the Christmas season and already tired of those frosted Santa faces.

A cookie exchange will add more variety to your sweet treats without costing any additional effort. Just bake the usual over-zealous number of Christmas cookies you do, then host a cookie swap party where you can exchange the extras for your friends’ signature treats.

6. Host a White Elephant Gift Exchange

A white elephant gift exchange gives a hilarious twist to the traditional gift exchange. Instead of wrapping several quality gifts, you bring one gag gift to the event.

You gather all the gifts together and draw numbers to determine the order of the exchange. When your turn arrives, you can either choose a new gift or steal a gift from someone who has already unwrapped it. If someone takes your gift, you have a chance to get a new gift or steal someone else’s gift. This continues until all the gifts are unwrapped.

7. Visit a Light Show

Many communities host light shows during the Christmas season. You view some light shows by driving through a local park lit by colorful displays sponsored by local businesses. At the end of the drive, you can park at the event hub, where you can shop, eat holiday snacks, and meet up with friends.

Other light shows allow you to walk through the displays. This affords opportunities to take family photos, interact with others, and get out into the crisp winter air.

8. Make Kid Crafts

Get your kids excited about the holidays this season with these fun craft ideas:

• Magical Blowing Activity: Create a shadowbox filled with snow and screen it with a mesh cover. Kids have fun blowing through the cover and making the show fly.
• Sensory Gnome: Draw a gnome on a plastic bag and fill it with cotton balls and hair gel. Your child moves the cotton balls onto the gnome’s beard.
• Snow Globe: Fill a jar with sparkles and your favorite figures. Fill it with water and glycerin and have hours of fun shaking up the mixture and watching it snow.

9. Host an Ugly Christmas Sweater Party

Ugly Christmas sweaters can be part of any holiday event. It’s a chance to pull out old sweaters, find outdated clothes in a thrift store, or create a sweater. To make the event more fun, hand out awards, such as:

• The ugliest sweater
• The best DIY sweater
• The cutest sweater
• The most likely to catch fire sweater
• The sweater most likely to be worn by Santa

10. Create Your Own Advent Calendar

This year it’s time you upgraded from flimsy cardboard advent calendars with small chocolates inside. Instead, make your advent calendar using wrapping paper, paper bags, boxes, or your own creative twist.

Some creative gifts to put in your advent calendar include:

• Books
• Small toys
• Edible treats
• An activity
• Inspiring quotes
• Pieces of a map (that lead to one large gift)
• Parts of a story
• Lego pieces that build one large item

Save Your Christmas Memories

Capture these moments and preserve them forever in a photo book that celebrates the season filled with your favorite traditions.

Design your own Christmas photobook and keep your traditions alive.