The holiday season, and in fact, any season, gives us plenty of opportunities to
kick off a new tradition. By doing something that creates and rekindles
memories year after year, you are building a family custom. Looking to try
something new this year? Consider these ideas to freshen up the holidays in
your family.
Be of service:
1. Play board games with residents at the
senior center
2. Prepare a meal for the families at your
local Ronald McDonald House
3. Write cards for Operation Christmas Cheer
4. Stock shelves at the local food pantry
5. Make a double batch of tonight’s dinner
and share it with a friend.
6. Prepare bagged lunches at the homeless
shelter
7. Make no-sew blankets for hospitals or
nursing homes.
8. Start a book drive in your area and
donate the books to local shelters and children’s hospitals
9. Make an Advent calendar that includes a
random act of kindness to carry out each day.
10. Go caroling with friends and take up a
collection for your favorite charity.
READ MORE: Easy winter crafts to make with the kids!
Learn something
new:
11. Attend a holiday service at a different
place of worship.
12. Research holiday traditions from your
ethnic background and add one to your current day celebration.
13. Read a different holiday story each
night — find a mix of old favorites and new reads.
14. Sit down with the family to discuss
their New Year’s resolutions.
15. Try a traditional holiday recipe from a
different country every year.
Take a trip down
Memory Lane:
16. Start a holiday journal. Encourage
everyone to write down their holiday memories from this year and add new pages
next year.
17. Call the friends on your holiday card
list with whom you have lost touch.
18. Watch home movies of past holiday
celebrations.
19. Take a family picture in the same spot
every year and add the picture to an album that you display during the
holidays.
20. Buy a white table cloth that you can
write on. Write messages or draw pictures each year to create a wonderful
keepsake.
Make something
together:
21. Build a Gingerbread house — from scratch
or from a kit.
22. Create a homemade gift for someone each
year.
23. Design a Christmas time capsule to be
put away in your holiday boxes.
24. Make an outdoor Christmas tree for the
birds by stringing popcorn, dried fruit and bread or add bird seed ornaments
made with seed, nuts and gelatin.
25. Bake cookies, make candy or put together
Gifts in a Jar to share with your neighbors.
READ MORE: Start a NEW holiday tradition
Holiday purchases:
26. Purchase a new ornament each year for each child
representing something about him that year or buy an ornament from each
vacation spot and add that to your collection.
27. Give your family the gift of pajamas to
be opened on Christmas Eve.
28. Buy a new board game to add to your
arsenal for family game night.
29. Start a collection of holiday
decorations like snowmen, snow globes or illuminated houses and add to it each year.
30. Get a new holiday DVD every year and
watch your collection grow.
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Have some fun:
31. Host
an Ugly Christmas Sweater Party
32. Purchase an Elf on a Shelf and set him
up in different situations each night.
33. Plan a couple of evenings to watch holiday
movies together. Add it to the calendar so everyone can look forward to it.
34. Leave out shoes for St. Nicholas Day
35. Play holiday decoration bingo as you
drive around and mark off things like a blow up snowman, a house with all red
lights or a menorah in the window.
36. Host a cookie exchange
37. Re-gift the same gift over and over and
see who ends up with it this year.
38. Have a Christmas Carol Karaoke Night
39. Host a holiday-themed Favorite Things
Party
40. Play holiday versions of games like Scattergories,
Trivial Pursuit, Pictionary or Minute to Win It.
Pam Molnar is a
freelance writer and mother of two teens and a tween. Her family hopes to add a
few of these traditions to their holiday celebration this year.