Start a New (Simple) Holiday Tradition This Year

With the holiday season quickly approaching, it’s easy to get swept up in the chaos.

Here are ten easy ideas to get your family into the spirit of the season:

1. Cookie Swap

Host a cookie swap. This is an easy way to bake cookies once, share with friends, and have treats to last all season long! Bonus points if you get the kids to help.

2. Visit holiday light displays

Set aside an evening to drive around town looking for the best holiday lights. We like to wear our comfiest holiday pajamas, blast the Christmas music, and swing through the Starbucks drive thru for hot cocoa and lattes. As December nears, Family Fun in Omaha usually updates this interactive map to help you find great holiday light displays in your area.

3. Make handmade gifts together.

Grandparents especially enjoy receiving something your kids have helped make. We have made coasters, photo puzzles, hand-prints on a cookie platter from a paint-your-own-pottery shop, homemade vanilla extract, ornaments, sweet treats, etc. Tons of excellent gift ideas are just a quick Pinterest search away!

4. Shop for a Salvation Army Christmas Tree Angel.

Our local holiday radio station – Star 104.5 – hosts an annual Adopt a Family Radiothon to help connect you with families in the Omaha and Council Bluffs area who need help this holiday season. This year, tune in from 6:00am on November 29th until 6:00pm on November 30th. Walk up adoptions are also available during the Radiothon at Westroads Mall.

5. Schedule a gift shopping day.

In this era of Amazon Prime and online shopping, we felt like we’d lost a little bit of the joy of hunting for the perfect gifts for our loved ones. In the last few years, we’ve chosen a Saturday to take the kids out shopping for presents for their cousins, aunts and uncles, and grandparents. My husband and I also schedule a date night, when we can choose gifts for the kids without them being present.

6. Gather for pizza and a holiday movie.

Friday night is always family night at our house, complete with pizza and a movie. During the holiday season, we haul out our seasonal favorites – Elf, Home Alone, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, A Charlie Brown Christmas, A Christmas Story, Frosty the Snowman, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, and The Polar Express.

7. Wear matching pajamas!

In the last few years, Target has made it easier than ever to find festive pajamas for the whole family. Some other favorite retailers where I’ve also found great options are TargetOld Navy, Sam’s Club, Hanna Anderssen, Lands End, and Matilda Jane Clothing. Be sure to remember to snap a photo of everyone together on Christmas Eve or Christmas morning! Years’ worth of photos as your kids grow will be wonderful memories to look back on.

8. Christmas Eve Gifts

Thirty years ago, my grandfather started a tradition of giving gag gifts to the adults in the family on Christmas Eve. Whoever was the first to say, “Christmas Eve gift!” to him on Christmas Eve received an early present. It quickly transformed into a crazy competition, complete with midnight phone calls to be first, and he began giving everyone in the family a silly gift, regardless. 

As my grandfather grew older and unable to carry on the tradition on his own, the torch was passed to my father, who modified the festivities slightly. We now have a White Elephant/Dirty Santa Gift Exchange on Christmas Eve. We always look forward to it, and it is always hilarious. I mean, who doesn’t want a 3-pound bag of Lucky Charms marshmallows, or a used coffee pot, or a jumbo pack of wash cloths for Christmas? 

You can absolutely give this tradition your own spin, or choose an actual Christmas gift to open on Christmas Eve.

9. Go Christmas caroling!

You don’t have to have a huge choir, or much musical talent at all to spread cheer during the holiday season. On Christmas Eve in my family, whomever is willing to brave the cold, or the rain, or sometimes even heat (Tennessee has seen a wide variety of December weather) heads out to sing a few songs to the neighbors. Everyone loves it, because really, you don’t see enough carolers anymore!

10. Track Santa on Christmas Eve.

NORAD (North American Aerospace Defense Command) has a special website that you can use to watch where Santa Claus is delivering gifts on Christmas Eve. There is even an app – NORAD Tracks Santa Claus. In addition to being a fun way to bring a little bit of magic to your holiday celebration, knowing when Santa Claus is near is an excellent Christmas Eve bedtime tool!

However you decide to celebrate this holiday season, be sure to carve out a little quality time with your loved ones. I know it’s hard, between hosting holiday parties and buying gifts and making costumes for the school pageant and attending parties and just trying to keep some semblance of regular life going. Just stop, Mama. Breathe.

Don’t look back in January, wishing you’d done more with your kids. It may mean turning down an invitation so that you can have movie night at home, but I promise, it will be worth it. Start a few easy traditions now. In the coming years, when your kids ask if it’s time to shop for the Angel Tree, or bake cookies, or find the best Christmas lights together, you’ll get that validation (and probably some good feels) that you are doing the holidays right.

Audra
A Tennessee girl by birth, Audra has been following a man in uniform around the country for 14 years. She’s a mother of two “tweens” – Aidan (12) and Neely (9) – who has now called six different states home, landing in Omaha in July 2017. If anybody knows how to get to the heart of a town and find all the best activities for her family, it’s a military spouse! Audra’s passion is for travel, and she works from home as a travel agent, specializing in Disney destinations, cruises, and all-inclusive vacations. Other hobbies include running, soccer mom-ing, yoga, cooking, binge-watching old episodes of Friends, and exploring her latest hometown!