50 Christmas Activities For Family Fun

Create meaningful family traditions at Christmas time.  Whether it is about baby Jesus, an activity, craft, music, food or serving others, I’ve featured 50 Christmas ideas for family fun during the holiday season. Darling gingerbread nativity by KatherineMaries via here.

You may have already seen our 100 activities for Advent calendar countdown. There are 100 activities to print out for more Christmas fun. So between this post and the Advent post there are tons of ideas to check out. Pick and choose what works for you and your family. Enjoy…

Not really musical? Kids and adults can play music with handheld pipe chimes. Trust me – this is a very simple and FUN way to create Christmas music! Kids as young as 2 or 3 can help join the music making. Check out this Etsy site or another version percussion chimes

Have a Mad Lib night.

Wordle is a simple and easy activity to do with your family. This took me 5 minutes to create. Have family members write down 3-5 favorite words to describe Christmas. Maybe give it a theme – what they’re thankful for, favorite activities, Christmas memories, etc.  The Wordle website creates “word art” using words you provide. Go to the website and type the words your family has chosen – choose colors and fonts.  Print out and frame as a remembrance of your family’s 2011 Christmas. Do one for each year.

The Last Straw in the Manger Story. Image from here via here.7.

Enjoy a Bethlehem dinner with your kids. Eat foods from the time of Christ i.e. grapes, chicken, fish, nuts, olives, raisins, etc. Can fish sticks or chicken nuggets pass as “regular fish and chicken”. Grape juice is usually a hit with kids. Place dry foods in brown lunch sacks rolled down to look like bowls.

Free printable Christmas Train Paper Craft. Print out on paper and enjoy putting together.10.

Make miniature Elf food for the Elves.

Make a Christmas Banana Splitby using red/green fruits or candies.12.

How about making a darling snowman ice cream sundae?

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The White Envelope is  wonderful family tradition of serving others. Start your own tradition.

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Create Christmas music using musical hand bells15.

Make “The Scent of Christmas” with your family.20.
The perfect family activity -  kids Christmas nativity set

Paint your own wood ornaments or paint your own designs
Simple and quick project to make with kids. These ornaments are sold at craft stores for inexpensive.22.

Cute idea – fun game for little ones. Counting and colors using m&m’s.

23.

Make reindeer grain. Sprinkle this outside on Christmas Eve night (darling poem on the back).

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Kids Christmas tree made of felt or glitter foam.

 25.

500 Foam Christmas Stickers

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J is for Jesus candy cane poem.

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Make your own paint pages. Have the kids paint their favorite Christmas scene.

28.

Make a Christ book to share this Christmas season.

29.

Make marshmallow pops

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Gingerbread dice game printable

31.

Snow glitter dough

32.

Make simple holiday shirts.

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Share the story of  the gifts of the Magi with real  Gold, Frankincense and Myrrh. From the NY Metropolitan Museum of Art

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Three Kings Gold, Frankincense & Myrrh

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Create a Christmas Scavenger Hunt. Or how about creating your own service-oriented scavenger hunt with clues, treasure map, etc.? Have each clue read as a service to someone else i.e. make your sisters bed, bake cookies for friends, sing a Christmas song to the neighbors. Once the service is completed they get their next clue. Some acts of service might take a few minutes and some a bit longer in time.

36.

Make your own I Spy ornaments.

37.

Hot Chocolate night with the family is quick and simple. Make sure to have whipped cream or marshmallows to make it extra yummy. Image from here.

38.

Use equal parts cinnamon and applesauce to create beautiful smelling ornaments

39.

St. Nicholas holiday traditionsare celebrated on St. Nicholas Feast Day, December 6th. St. Nicholas’ example still inspires acts of charity and generosity. During this time children sing songs and put their shoes next to the window or door,  along with a drawing, a wish-list and a carrot, and maybe water for the horse. The next morning children may find candy treats or chocolate coins and gifts in their shoes.40.

 Have a North Pole Breakfast – complete with pancakes (make into characters) or Rudolph bread, snowballs (white donut holes), etc.41.

How about red velvet pancakesfor a North Pole Breakfast or breakfast for dinner?You can also create a red and green theme dinner with red and green foods – spaghetti, broccoli, spinach fettuccine, etc.42.

Many ideas to celebrate Christmas Around the World43.

Cookie Christmas Bark

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Rudolph nosesmade of raspberries and chocolate chips. Cute idea for breakfast or snacks to eat.46.

Make a family hand print Christmas tree.

For those who don’t get to play in the snow, have an indoor snowball fight using crumpled up newspaper, tissue, etc (recycle).  After the snowball fight, make a snowmanwith crumpled paper and plastic trash bags.

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 Make a melting snowman cookie.50.

Family game night. Transform a family member into a Christmas tree or other fun and silly games.