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Christmas Eve is my favorite day of the year.
It’s one of the only days of the year when our whole family is together. Everyone from Pete’s side and almost everyone from my side is there and we enjoy dinner and these magical family Christmas Eve traditions. Please note, we do all of these each Christmas Eve, but not always in this order, so feel free to mix the order you do them too!
1. Norad Santa Tracker
Did you know that you can track Santa’s sleigh as he delivers presents to children all over the world using the Norad Santa Tracker? Yep, it is true! The kids get so excited seeing Santa’s sleigh get closer and closer to delivering to our home! If you want to get a jump start on the festivities, the Norad website actually goes live on December first each year!
2. Hot Chocolate Bar This favorite drink is a must in our house on Christmas Eve. We set up a hot chocolate bar and let the kids choose their toppings and mixins. Some of our favorites are marshmallows, nutmeg, peppermint sticks, and gingerbread cookies for dunking.
3. Cookies for Santa Right before going to bed, let the little ones choose some cookies to put on a plate for Santa. They will love picking out the perfect cookies for the man in red. Don’t forget the glass of milk! On years when we have some extra time, we let the kids decorate these cookies. We set aside plain sugar cookies and decorations and let them get creative.
4. Reindeer Food Set out “glitter food” (oatmeal the kids mix with glitter) outside for the reindeer to nibble on. You can also have the little ones put some carrots inside by Santa’s cookies for him to take back up the chimney for the reindeer.
5. Cheerio Donuts for the Elves Of course, you can’t forget those special little helpers that make all that Santa does possible! Leave little cheerios with frosting and sprinkles on a tiny napkin or plate for Santa’s Elves to enjoy.
6. Read The Night before Christmas This classic Christmas story is so timeless. Make a special tradition by reading the same book every year. It will become a family keepsake that will hold many memories for years to come. Pete reads it to the girls right before they go to sleep. We also sip our custom created hot chocolate while he is reading for an extra special moment.
7. Proof of Santa After the children are in bed, take large boots and sprinkle flour and white glitter around the outside of the boots to make sparkling white Santa footprints leading from the tree to the fireplace.
8. New Pajamas This fun tradition gives everyone a new set of pajamas to wear on Christmas Eve. You can have a lot of fun with this tradition. Choose matching pajamas for everyone or pick a silly theme such as camouflage, Disney, or footy pajamas for everyone, including mom and dad! Make sure to take a picture of everyone, every year in the same place to look back on this tradition!
9. A New Christmas Book For Everyone
Each year everyone gets a new book to read in bed as they fall asleep on Christmas Eve. Some years they are Christmas themed, and some years they aren’t. The most important thing is that it is a special book to help them nod off to sleep land before the big guy visits.
10. Unwrap One Gift
Let everyone pick just one gift under the tree to open on Christmas Eve. This really helps the little ones who are VERY excited about opening presents and having a hard time waiting.
11. Thank you letter to Santa
Have the kids write a special thank you letter to Santa to leave next to the cookies. They may not know exactly what they will be getting from Santa, but they can thank him for all of his hard work and the magic he brings to Christmas.
12. Christmas Lights
Tell everyone to make another cup of Hot Chocolate to-go and put on their new Christmas pajamas. Pile the whole family in the car, turn on the Christmas music and tour your town and enjoy all the magical, twinkling Christmas lights.
We love the NORAD tracker. We check it constantly at night before Santa gets there. We also let the kids unwrap 1 gift!
I love this whole list. Christmas is so special with kids. They make it magical.
We’ve been doing xmas eve pjs for over 50 years! I need to take pictures of S and R’s first Christmas lights trip in the neighborhood.
My favorite Christmas Eve tradition is our family “feast”. We serve everyone’s favorite foods from beef jerky, to chicken cordon blue, to sliced hot dogs fried in butter.
Aww these are so much fun. I love that you can keep an eye on the Santa tracker. We loved leaving cookies and carrots for Santa and the reindeer too.
We used to do reindeer food on Christmas Eve. It’s such a nice tradition!
Christmas Even traditions are always fun. We always make sure to have hot cocoa and watch Christmas movies in our pajamas!
I so love holiday traditions! It’s really awesome to do with people you love and care about.
I would love to make Cheerio Donuts for the elves. My kids would get such a kick out of it!
My family and I drive around to see Christmas lights and eat out at a Chinese buffet on Christmas Eve!
This sounds like an awesome Christmas Even tradition! We drive around and look at Christmas lights too. I would love to add Chinese to the list.
These are all great traditions. Santa actually comes to our house on Christmas Eve and gives my girls a couple of their presents and we put reindeer food out for them for later on!
We love making Christmas Eve special. Every year we go to the county building to take pictures with Santa and see the lights.
I haven’t heard of the Norad tracker. I will check this out.
I always give new pjs. It’s fun and something they could use.
These are great Christmas Eve traditions! We love to make cookies and just hang out as a family!
What a fun list ! Who knew you could track Santa ?! Wow !
So cool, isn’t it? I am so sure my girls will love this.
When I was a kid we always threw out “reindeer food” which was really oatmeal with glitter. So. Much. Fun.
What great ideas. I should start some of these with my kids.
I’m so excited for Christmas this year…..my daughter is finally old enough to appreciate traditions! We are doing cookies for Santa for SURE!
yes! so many fantastic traditions. We do many of these. The lights, the cookies, the reindeer food. We also give out matching Christmas PJs on Christmas eve too then we watch The Polar Express! I love the cheerio donut idea for the elves. THAT is super cute
The Cheerio donut idea is super fun. I bet my kids would have loved it!
What fun traditions those all are. Today’s modern kids are so lucky to be able to use Norad Tracker to find out exactly where is at any given moment on Christmas Eve.
We always considered letting the kids unwrap one gift but they open their gift from their grandparents on Christmas eve.
WWWoooohhhooo, I love this post and can’t believe that the big guy will be visiting next week. We too hold a number of these traditions. Thank you for making note of a couple more that we can add into the mix! Merry Christmas!
These are great Christmas Eve traditions. We like to watch a few Christmas movies and enjoy some delicious baked goods.
Every year we go to my In laws for Christmas eve. We have a delicious feast and watch a Christmas movie with the kids.
Alot of your traditions are ones I grew up with. There are some though that I will be adding to our household. Thanks for the ideas.
The kids usually open their stockings on Christmas Eve but wait until Christmas for the big stuff. Norad is also one we do too.
We always do the Christmas Tradition, my kids loves make a cookies for Santa.
What a great Christmas Tradition, We used to open the gifts during Christmas eve and We also had a Christmas lights, 🙂
These are lovely traditions! I think family time is important, as well as establishing healthy early habits.
This is an impressive LIST and something I can use or add to my own agenda! 😛
These are all great traditions. We may start a few new ones thanks to this list!
Such fun ideas! We make reindeer food with the kids’ friends the week before so we’ve got it ready for Christmas Eve night. My husband’s family always celebrates on Christmas Eve so it’s a really fun-filled day.
That’s smart to leave a little note to Santa. I wish I’d have done that.. this is the first year my son no longer believes. 😉
Now that we travel to see family on Christmas, our own traditions have definitely gone by the wayside. The only thing we consistently do is go around and see Christmas lights. It’s been warm now so can walk for awhile.
This is a wonderful list of Christmas Eve traditions! My family and I always enjoy reading Christmas stories.
Those are excellent suggestions! When I was a kid we always went to church as a family on Christmas Eve, and then went from one relatives house to another for dinner and opening our gifts.
The proof of santa is one I had never heard of, how clever. I am so including these, my boys are at the perfect age to really get into Santa this year.
This is the first year my daughter understands what is going on. I prepared a night before Christmas box for her.
What a great list. I need to make up new traditions now that some of my kiddos are older, and these are some great ones!
I love Christmas traditions!! reading your list makes me so excited that its less than a week away so much to do!!
We bake cookies for Santa and then we make sure to put out some reindeer food too. The kids like to go to bed early so that Santa can get here faster!
Our reindeer food is christmas sprinkles with oatmeal instead of glitter! I don’t remember ever doing that as a kid but my kids love it!
That is what our reindeer food is too. The kids used to love making it.
Love all of these traditions! My family does most of them!
These are all great traditons. My favorite is letting my son open a gift on Ch
Open a gift on Christmas Eve.
I smiled on your number ten because we let our son opened one already and it’s not even Christmas lol.
For the last 7 years I have shared family traditions with my husband and his daughter. Now we are splitting up and I am forced to try and start new traditions this year. I am sure I will see them as we are remaining friends and she will be in my life as much as she wants. But, its just not going to be the same.
Reading Twas the Night Before Christmas is hands down my favorite Christmas tradition. My Grandpa would read it to me every Christmas Eve and has had the same book since my mom was born. This year he’s passed the book down to me to read to my children. It is the best part of Christmas in my book.
We love the Norad Santa tracker at our house! So much fun for the kiddos!
We don’t “do” Santa but I love the pj and opening one gift idea!
Until this year I had never come across the new pajamas for Christmas tradition but I think it is one I am going to adopt.