Baby’s first Christmas! It’s such and exciting and magical time! All the lights, music and excitement around gifts can make you wonder how you ever thought it was magical before baby was born. But alas, it can be an overwhelming time as well – finding the perfect gifts for your little one, making sure you share the true meaning behind Christmas and starting family traditions.
Thankfully, you have a couple years to nail this down and really figure out how this season really impacts your child 🙂 in the mean time, we have some suggestions that you can start now with baby to start cultivating an intentional Christmas season with them.
5 Ways to Have an Intentional Christmas with Your Baby
- Make an ornament with them – there are so many ways you can do this! Handprints, footprints or adding favorite memorabilia into those special memory keeping ornaments. As they get older it get’s to be more fun, but those precious ornaments from their little years hold such a special place in my heart and on my tree.
- New book every day – (great count down for kids too young for chocolate) you can “unwrap” a new book every day for 24 days leading up to Christmas. It’s a great way to build their book collection. Books can get pricey, so if you are on a budget, you can always try thrifting books or just wrap 24 books you already have. Or – if 24 days seems too long, do the 12 days of Christmas.
- Start a Jesse Tree – we started this last year and I made one out of felt with felt ornaments and it was a hit. Here is a great blog post that I found when I was first starting this tradition in our home. – http://www.ishouldbemoppingthefloor.com/2014/12/jesse-tree-christmas-tradition.html
- Christmas Eve Box – this is one of my favorite ideas and has been a fun tradition that has slowly developed in our home. It’s a box that they get to open on Christmas eve that is filled with fun things to do on Christmas Eve night. Because our kiddos are young our box tends to grow each year, currently it includes: Christmas Pj’s for the whole family (because it’s always fun to have everyone looking adorable for Christmas morning pictures), a new Christmas book – I try to stick with the Christmas story, hot chocolate and popcorn, and a Christmas movie (I’m not sure which movie this will be, but I am leaning toward “Elf“, because they seem to be getting a kick of him this year). It has been a fun tradition over the last four years – even if I am the only one that has gotten enjoyment out of it this far. I think this year its going to be a hit!
- Get them their own nativity – this is such a great way to start teaching your little ones the true meaning of Christmas. When they actually get to play and learn who each person is and their part in the story it seems to stick a little more.
It is so much fun starting new traditions as a young family. These are some great ways we have been able to have a more intentional Christmas with our young family and it has grown as the baby’s grow.
Do you have any traditions you have started with your family or traditions you’d like to continue from your childhood? What things have you done to have an intentional Christmas with your family?
