10 Christmas Traditions to Start With Your Baby

If you thought the Holidays were magical before, wait until you experience it for the first time with children!  Now that you have a new bundle of joy,  it’s the perfect time to start holiday family traditions to enjoy for years to come!  Here are some ideas to help create magical Christmas memories!

1. Start a Collection of Christmas Books

There's nothing like curling up together with a story!  One of the best ways to spread the joy of Christmas to your baby is through a good book!  They make plenty of classic Christmas stories for babies.  Try to find board books, flip and flap books, sound books, and/or touch and feel books to create a hands-on experience for your baby.    

2. Have a Christmas Dance Party

This year, you have a little bundle of joy to rock around the Christmas Tree with!  Babies love music, and jamming out to Christmas songs is something children will love to do year after year.

3. Create a Christmas Craft

While a baby is no Monet, they can still enjoy finger painting and crafts with the assistance of a parent!  Handprint and footprint paintings make amazing keepsakes.  Some fun ideas are to turn an upside down footprint into a snowman, or to make a handprint Christmas Wreath using baby safe finger paints.  Another great craft is to decorate a painted Christmas Tree with colorful fingerprints and turn them into Christmas Ornaments.  

4. Get Christmas Jammies for the Whole Family

There's something special about the whole family getting together in their Christmas Jammies.  Feeling silly and festive together makes everyone feel like a kid again!  It’s also a fun photo to take and share with families, friends, and to look back on each year!  

5. Create a Christmas Themed Occasion Bin

Have you ever heard of an occasion bin?  It’s a basket of themed goodies for all sorts of occasions.  Each December, you can prepare a basket of Holiday themed items for your little ones.  From books, to stuffed animals and age appropriate toys, it’s a great way to kick the holiday season into gear.  

6. Hang Up Family Christmas Stockings

Make Santa come alive for the whole family.  Seeing stockings hanging up by the fireplace or on a shelf, is such a special way to bring in the magic of Christmas. 

7. Take a Picture With Santa Clause 

Depending on the age of your baby (and how well they do with strangers), the Santa Clause experience could go one of two ways.  A young baby gazing into Santa’s eyes in amazement, or a crying screaming meltdown.  Either way, it is a fun Christmas outing as a family, and a memory that you will hold onto forever.

8. Create a Baby Handprint Ornament

There are lots of handprint ornament ideas out there.  One of our favorites is a Santa salt dough handprint. 

To make salt dough mix 2 cups of all-purpose flour with 1 cup of salt and 1 cup of water.  Roll out the dough and flatten until it's slightly larger than your baby’s hand.  Press your baby’s hand into the dough.  Cut around the handprint.  Make a small hole on top so you can hang your ornament.  Put the dough into the oven on low heat (around 200 degrees F) and bake for a few hours to dry out.  When it cools down you can flip it over (fingers  down)  and paint it to look like a Santa face, with a red hat on top, his face in the center,  and the 4 fingers, his white beard. 

9. Bake Christmas Cookies

Your child may not be old enough to help you bake or taste the cookies yet, but babies sure do love being in the kitchen and watching all the action.  If they aren’t old enough yet to taste, they will be next year and ready to help out too!

10. Decorate Your Playroom/Play Area for Christmas

Finally, decorate your play area for Christmas!  Add a Christmas throw on top of your Famokids play mat and toss on some Christmas themed stuffed animals.  Our non toxic,  foam play mat  is the perfect spot to enjoy all of your favorite Christmas toys, snacks, books, and activities as a family.   Add a little tabletop Christmas tree, display your favorite Christmas books, and put a basket of Christmas themed toys out for the baby to reach for and explore.  As kids get older, rotating what’s in your playroom/play area, will make the toys and items much more exciting to play with.  You won’t have to purchase new items each year, just keep a few that they will be excited to see return!