Just before Thanksgiving each year, our family prints out the following Christmas countdown calendar and posts it on our bulletin board. On it are all the different activities and events we’ve enjoyed during Christmases past.

The children helped me generate the original countdown list years ago, and we continue to add to it as we discover new traditions we want to make a part of our family’s holiday celebrations.

The list reminds us to enjoy small, simple pleasures, as these are the things that make this time of year so memorable for our little ones. We don’t try to do everything on our bucket list — that’s not the point — we just pick and choose those activities that appeal to us or fit our schedules this year.

Try making a “Countdown to Christmas” with your own family this year. You can use our list or compile one of your own!

Simple Ways to Celebrate the Season

• take family photo for Christmas cards
• hang house lights
• put Christmas music in speaker system/ cars
• wrap/unwrap/read 25 books before Christmas
• Christmas card assembly line: work together
• make Candy Kiss Christmas Chains
• decorate Christmas tree(s)
• host shoebox stuffing party for “Operation Christmas Child”
• re-read old Christmas letters aloud
• read Family Devotions for Advent Season
• review Luke 2 and quote from memory
• watch It’s a Wonderful Life
• ring bell for Salvation Army
• read Dicken’s Christmas Stories
• make hot cocoa
• visit Christmas tree farm/ buy clippings
• have birthday party for Jesus
• read/ watch The Gift of the Magi
• make thank-you gifts for pastors/teachers
• watch Little Drummer Boy
• play Christmas Charades
• read/watch A Christmas Carol
  
• read/watch How the Grinch Stole Christmas
• sing carols around the fire
• read The First Night
• have family Christmas piano recital
• make fantasy fudge
• watch Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer
• take pumpkin or banana nut bread to neighbors
• read Year of the Perfect Christmas Tree
• make Christmas ornaments or crafts
• give baking to mail-carrier/garbage men
• drive around to look at lights
• string popcorn/cranberries for outside tree
• make gingerbread house
• take coffee/donations to bell ringers
• watch/read Little House Christmas
• visit a drive-through or walk-through Nativity at a local church
• make cathedral window cookies
• take cookies to girls in Dad’s office
• sing/ play instruments for church program
• watch Frosty the Snowman
• listen to/ sing along with Handel’s Messiah
• attend home school Christmas party
• watch Elf
• make sausage balls
• work Twelve Days of Christmas jigsaw puzzle
• bake Christmas cookies
• make s’mores in drive-way; invite neighbors?
• watch White Christmas
• shop at a local church or school holiday craft fair
• see The Nutcracker ballet at community college
• watch Miracle on 34th Street (old version)
• jog in Rudolph Family Fun Run
• go ice-skating
• go Christmas caroling
• play Christmas party games as family
• act out Christmas story with little ones
• attend Emerald Ball with teens
• tell Christmas story with advent gift boxes
• watch Star of Bethlehem
• drink hot apple cider
• make/buy sibling stocking stuffers
• take kids Christmas shopping (for others)
• visit Six Flags Holiday in the Park
• eat traditional Christmas breakfast
• think/pray about/ make New Year’s resolutions

To print a plain-text version of our original list, follow this link. For a prettier, updated version of our “Countdown to Christmas,” just click on the image below:

[click on image to print]