My favorite part of the holiday season isn’t the gifts, parties or hustle and bustle… it’s making priceless holiday memories with my kids. Sharing traditions from my own childhood and creating new ones together as a family is truly what the season is all about. To help get your started on making some family holiday memories of your very own, I’m sharing 50 free or cheap winter holiday activities for kids so you can make this holiday season the most magical and memorable yet!
The Christmas season doesn’t have to be expensive- make lots of fun memories for free or cheap with your kids and they will be just as happy!
- Attend a local tree lighting
- Go caroling with friends
- Keep a Christmas countdown
- Collect canned foods to donate to your local food bank
- Write a letter to Santa
- Take a drive around to see the neighborhood Christmas lights
- Decorate inside your house
- Decorate outside your house
- Make your own holiday paper plate wreath
- Listen to Christmas music together
- Watch The Nutcracker (FREE on YouTube!)
- Make Christmas cards and deliver to a nursing home or hospital
- Watch all the holiday Christmas classics on TV together, or rent them from the library
- Make cards for soldiers
- Make edible ornaments for the birds
- Visit Santa
- Play outside in the snow
- Make a fire pit outside and roast s’mores
- Go on a holiday scavenger hunt
- Send eCards to family and friends
- Make a homemade snow globe
- Make some simple straw ornaments
- Drink hot chocolate together
- Make yarn ball ornaments
- Make cinnamon or salt dough ornaments
- Bake Christmas cookies
- Drink egg nog
- Decorate Gingerbread cookies
- Have a Christmas PJ day
- Borrow Christmas and holiday books from the library
- Buy a small gift for a child from an angel tree
- Have a Christmas music dance party
- Have a picnic by the Christmas tree
- Do some small random acts of kindness
- Gather pinecones and make a craft with them
- Go sledding
- Go ice skating
- Do a big holiday puzzle together
- Make an indoor fort and decorate it for Christmas
- Make paper pinwheels
- Donate items to a local shelter
- Make homemade holiday gifts for family members
- Go looking for real mistle toe
- Freeze water balloons (peel balloons off the frozen balls and use them for outdoor bowling with the kids)
- Make some holiday themed hand and foot print art
- Decorate a table cloth for the holiday table
- Make a “night before Christmas box” and fill it with a few small items to wear (pajamas or slippers), and games to play as a family as the anticipation builds for Santa’s arrival.
- Play tic tac toe with Hershey Kisses
- Make reindeer food for Santa’s Reindeer
- Have a cookie exchange with neighbors and friends.
These ideas are all fun and easy ways to celebrate as a family and won’t cost you a ton of money! Try picking one to do each day during advent for a fun family tradition.
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