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!

1. Attend a local tree lighting
2. Go caroling with friends
3. Keep a Christmas countdown
4. Collect canned foods to donate to your local food bank
5. Write a letter to Santa
6. Take a drive around to see the neighborhood Christmas lights
7. Decorate inside your house
8. Decorate outside your house
9. Make your own holiday paper plate wreath
10. Listen to Christmas music together
11. Watch The Nutcracker (FREE on YouTube!)
12. Make Christmas cards and deliver to a nursing home or hospital
13. Watch all the holiday Christmas classics on TV together, or rent them from the library
14. Make cards for soldiers
15. Make edible ornaments for the birds
16. Visit Santa
17. Play outside in the snow
18. Make a fire pit outside and roast s’mores
19. Go on a holiday scavenger hunt
20. Send eCards to family and friends
21. Make a homemade snow globe
22. Make some simple straw ornaments
23. Drink hot chocolate together
24. Make yarn ball ornaments
25. Make cinnamon or salt dough ornaments
26. Bake Christmas cookies
27. Drink egg nog
28. Decorate Gingerbread cookies
29. Have a Christmas PJ day
30. Borrow Christmas and holiday books from the library
31. Buy a small gift for a child from an angel tree
32. Have a Christmas music dance party
33. Have a picnic by the Christmas tree
34. Do some small random acts of kindness
35. Gather pinecones and make a craft with them
36. Go sledding
37. Go ice skating
38. Do a big holiday puzzle together
39. Make an indoor fort and decorate it for Christmas
40. Make paper pinwheels
41. Donate items to a local shelter
42. Make homemade holiday gifts for family members
43. Go looking for real mistle toe
44. Freeze water balloons (peel balloons off the frozen balls and use them for outdoor bowling with the kids)
45. Make some holiday themed hand and foot print art
46. Decorate a table cloth for the holiday table
47. 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.
48. Play tic tac toe with Hershey Kisses
49. Make reindeer food for Santa’s Reindeer
50. 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.

What are your favorite family activities to do during the holidays? What would you add to the list?