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Everything about Christmas is magical in our home. I know that my girls childhoods will be over before I know it and they will be all grown up, so once a year I go all out to make the day extra special. Here are some of our magical Christmas morning traditions!
1. Go downstairs together. It may be hard for those excited little ones, but wait until everyone is ready to go downstairs together to see the beautiful tree piled high with presents from Santa and the family. Pete and I go down a minute before the girls so that we can have our cameras ready to take pictures!
2. Open stockings first. Let your little ones open their stockings first. They have waited so long for this morning. Let them enjoy all the little treasures stuffed in their stockings. We get some snacks ready while they open their stockings.
3. Separate the gifts by person. Our girls spend a couple moments separating presents so that each person has a big pile of presents next to them to open. I’ve also seen people that assign a wrapping paper to a person so that there is no confusion over who gets what gift.
4. Open the presents up round robin style. Instead of letting everyone loose on the presents and chaos ensuing… open them one by one. Enjoy the wonder and excitement of each gift being opened.
5. Have a hot chocolate bar. Have a special Christmas drink ready for everyone to enjoy. Put special holiday mugs next to a slow cooker filled with hot chocolate and all the toppings you can imagine. Invite everyone to have some throughout the morning.
6. Read Santa’s Note. Leave a special note from Santa to the children. Santa always says thank you for the cookies and milk and all the treats for his reindeer and elves. Of course, Santa would remind the children that they were so good this year and to remember to be good the next year too!
7. Gift Hunt. If Santa (or mom & dad) brought a gift too big to wrap, have the little ones go on a gift hunt. Leave little clues that will take them all over the house until they discover their hidden gift.
8. Christmas Brunch. Enjoy a special Christmas brunch together as a family. Crockpot breakfast casseroles and cinnamon rolls are especially wonderful on Christmas morning. We always have the same things to eat each morning and now our food is a tradition too!
9. Play Santa’s Elf. Think of a special family or person you want to do something special for. Make a package of presents, food and Christmas cookies. Drive the family over to their home and secretly place the package of goodies at their door. The trick is to not get caught! The kids will love helping Santa and being a secret elf.
10. Secret Santa Sack. Stash a sack of presents in a special place to open later that afternoon. You can leave a note from one of Santa’s elves letting them know a special sack of presents will be arriving at anytime. This tradition is a fun way to open presents all day long.
What Christmas morning tradition is your favorite?
You have some wonderful and magical Christmas morning traditions. This year I’d like to set up a hot chocolate bar as well. Thank you for the awesome suggestion.
These are some great family traditions! I might borrow a couple of them. One of my favorite traditions is how we open gifts which is one at a time so everybody can enjoy each other’s gifts.
Our Christmas tradition is a big, southern-style breakfast on Christmas morning. We do it up big time. Biscuits, fried eggs, pancakes, sausage. The whole nine.
I always love hearing about other people’s traditions. Ours is to make a huge breakfast on Christmas morning.
I attempt to do the Round Robin thing, but it ends up being a free for all. Free for alls drive me crazy, especially with three kiddos tearing open presents.
These are some wonderful traditions, I always think Christmas is so much more magical through a childs eyes.
These are fun traditions. We always opened the stockings first too. I miss the days of reading Santa’s notes.
Those are all lovely ideas! It’s always awesome to open gifts together and just spend time around the tree before you all go do your own things for the rest of the day.
It sounds like you have some great traditions at your house!! I hope to make my own traditions one day!!
My kids always got a special letter from Santa, even when they were older. They really enjoy holding on to those traditions even now that they are adults.
I love the gift hunt idea! I have never done that to my kids and it sounds so much fun!
These are wonderful ideas for new family traditions. I love the idea of the hot chocolate bar during the whole gift process. My kids would love it!
We do quite a few of these for our kids. I love opening the stockings. They are my favorite part of Christmas.
I haven’t tried a gift hunt before! These are great family traditions. Definitely love having unique takes on everyone else’s traditions
Thanks for giving me an idea for next Christmas! We’ll do the gift hunt and make sure that it would be an annual activity we can all look forward to.
I like how you have the schedule the same every year I’m sure the kids will remember that when they grow up.
I’ve never done any of these. We just let everyone open presents at the same time. Last year, I did the wrapping paper and I may have to do that next year. We just had so many big boxed gifts that it didn’t quite work. I ran out of one paper first.
We open the presents up round robin style around here. But we open the stockings last. It would be interesting too to open it first.
Every year my brother and I used to be “elves” and hand out the presents at my grandmothers. I loved that tradition.
These are some great ideas for magical traditions on Christmas Morning! I’ll have to try some of these in the future!
Oh I definitely want to do a Christmas Brunch! I swear when I have kids I will be doing everything on this list!