50 Free or Cheap Winter Holiday Activities for Kids

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.