Christmas Day is always planned well in advance and is usually the same every year, so we know exactly what is going to happen. But, Christmas Eve can be tricky sometimes. The day can drag if you don’t have any plans for the day when everyone is super excited for Christmas Day to arrive. If you want 5 activities for some fun activities for Christmas Eve read on below..
- Make a Christmas decoration for the tree.
My kiddo loves crafts. So on Christmas Eve every year, we make a new decoration for the tree. This is a bit of a free for all for him to make whatever he wants and then we add it to the Christmas tree. Every year, a new one gets added on Christmas Eve. I always write the year on the bottom/back of the bauble so that we can track his progress through the years. It’s a lovely tradition and something he really enjoys. It helps to calm him and keep him engaged too.
- Bake
Another one of our favourite things to do is bake. Our tradition has always been to bake gingerbread men on Christmas Eve and it’s a great way to kill a few hours. Although, my kiddo now likes to bake other treats as well – which extends the baking time. He loves it though and it helps the morning to go quicker when we are baking. Baking helps us work on a huge range of skills and each year, through December, you can see him get more and more excited for his baking treat.
- Open 1 present early
Sometimes, the excitement for Christmas Day can end up with us having a few meltdowns. He LOVES to open presents but the excitement can get overwhelming for him. We are lucky in the fact that he doesn’t get overwhelmed with the amount of presents – it’s more the leading up to having his present. So, on Christmas Eve we always give him 1 present early. It keeps him satisfied until the next morning and helps to ease that excitement just a little bit. It’s never one of his big presents and usually we buy a specific ‘Christmas Eve’ present in advance so we know what we are getting him.
- Leave out cookies and milk for Santa
OK, I know this is more a tradition than activity and something we probably all already do. But, there’s a few ways you can extend the activity. Have your kiddo to help you get the glass, pour the milk etc. Have them bake and decorate the cookies too and lay it all out ready for Santa and his reindeer. It’s surprising how much extra time this can take up on Christmas Night.
- Finally, this is our favourite Christmas Eve activity. A Christmas story in bed. We used to always just read ‘The Night Before Christmas’ but sometimes he wants more than one Christmas story, so we read a few. This is great though as he gets so engrossed in the Christmas magic – and it helps to send him to sleep. One of our favourites lately is how the Grinch Stole Christmas. He LOVES this book!
What do you do on Christmas Eve? Do you have any traditions that you do each year?
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