Decorating the Christmas tree is popular tradition that many families look foward to each year. This year lets mix up our tradition just a bit and participate in the Christmas tree activities. Not only is putting up the Christmas tree a great time to reflect and remember various memories over the year. The kids usually make an ornament every year in school and it is fun to look back at the previous oranments and remember who made it. Plus, it decoating the tree brings the Christmas spirit right into the home.
Sing “O Christmas Tree” Together
Some families enjoy singing “O Christmas Tree” as the tree is brought into the home or pulled out from the closet. Make a fun activity and have everyone has to come up with an original verse to the song (since noone remember the actual words to the song). This will keep everyone entertained while someone else works to get the tree standing up straight.
Remember The Homemade Ornaments
Once the tree is in a stand and ready to be decorated, make a game out of putting the ornaments on the tree. Set aside all the homemade ornaments and work with those first. Start with the first family member and ask them who made the ornament, where did it come from? Once the details are out of the way, ask the crafter (likely a child) if they remember making the ornament. If you’re the parent, tell the child what you thought when you first saw the ornament. This is fun game since it reminds children that the things they make and bring home are meaningful that you loved getting them.
Say A Nice Thing About an Ugly Ornament
There is always one ornament that is just ugly, or plain silly. Play “hot potato” with that ornament as long as it isn’t breakable. Whoever gets stuck with the ugly ornament has to say one nice thing about it, such as “well, there’s a lot of glitter on it and that’s pretty”, or “Dougie made it, so I like it”. It’s a silly way to remind children to find good in everything. It might even remind them that things are just things. This is a good lesson for this time of year.
Advent Presents Under the Tree for All the Kids to Open
Some people use an advent calendar to count down the days until Christmas, and this is how it’s traditionally done, but there is one fun activity sure to be a hit with children. Similar to the concept in Germany (where the advent calendar originated) this involves providing one small gift for children every day until Christmas. In Germany, it’s only done for several days before Christmas, but you can do it for the 24 days of the month until Christmas arrives. These gifts don’t have to cost a ton of money or for giggles you can wrap an old gift and put it under the tree. I suggest focusing on getting something the family can enjoy like card games, a note telling you to get out items such as soda bottles and a ball for a game of indoor bowling, etc.
Count Down the Days Until Christmas With Tiny Gifts Bags
Buy tiny handled gift bags at the craft store. Buy 1 for each of your children. For example if you have two kids, you will have to buy 48 tiny bags. Maybe even color code the bags so that your child knows which one to open.
Then have the children decorate the bags, and on each of the 24 bags, have them place a number as well, 1 through 24. As you decorate the tree, find space for each of these little bags. Because they have handles, they can hang right on the tree like an ornament, or you can tie a ribbon on the handles so they have a more graceful swing. Each night, fill the right bag with a tiny prize or gift. So if it’s the night of December 14, you’ll take bag #15 (all the bags with earlier numbers will be gone) and put some little trinkets (aff link) in it. It might be a piece of candy, a tiny ornament for your child’s own tree, a tiny car, or a small eraser. The idea here is that it’s a small gift, but come morning, that’s the first activity your children will engage in – discovering what little treat you left for them the night before.
Most families look forward to putting up the Christmas tree each year and why not make this year fun with these Christmas tree actvities.
We decorated our tree over the weekend. I love your activities. We do have gifts that we open daily–my mom drops small gifts off so we can do this and I do the same for her. It’s just fun and practical things like trash bags and chocolate 😉
Oh I remember using rings to help us count down until Christmas when my children were little. Oh how time flies!
When my sister and I were younger; decorating for Christmas took like entire day. But mom always made it fun and I came to appreciate the tradition. Thanks for the memories!
So many fun things to do. Thank you for the ideas!
These are some great activities. I will have to try some of them this holiday.
Ooooh I love the little gift bag idea! My kids would love that so much. Plus it doesn’t take up extra space since you can just hang them on the tree.
What a really great and awesome activities you have here! Thanks for sharing this with us!
I like these ideas. We’ve been looking for something different to do for the holidays. Kind of tired of doing the same thing every year.
Thank you so much for all these great ideas! We are going to try to make some homemade ornaments this year, the kids are excited.
These are al such great family Christmas time suggestions and I love the idea of singing together! We do go caroling occassionaly for Christmas… its a great tie!
These are wonderful family Christmas time suggestions. I love to decorate my Christmas tree with my kids. We have a tradition of listening to Christmas music will we are having hot chocolate.
These sound like lovely activity ideas. I do like the gift bag one as it’s a great alternative to the chocolate calendars we normally have.
I like the “compliment an ugly ornament” concept and I think it might be nice to do with the family although I may just tweak it a little bit to keep going until everyone’s said something nice, the lesson you’re going for with it feels pretty invaluable and like everyone should practice it!
Such cute ideas 😍. Kids would surely love doing these Christmas tree activities ❤️.
I love the idea to listen to music while decorating the tree! I’ll do it for sure!
Christmas is my favorite time of year and these are fun and exciting things to do with the fam, for sure. Thanks for the ideas!