Isn’t Christmas a magical time? I love Christmas activities, and I am so excited to start doing some of these Christmas-themed activities on the weekend with my little ones! My children are four years and eighteen months. It can be really challenging to find activities that both of them can do and be involved in, and sometimes it does end up as a disaster, or with my younger child wrecking something my older child has made, or with an argument between the two of them. I did my very best to come up with activities that will fit a variety of age groups, but some may only be suited to pre-school or school aged children, not toddlers.
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Here are my eleven Christmas activities to try with your children:
Make Christmas decorations
I love having homemade Christmas decorations on my tree! I think it’s a lovely way to involve your children in Christmas, and you can keep their beautiful decorations for years to come! These activities are also great for developing fine motor skills in your child. Depending on their age, this activity can help them practice using scissors, glue, or crayons.
What you need:
Cardboard or thick paper
Ribbon or string
Crayons or textas
Glitter, stickers, or other decorations
Laminator (optional)
What to do:
Draw various Christmas shapes onto the cardboard or paper and cut them out (you or your child could do this, depending on their age and ability). Shapes such as stars, Christmas trees, and angels work well
Have your child decorate the Christmas shapes with textas, pencils, stickers, glitter, and whatever else you have in your craft box.
(optional) laminate the decorations to help them last longer
When the shapes are finished, punch a hole in the top and tie a ribbon or string through it into a loop.
Hang your new Christmas decorations on the Christmas tree!
Make and decorate gingerbread men
Nothing says Christmas like gingerbread men! And decorating them with icing is also lots of fun. If you are nice and creative you can make them with santa suits, elf costumes, or Christmas patterns, or you can just let your kids have fun with the piping bags and see what they can create!
You can also buy pre-made icing in piping bags to avoid some of the mess that inevitably comes from using icing with children.
What you need:
Gingerbread or chocolate men recipe Personally my children don’t like gingerbread men, so I have used “chocolate men” recipes instead, such as this one.
Gingerbread cookie cutters
Icing piping bags – (either bought piping bags with icing, or you can make your own with by cutting a hole in the corner of a zip lock bag and adding icing
What to do:
Make your gingerbread (or chocolate) men. Your children can be involved in this as well. Let them help you stir the mixture and cut out the shapes.
Once your gingerbread men are cooked and cooled, give your child an icing piping bag and have them decorate the gingerbread men in any way that they like!
Try different colours, patterns, or drawings.
Wait for the icing to dry, and enjoy!
Make some Christmas cards
Christmas cards seem to be quite old fashioned now, but doesn’t it make you so happy to receive a Christmas card in the mail or on Christmas day? I have mad Christmas cards with my four-year-old for her friends and relatives, and I hope they will be really appreciated!
What you need:
Some coloured cardboard or thick paper
Textas, crayons or pencils
Stickers, glitter, or other decorations
What to do:
Fold the cardboard or thick paper into a card shape. Write a message in the card for the recipient. Have your child then decorate the card. Use glitter, textas, drawing, stickers, confetti, whatever you have around!
Write a letter to Santa or draw a picture for Santa
This is both a fun activity for your child, and also helps you to see what your child wants for Christmas to help with the Christmas shopping.
What you need:
Paper
Pens
What to do:
If your child is too young to write, ask them to dictate the letter to you. Have them tell you what to write, and you write it onto the paper.
Your child can then draw a picture to go in the letter
Drop the letter at the post office to be delivered to Santa!
Make a Christmas wreath with things from your backyard
This is a fun one as your child gets to be outdoors and having fun collecting things, but it’s all still keeping with the Christmas theme! You can pick up a plain undecorated Christmas wreath from any of the cheap shops or places like kmart.
What you need:
A plain Christmas wreath
Anything your child can find in the yard, such as feathers, leaves, gumnuts, pine cones, flowers, or sticks
Craft glue or hot glue gun
What to do:
Go out with your child to find things in the yard. Show a few examples.
Once your child has collected the items, have them position them on the wreath
Glue the items together onto the Christmas wreath
Christmas playdough shapes
My kids just LOVE playdough. I make homemade playdough with often, it’s a lot of fun. You can make your play dough Christmas themed by making green and red playdough, giving them Christmas cookie cutters or specific playdough cutters, or adding coconut snowflakes, Christmas confetti, or Christmas shapes.
What you need:
Playdough recipe
Green and red food colouring
Dedicated coconut (for snowflakes)
Christmas cookie or playdough cutters
What to do:
Make the playdough
Give your children a number of different Christmas themed ideas or things to play with in their playdough.
Your child could make a Santa, a Christmas tree, or a snowman out of the playdough.
Let their imaginations run wild!
Donate old toys, or make food donations
Christmas is all about giving, and it’s important to show our children the importance of giving to others or those in need.
What to do:
Have your child go through their toys and find toys they no longer play with or would like to donate. Encourage them to choose toys that are in good condition. Put the toys together in a bag and take them somewhere to donate them. Places like the salvation army, or St Vincent De Paul are great. You can have your child hand over the bag of toys themselves
You can also do something similar with food. Put together some non-perishable food items from your cupboard, and go with your child to donate them.
Make an advent calendar
I love advent calendars. This year my own children have advent calendars that we bought, but I have always thought it would be fun to make our own, and put something special in for each day! Spotlight, Etsy, and craft shops all sell wooden advent calendars for you to fill with goodies. With your child, choose some treats to go in the calendar, or you can make your own.
Here are some ideas on what to include:
Homemade sweets or chocolates
Sweets or chocolates from the supermarket
Stickers, crayons, textas, paints or other craft supplies
Colouring books
Books
Slime, playdough, or other sensory activities
Letters
Make and Wrap Christmas gifts
Do you remember making your own homemade Christmas gifts as a child? It can be really lovely to create some of these Christmas gift ideas for your loved ones. Some of these are best suited to older children, but you can alter them as necessary. You can also wrap these up in artworks or pictures made by your child as an extra special touch.
· Baked goods – who doesn’t love a jar of homemade biscuits, rum balls, or gingerbread shapes! Do some cooking with your child, and place the finished products into recycled jars (pasta sauce jars are a great size!) which you can then decorate
· Art work – buy your child a canvas and have them paint a beautiful picture for someone, or create a sculpture from clay or paper mache
· Bath salts, sugar scrubs or bath bombs – there are lots of easy at home recipes to make these using only supermarket ingredients. You can put these together into nice jars which can then be decorated by your child
· Jewellery – have your child make some homemade necklaces or bracelets with beads
· A cook book – have your child choose their favourite recipes and print them and put them into a Christmas cooking book
· Painted mugs – have your child paint a mug with their beautiful pictures
Decorate Christmas t shirts like ugly sweaters
I have seen t shirt decoration kits and fabric paint available in craft shops and places like Kmart. How much fun would it be to decorate an ugly sweater onto a t shirt with your child! You could do this as a whole family and have an ugly Christmas sweater party
Make and decorate mini Christmas trees
I have seen felt Christmas trees for toddlers and thought how much fun they are! But you can make a Christmas tree out of anything. Here are some ideas:
· Paper Christmas trees with stickers, glitter, or coloured paper to decorate with
· Felt or fabric Christmas trees
· Chalk Christmas trees on a concrete path
· Biscuit Christmas trees with lollies, sprinkles or little chocolates to decorate
· A branch or small tree from your backyard
I am really looking forward to starting some of these with my children over the weekend. I hope you found some of these useful, and I would love to hear from you if you have made any of these. Please tag us on social media with anything you make, we’d love to see it!
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