American Christmas / December traditions What are some of the traditions for kids during Christmas time? I know about…

We use a Santa sack! Only the gifts from Santa arrive in this sack. I don’t label them at all since it’s all from Santa. I only label the gifts from mom & dad. This way there is no writing to compare.

Growing up my parents were divorced, and still the sacks would arrive on Christmas Eve at either parents house. Wherever we happened to be staying that holiday. It was nice for my parents (and now myself) because they would just go ahead and put all the gifts under the tree except the santa sack. This helped with only needing to hide one bag instead of a million gifts.

Personally Ive learned I prefer basic wrapping (solid color) for the gifts inside the sack, but that’s totally up to preference. I also put the less expensive gifts in the Santa sack. Or, homemade looking (Etsy) gifts. This way, when my child is 6 or 7ish, she won’t go to school bragging about how Santa brought her an iPad or something while a classmate didn’t get such a pricy gift. I’d hate for another child to wonder why Santa brought one kid something expensive and not the other. And, the santa sack is large, but probably only fits about 10 gifts max. This way it’s also not looking as if santa gave one child way more than another. Again, that’s personal preference.

What my mom did also: we’d (the kids) would wake up and run and open the santa sack. Once we saw what Santa brought us, then we’d make donuts together, and eat. Then when we were done eating we’d go back and open all the gifts from mom & stepdad / family .

It helped stretch the day out, and it’s a wonderful memory I hold on to.

-Going for a drive to look at Christmas lights together

-Attending our town’s Santa parade & tree lighting where they read ‘Twas The Night Before Christmas

-Getting pictures with Santa

-Making Christmas cookies together

-Attending our church’s Christmas Eve family service

-Christmas Eve chili (was my grandma’s tradition that we’ve carried on❤️)

-Elf on the Shelf and his dog

-Leaving milk & cookies for Santa, as well as carrots for the reindeer

-Oatmeal & glitter mixed together to sprinkle on the snow outside your house so that the reindeer can find their way to your house

-Stockings opened first on Christmas morning

Thanks :)

I’m going to start a Christmas Eve tradition where my son gets to open one present on Christmas Eve that is a movie, popcorn, and Christmas pajamas

We have a chinese lantern festival in December in my town we go to every year, making gingerbread houses, making Christmas cookies on Christmas Eve, watching certain movies like Christmas vacation and polar express, going shopping on Christmas Eve, picking out a fresh Christmas tree at the farmers market, walking/driving around looking at lights, go to local Christmas parades and tree lightings, volunteer at soup kitchen, some sort of charity donation like toys for tots

Elf on The Shelf

Gifts under the tree the day of Christmas. (We did not do that growing up nor implemented Santa in our celebration so this is new).