Not everyone wants to celebrate a big, rambunctious, family Christmas. There can be just as much magic in an intimate, small family celebration focused on the warmth of connection during this special season.
Choose a Theme
We love the idea of creating a family tradition of having a themed Christmas every year. It can make your small family Christmas extra special and give you a way to build memories you'll cherish for a lifetime. Pick a theme as a family and center your Christmas around it. You can switch themes every year or return to the same one again and again. Your theme can be anything, really. A few ideas:
- Candy canes
- Cartoon characters
- The nativity
- A festival of trees
- The beauty of nature
- Disney characters
- TV shows
- Winter
- Star Wars
- Silver bells
- Christmas carols
Shop for Decorations That Fit Your Family
Head out as a family and find decorations that suit your family. Have a family tradition that everyone buys at least one ornament every year that represents them or their interests. In a few years, you'll have a lovely tree filled with meaningful ornaments. You can also do this with other Christmas decorations.
Get Crafty Together
If your family enjoys crafts, you can make ornaments and other decorations for your Christmas celebration. Some DIY decor ideas include:
- Make your own Christmas ornaments, such as creating pony bead ornaments, filling glass/plastic ball ornaments, using cookie cutters to make dough ornaments, or fashioning ornaments from pinecones and other natural elements.
- Design and craft Christmas word messages from cardboard or wood.
- Craft old Christmas cards into Christmas gift tags, ornaments, placemats, and other clever items.
- Make Christmas poppers for your Christmas dinner.
Related: 8 Festive & Frugal DIY Recycled Christmas Decor Ideas
Make Homemade Christmas Gifts
You can start a small family Christmas tradition by celebrating with a homemade gift for each family member or drawing names for your gift-giving. You can also embrace this tradition for gifting extended family members and friends.
A few homemade gift ideas include:
- Create delicious Christmas foods in a jar or other types of food gifts.
- Personalize a ball ornament by painting the person's name and Christmas [insert year].
- Build a Christmas gift basket.
- Sew Christmas-themed ties or vests.
- Decorate a keepsake treasure box.
Give Back to Your Community at Christmas
You can also come up with various ideas so that your small family can celebrate the Christmas season by volunteering. There are many ways your family can give back to your community. Some Christmas season events include:
- Build a Samaritan's Purse shoe box gift for kids.
- Donate to Toys for Tots.
- Adopt a family in need and buy Christmas presents for them.
- Go caroling at a nursing home.
- Donate to the Salvation Army.
- Participate in a locally sponsored Angel Tree Event.
- Donate online to the Prison Fellowship Angel Tree.
- Volunteer as a family unit to work at your local soup kitchen.
- Donate to your local food bank.
Establish Christmas Eve Traditions
You can create your own Christmas Eve family traditions. There are several ways you can build up the anticipation for Christmas Day and spend quality time as a family.
- Attend a midnight Christmas Eve church service.
- Make hot chocolate and gingerbread cookies to enjoy while reading the A Visit From St. Nicholas poem.
- Drive around town neighborhoods to see light displays.
- Let each family member open one special present on Christmas Eve.
- During Christmas Eve morning, bake and decorate Christmas cookies and then award small prizes for different categories, such as most creative, most festive, and so on.
- Pop popcorn and watch a Christmas movie together.
- Make a gingerbread house and decorate it.
- Play a board game while listening to Christmas music.
- Play musical instruments for a family Christmas concert.
- Leave a plate of cookies and a glass of milk for Santa.
- Make Christmas cards for each other, punch a hole, and tie it onto the Christmas tree with ribbon to open on Christmas morning.
Make a Yummy Christmas Dinner
You can make your small family Christmas dinner a culinary delight. You can opt for a traditional Christmas dinner of turkey, dressing, gravy, green bean casserole, sweet potato casserole topped with marshmallows, cranberry sauce, and a Christmas dessert.
Set a Festive Table
You can make your Christmas dinner unique by using Christmas-themed china and glassware. If your budget can't make the leap for such an expenditure, you can use themed placemats.
You can turn this into a family craft by using construction paper to make individual placemats. Use cookie cutters to trace Christmas shapes to glue onto the construction placemat. If you prefer, you can substitute construction paper with felt. Provide your family with a mix of glitter, beads, ribbons, and various Christmas-themed miniature objects that can be used to decorate the placemats. If you're good with a sewing machine, you can create more substantial placemats.
Enjoy Some Holiday-Themed Games
You can start a Christmas tradition for your small family by playing various games. You may decide a week-long Christmas game marathon is a cool idea that ends with prizes for the winners of each round and a grand prize for the family member with the most wins! Be sure to wrap the prize to make receiving it more festive.
A few ideas to get you started include:
- Play board games.
- Play charades.
- Play Pictionary.
- Hit a Christmas piñata.
- Try Christmas-themed face painting.
- Have a scavenger hunt inside and outside the house.
- Play your favorite card game with small Christmas-themed prizes for each round.
- Write your own Christmas story, print it out complete with illustrations and/or photos.
- Take turns to play Hot and Cold Game, searching for small, novelty, hidden gifts or new ornaments for the tree.
Enjoy Creative Small Family Christmas Celebration Activities
Once the Christmas gifts have been unwrapped and Christmas dinner finished, it's time for entertainment. Your family can choose one or more activities to incorporate into your new Christmas tradition.
- Play tag football in the backyard.
- Add red and green food coloring to water pistols to create canvas art.
- Build a tent challenge (individual or teams of two).
- Scrapbook pages of your Christmas day together.
- Make a memento of your Christmas day with a photo ornament.
- Make a movie of your day and upload it to share with family and friends.
- FaceTime or Zoom with extended family members.
- Watch a movie with a big bowl of popcorn.
- Roast chestnuts or pop popcorn over the fireplace fire.
- Make finger puppets and put on a play.
Ideas for Small Family Christmas Celebrations
There are many exciting ideas for your family to consider for fun small family Christmas celebrations. You can even turn the decision-making process into a family project or family game to get everyone involved.
