Daily Christmas Activities For Families

Christmastime is such a busy and fun time of the year with constant parties, celebrations, and traditions happening for everyone. It is easy to let the season take you away and miss all the opportunities for intentionality with your family that this time of the year presents. This is why years ago, I created a “Daily Christmas Activities For Families” list of things to do together during the month of December.

The activities were chosen out of four key desires for my family:

• To build family traditions together
• To create a season of anticipation and excitement around Christ’s coming each year
• To make sure my favorite Christmas activities happened in our busy schedule
• And lastly, to find ways to serve others around us during the Christmas season.

I had seen many different advent calendar activity plans before creating this one. Many of them focus on simple activities to do at Christmas or were a list of Christmas acts of kindness. Really, this was just a chance for me to smash all of these ideas together to make something that fit the desires we have for our family. It allows for some fun activities like baking Christmas cookies and then using these activities as opportunities to serve others by delivering cookies to our neighbors, mailman, or others the following days.

As we do these acts of kindness, it gives us opportunities to talk about the true reason for the season and why we desire to love our neighbors in this way. It points us to the love of Christ and the sacrificial love that God shows to us in sending Him, and gives us tangible ways to love others with His great love that He’s given us. It also gives us a chance to pray together for those we are serving along the way!

This list is not meant to replace our favorite family Christmas tradition: going through the story of scripture and how it points to Jesus! If there is one thing we do during the season of the 25 days of Christmas, our Advent Bible Reading Plan is our first priority! We firstly want to make sure we are keeping Christ the center of our celebrations and getting into God’s Word together as a familychr to point us to Christ, the true reason for the season! Check out our advent Bible reading plan below for a great way to center your heart and the heart of your family on Christ’s coming as the Messiah throughout the advent season:

Ok, now let’s get to the Daily Christmas Activities For Families list and how we use this list each year at Christmastime!

25 Days of Christmas Activities: Daily Activities for Families

One for each day in December…

1. Read a Christmas book together
(Our favorites are a series by Zonderkids explaining many Christmas traditions such as “The Legend of the Candy Cane.” Check them out on Amazon here.)

2. Make hot chocolate with marshmallows and drink it while listening to Christmas music

3. Make handmade ornaments to give to family members for Christmas gifts

4. Make paper snowflakes and hang them around the house

5. Find a way to serve as a family: serve a meal at a local shelter, pack boxes of food with the local food bank, or volunteer in another way that your church is currently serving in your community.

6. Wrap presents together and put them under the tree

7. Mail Christmas cards

8. Take someone’s cart back for them when you’re out shopping (or many peoples’ carts!)

9. Bring in the neighbor’s garbage cans for them on garbage day

10. Have a family holiday movie night

11. Build a snowman (Obviously this isn’t always possible, so if not, do a snowman craft!)

12. Bring a coffee or a meal to a friend

13. Make and decorate Christmas cookies

14. Leave a Christmas cookie for the mailman and deliver some to the neighbors

15. Drive/Walk to see Christmas lights

16. Make a gingerbread house- invite friends over to join you with this!

17. Send a note or care package to a missionary you support, a friend living overseas, someone in the military, etc.

18. Do a chore for someone else in the family or do something you weren’t even asked to do around the house!

19. Go sledding (Again, you may not be able to do this one, so adapt another outdoor activity if you can’t!)

20. Unwrap a present and talk about how to have a thankful heart

21. Go to a local live nativity, lights display, carriage ride, carols night, or festival depending on what your community offers. Don’t have any of these? Use your nativity (if you have one) to act out the Christmas story, or act it out yourselves!

22. Discuss as a family the needs of others around the world. Choose a ministry/organization to donate to and give a Christmas gift to another family across the globe. (The Compassion Gift Catalog is a great place to start with this!)

23. Donate clothes/other items. Leave a nice note in the pocket of one item!

24. Go to the Christmas Eve service at church and pray together for churches gathering all across the globe.

25. Read the Christmas story together and celebrate the birth of our great Savior!

Advent Calendar Paper Chain

There are so many ways you could use this list. You could create an advent calendar to follow along, put a slip of paper into an advent calendar/box you already have, or if you are like us, we make this list into a paper chain! We love doing it this way because it is simple, it is fun for the kids to rip off each day and see the chain get shorter, and it is a fun craft to make together in preparation for the advent season. A few tips for making the above daily Christmas activities for families into an advent calendar paper chain:

• Have fun making this together! Let the kids cut the strips, help write on each day, and put the chain together with you.
• Change up the order: Every year, I look at this list alongside my calendar before deciding which day to put each activity on. Some days I know will be free, so I’ll plan a more time consuming activity on that day, while other days are busy, so I’ll add a simple activity for that day. I’ll also look at which day of the week the garbage gets picked up or that we will probably be out shopping, etc. This just helps to organize it and make it more attainable in our schedule.
• Be flexible! If you miss a day, don’t sweat it! Either skip it or save it for another day when you have time. Let it serve you to be intentional as a family, don’t be ruled by the schedule.
• Add in your own activities. Think about the traditions you have as a family that you want to make sure you do together each year, look for ways that more specifically serve your local community, etc.
• Keep Christ the center! As you do these things, continue discussing the “why” behind the serving and the celebrations!
• Pray along the way. Pray together that these opportunities would draw you all closer to God, to one another, and provide opportunities to share Jesus with those around you.

As we draw near to Christmas, I pray that above all, you would focus on Jesus as the reason for all the anticipation and celebration, and that you would build memories together as a family as you celebrate and serve others each year during the Christmas season! Merry Christmas!

Looking for more resources for family discipleship? Check out our Family Discipleship Resources Page!

Make sure to save this list for later!