Christmas magic comes from your family traditions. It’s what you remember most from your childhood and what your kids will remember. The repetition every year gets ingrained in our brains and then will carry on through generations. Not to be dramatic or anything. 😉 

I don’t think family traditions need to be super expensive or crazy or elaborate, but they do need to be special to you AND something easy to replicate every year.

Let’s talk about some of my family traditions!

1. Watching Home Alone Thanksgiving night with our family while eating our desserts! This is something I started the very first Thanksgiving I hosted. My family is a huge fan of the Home Alone series and this is just the perfect way to ring in the holiday season all together!
2. Getting a real Christmas tree: We have ALWAYS gotten a real tree. The last few years we have gone to the mountains to get our tree. This one that we got this year is EXTRA. It started off 14ft. We cut it down and still had to cut it more once we got it in the house! The memories we make with these trees is the best. I know none of us will forget this tree!
3. Decorating the tree as a family. I LOVE that we decorate our tree altogether while watching Elf and drinking hot chocolate. My husband makes the BEST hot chocolate. It’s usually a sweet time while the kids find all their old ornaments they’ve made over the years. Our tree isn’t fancy at all. It’s full of all the crafts and old pictures and silly ornaments and I LOVE IT.
4. Sending out a family Christmas Card. This is a tradition that I started when we first got married. I love, love, love it when people send me their Christmas cards. It’s super special to see everyone’s kids growing up every year. This year I’ve learned about sending holiday cards digitally with Paperless Post. Talk about an easy switch! You don’t have to wait for them to be printed or getting stamps or getting together new addresses. Paperless Post takes the hassle out of making your holiday cards. Our card this year is the one above!!
5. Matching Christmas Pjs: I cannot express the love that I have for matching Christmas pj’! Every single year I have all my kids wear matching pjs. Our Elf on the Shelf brings them usually the first night, although because of shipping issues ours are coming late this year! I’ve listed lots of options in my stories today!
6. Making Christmas cookies: We LOVE making Christmas cookies. I mean I honestly will find any reason to decorate sugar cookies with the kids. It’s the best! I just use the Betty Crocker sugar cookie bag. I SWEAR they make the best sugar cookies. Don’t tell me otherwise.
7. Going to look at Christmas lights in pjs with hot chocolate! This is a super easy and FREE idea that you can do with your kids. They get so excited to be in their pjs and drinking hot chocolate. We play Christmas music of course. You can make it as long or short as you need!
8. Gingerbread houses: These are super fun also and usually the kids end up eating a lot of the candy, but it’s still really fun! They get really into it and are pretty creative with their creations. We usually just get the Christmas village houses that come with 4 little houses.
9. Sending letters to Santa: Our kids send letters to Santa every year! They spend a lot of time and effort writing them and are actually so sweet to read. Paperless Post has started a new program called Letters to Santa where 100% of the proceeds taken from the Toys for Tots stamp will help bring holiday joy to kids in need. I love this because you get to create a digital copy of your kids letter to Santa that you can keep forever AND you get a reply from the North Pole!! To top it off, you’re also helping other kids in need! This program is so fun and a great way to give back while creating a fun tradition with your kids!
10. Reading the Christmas Story before going downstairs Christmas morning. My kid’s bedrooms are upstairs and they aren’t allowed to come downstairs until everyone is awake. STRUGGLE CITY. So they all meet in the playroom upstairs. Brian and I meet them in there and we read about the birth of Jesus before we head downstairs to see their gifts. I want all of our hearts to be centered on the “why” behind the day before it’s filled with physical gifts. The real gift is Him.