Creating Joyful Family Holiday Traditions and Meaningful Celebrations
The holiday season is a time of joy, family togetherness, and creating lasting memories. Planning meaningful family traditions is one of the best ways to ensure that joy is at the heart of your celebrations. Whether you’re looking to start new traditions or refresh beloved ones, these ideas will help you create joyful holiday moments that everyone in the family will cherish. I have included our family traditions and those shared by my social media friends.
Holiday light scavenger hunts
Thank you to my daughter for our newest annual event – the holiday light scavenger hunt! Our family loves to look at holiday lights. The scavenger hunt (either paper or digital) brings a lot of joy to our evenings together.
Gingerbread House decorating party
Each year, we host a gingerbread house decorating party with pre-made houses and tea party treats. There are oodles of decorations, from candy to frosting. Treats include homemade and store-bought holiday-themed snacks. My grandkids especially appreciate this time together.
Ladies Gathering
A friend gathers the ladies in her family together every Christmas Eve. When they started the tradition, everyone lived in the same city and they took turns hosting. Now that they are spread out, they have our brunch on Zoom
Special Family Outing
Every year a friend’s family goes to dinner in Houston, then goes see the Christmas show at Second Baptist Woodway campus. On the trip, they hit up Starbucks and Sprinkles Cupcakes in Highland Village, open the sunroof, and turn up the Christmas music while they drive through River Oaks looking at the Christmas lights and beautifully decorated homes.
Family Movie Binging
Every family has their favorite holiday movies to watch throughout the season. Families gather to watch a favorite Christmas movie like Elf, Home Alone, The Polar Express, or A Christmas Carol. Families watch Hallmark holiday movies throughout the season.
Christmas Eve Traditions
- On Christmas Eve everyone gets one gift, which is family matching pajamas. The family fixes gumbo and crawfish etouffee for dinner and watches movies together.
- Families gather together to read the Bible and share the story of the birth of Jesus.
- Our family attends the Christmas Eve service. We gather early for a big feast of everything Italian, ending with cream puffs made each year by Gigi.
Chanukah Traditions
- Families light the menorah and sing the Hebrew prayers each evening of Chanukah.
- Preparing a dinner of fried foods, including latkes. Fried in oil, latkes symbolize the miracle of the oil that lasted eight days. These are typically served with applesauce or sour cream.
- Our family had the tradition of one gift each night of Chanukah, brought to us by the Chanukah Fairy.
Family stay-cation ideas
Maybe this holiday season you will be staying in town and want some fun family activities. I especially love seeing Zoo Lights and spending time at the zoo. There are lots of activities for all your family in the local Houston area.
I would love to hear your family traditions create the magic of the season and bring joy and connection to your home.
Oh, I love all these special ways to celebrate!
I used to do more of the ladies gatherings before I was working. It always feels fun and festive to get dressed up and do something special, right?
I do enjoy driving around town and looking at all the holiday lights. We used to do this with our girls when they were little, each getting a cup of “warm” cocoa to sip on as we drove along. Great (and practically free!) activity.
Our special outing this year is going to be to see the Rockettes at Radio City. My future son-in-law has never seen the show, and they will be visiting, so seemed the perfect opportunity. We’ll follow that up with dinner at Carmines (or somewhere liek that). Looking forward to it all!
Wow! First of all I am excited about your future son-in-law being a part of your family fun! Secondly, I have seen the holiday Rockettes show and it is amazing! I love that you are all sharing holiday joy.
It’s heart-warming to read about your family’s holiday traditions. They sound wonderful! I especially love gingerbread house decorating, ladies’ gatherings (now on Zoom), and watching holiday movies.
The traditions we used to do are no more. But as time has evolved, new ones have been created. We used to host large New Year’s Eve parties, which became small (just the four of us when the kiddos were little), to a bunch of couple friends. This year, we’re dialing it down to just the two of us, which I’m looking forward to.
I love that you are choosing an intimate party intentionally to spend quality time together!