67 Ways to Celebrate the Season (Printable)
Just before Thanksgiving each year, our family prints out the following list of 67 Ways to Celebrate the Season. We post it on our bulletin board for easy reference and use it to jog our memory concerning all the different activities and events we’ve enjoyed during Christmases past.
The children helped me generate our original “Countdown to Christmas” 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 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 whatever activities appeal to us or fit our schedules this year.
Try making a “Countdown to Christmas” List with your own family this year. You can use ours to get started or compile one of your own from scratch!
67 Simple Ways to Celebrate the Season
1. Take family photo for Christmas cards
2. Hang house lights
3. Put Christmas music in speaker system/ cars
4. Wrap/unwrap/read 25 books before Christmas
5. Christmas card assembly line: work together
6. Make Candy Kiss Christmas Chains
7. Decorate Christmas tree(s)
8. Host shoebox stuffing party for “Operation Christmas Child”
9. Re-read old Christmas letters aloud
10. Read Family Devotions for Advent Season
11. Review Luke 2 and quote from memory
12. Watch It’s a Wonderful Life
13. Ring bell for Salvation Army
14. Read Dicken’s Christmas Stories
15. Make hot cocoa
16. Visit Christmas tree farm/ buy clippings
17. Host a birthday party for Jesus
18. Read/ watch The Gift of the Magi
19. Make thank-you gifts for pastors/teachers (maybe some friendship soup?)
20. Watch Little Drummer Boy
21. Play Christmas Charades
22. Read/watch A Christmas Carol
23. Read/watch How the Grinch Stole Christmas
24. Sing carols around the fire
25. Read The First Night
26. Have family Christmas piano recital
27. Make fantasy fudge
28. Watch Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer
29. Take pumpkin or banana nut bread to neighbors
30. Read Year of the Perfect Christmas Tree
31. Make Christmas ornaments or crafts
32. Give baking to mail-carrier/garbage men
33. Drive around to look at lights
34. String popcorn/cranberries for outside tree
35. Make gingerbread house
36. Take coffee/donations to bell ringers
37. Watch/read Little House Christmas
38. Visit a drive-through or walk-through Nativity at a local church
39. Make cathedral window cookies
40. Take cookies to girls in Dad’s office (like our yummy snickerdoodles)
41. Sing/ play instruments for church program
42. Watch Frosty the Snowman
43. Listen to/ sing along with Handel’s Messiah
44. Attend home school Christmas party
45. Watch Elf (then take our Elf Trivia Test)
46. Make sausage balls
47. Work Twelve Days of Christmas jigsaw puzzle
48. Bake Christmas cookies
49. Make s’mores in drive-way; invite neighbors?
50. Watch White Christmas
51. Shop at a local church or school holiday craft fair
52. See The Nutcracker ballet at community college
53. Watch Miracle on 34th Street (old version)
54. Jog in Rudolph Family Fun Run
55. Go ice-skating
56. Throw a Christmas caroling party
57. Play Christmas party games as family
58. Act out Christmas story with little ones
59. Attend Emerald Ball with teens
60. Tell Christmas story with advent gift boxes
61. Watch Star of Bethlehem
62. Drink hot apple cider
63. Make/buy sibling stocking stuffers
64. Take kids Christmas shopping (for others)
65. Visit Six Flags Holiday in the Park
66. Eat traditional Christmas breakfast
67. Think/pray about/ make New Year’s resolutions
To print a plain-text version of our original 67 Ways to Celebrate the Season list, follow this link. For a prettier, updated version of our “Countdown to Christmas,” simply click on the image below:
Incidentally, if you are looking for another way to make this season more meaningful, take a look at my new devotional journal for advent, Joy to the World. It will help focus your thoughts and anchor your heart to the real reason we celebrate Christmas.
