The other day, a few moms and I were reminiscing on twitter about our childhood memories of Santa. Since Joshua is the first child in our extended families in many years, we have the delight this year of bringing Santa back in a big way. Christmas is just so much more magical with small children. Here are some of the memories we talked about, and it’s funny that these ideas cost little to no money but make a huge impact.
- Driving around to check out the neighborhood Christmas lights, and decorating our own house
- Baking (and eating) cookies and doing Christmas crafts
- Leaving cookies and milk for Santa (of course!) and a treat like carrots for the reindeer
- Finding Santa’s boot print in the house or outside of the house, in the snow if possible
- Waking up with a smudge of soot on your face from Santa’s kiss on the cheek
- Finding a letter from Santa about what has made him proud of you over the last year
- Going on a scavenger hunt that Santa created
- Spending a whole week home with our families
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How do you make Christmas magical for your children?
Farmer's Daughter 
What wonderful ideas for things to do over the holidays with your family. I especially love the one about finding a letter from Santa telling what made him proud of the child…..what child wouldn’t take that to heart and feel special! Thanks for sharing your ideas and have a wonderful weekend.
Maura 🙂
Those are great ideas! Recently I heard the idea of making the day after Christmas “charity day”. The kids are asked to donate as many of their old toys as they received for Christmas. Maybe if it was started at a young age they wouldn’t think twice about it.
One special thing I remember was having breakfast with my family on Christmas morning. One year we got my Mom a waffle maker and after that we asked for waffles every year. Yum! 🙂
Abbie,
I’m SO GLAD to hear you have such wonderful memories from your childhood!
I look forward to helping you create some of these same, wonderful memories for Joshua!
When I was a kid, growing up on Mema and Pa’s farm, Santa always seemed to come to our house early (on Christmas Eve), while we were outside sledding. It was part of Pa’s German tradition to open our presents on Christmas Eve. We also visited everyone’s house in the neighborhood to see their tree. Of course, this was accompanied by wonderful treats: Christmas cookies, cakes, etc.
Just LOVE the Christmas season!
Hugs,
Mom/Me-mom
So that’s where my desire to open presents early comes from! I’m not impatient, I’m GERMAN!
Well, maybe 1/8th!
The kids open one present on Christmas Eve. It is usually warm, snuggly pajamas that they can wake up and open presents in on Christmas. We always decorate cookies (this year we did a gingerbread house). One of our favorite Christmas activities is driving around looking at the lights, while drinking hot cocoa. We also love our Christmas tree-decorating tradition. Each ornament has meaning and we unwrap each one individually and talk about who gave it to us and the memories surrounding it. Generally while listening to Christmas music and drinking (once again) hot cocoa.