The Best Traditions To Start On Baby’s First Christmas
If you’re celebrating your baby’s first Christmas this year, you may be looking for meaningful Christmas traditions to start with your baby.
One of the best things about the holiday season is having family traditions to look forward to year after year.
You might also like: 10 Simple Family Christmas Traditions to Start This Year
A new baby gives you a chance to start new Christmas traditions. You can continue these as they grow from baby to toddler to school-aged child to teenager.
Here are 15 holiday tradition ideas to start on your new baby’s first Christmas.
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Christmas Traditions To Start With Your Baby
1. personalized Christmas book to read each year on Christmas Eve
Personalized books are a great present. They combine two of my favorite gifts to give, which are personalized gifts AND books.
For your baby’s first Christmas, give them a personalized Christmas book as a gift.
Every year, read their special book together on Christmas Eve.
Your baby probably won’t appreciate it much the first few years. However, this will become a tradition they will look forward to as they get older.
2. Make a December First Box Each Year
A December First box is a great way to kick off the holiday season by giving your kids a box full of fun Christmasy surprises.
This is a great Christmas tradition that can be adjusted each year as your child grows and their abilities and interests change.
Here are some ideas to put in a December first box for baby’s first Christmas:
- Wooly Bear Wubbanub
- Christmas pajamas
- holiday-themed bibs
- baby’s first stocking
- winter hat and mittens
3. Host A Gingerbread House Decorating Party
A lot of families have long-standing traditions of certain people hosting certain events each year. Maybe your aunt always has a Christmas Eve party and your in-laws always do Christmas Day dinner at their house.
If you want to start your own tradition now that you have a baby and host a holiday get-together, what about a gingerbread house decorating party?
You can plan this toward the beginning of December when people have more time to commit to holiday parties. Invite your family, your friends, or a combination of both.
As your baby gets older, it’ll be fun to see them interact with your friends or siblings’ kids in new ways each year.
4. Attend a Local Tree Lighting
Bundle your baby up and head to your city’s tree lighting ceremony.
This is a fun yet simple Christmas tradition you can start with your baby.
A lot of towns will have ongoing activities like carolers and an appearance by Santa Claus or his elves.
It’s also a great opportunity to take a family Christmas photo each year by the tree.
5. give A Keepsake Ornament Each Year
Give your baby an ornament every Christmas that has something to do with the past year.
For example, an ornament that says Baby’s First Christmas and the year for their first Christmas. Get one in the shape of ballet slippers for the year your daughter starts dance class, etc.
Save the ornaments in a special box for your child. When they move out and have their own first Christmas tree, they’ll have all those ornaments to hang on it.
6. Sponser A Child or Family For christmas
If your own budget allows, buy presents for children or families in need of some extra help this year.
As they get older, your baby will look forward to picking out a special gift each Christmas to help make someone else’s holiday magical.
A lot of churches have an Angel Tree or another way to give to families in the community that are in need of some support this year.
The Salvation Army and Walmart have partnered to create an Angel Tree Registry that will provide clothing and toys to kids and families in need.
You could also donate to Toys for Tots or participate in Operation Santa Claus.
7. Have A Christmas Cookie Baking Day
Your baby will obviously be too young to help bake cookies on their first Christmas but you can still start this tradition with them.
If they’re old enough, have them sit in their highchair to watch and be part of the action.
Plan a day for your mother, sister, grandmother, aunts, cousins to get together and bake cookies using family recipes.
If you don’t have family nearby or you aren’t close with your family that’s here, invite some friends over, try out new recipes and start new traditions with each other and your little one (and their kids too).
8. Take A Family Christmas Photo Each year
Plan to take a specific family photo each year.
For example, get everyone in their matching Christmas pajamas or snap a picture of your family standing by the Christmas tree each year.
You can look back at the photos through the years and see how much everyone has grown.
9. Decide What To Do With Santa’s Presents
On your baby’s first Christmas, you’ll want to decide if you’re going to wrap presents from Santa or leave them unwrapped.
This might lead to a bit of a debate if you and your significant other grew up with opposite traditions.
Luckily, my family and my husband’s family always left presents from “Santa” unwrapped by the Christmas tree. Presents from our parents were wrapped. So this is what we’ve always done for our kids, too.
10. Write a Letter To Your Baby Each Christmas
This is a cute memory-making tradition. I wish I had started this when my firstborn was a baby.
Write a letter to your baby about the past year, the new things they learned, and family events that happened.
Put the letters in envelopes in their baby book or a special box to save for them to read when they’re older.
11. Start A Savings Account For Your Baby
Open a savings account for your baby or an account to save for college like a 529 plan.
Add money to their account for Christmas each year.
You can also ask relatives to donate to the fund instead of buying so many toys and THINGS every year.
12. Do Want, Need, Wear, Read
Simplify Christmas gift-giving for your baby from the very beginning by adopting the Want, Need, Wear, Read strategy.
For presents every year, give your baby something they want ( you can use your best judgment here when they’re very little), something they need, something to wear, and something to read.
I love the idea of starting this tradition on baby’s first Christmas.
It’s simple, easy, less stressful for parents, there’s less emphasis on getting THINGS, and it’s still FUN for kids.
13. Make Ornaments For Grandparents From Baby
When both my daughter and my son were babies, I made handprint salt dough ornaments to give to my parents and my in-laws.
Now they have their tiny little handprints preserved forever on an ornament for their Christmas tree.
Grandparents don’t usually need many things but they probably will love homemade gifts from their grandkids.
As kids get older, they can participate more in making ornaments each year for their grandparents (or other family members).
You might also like: Easy DIY Holiday Gift Ideas For Your Child’s Daycare Provider
14. Donate Toys For Santa
We purged some toys this week to make room for the stuff I know my kids will be getting for Christmas.
My daughter has about 72 stuffed animals and all she ever asks for is stuffed animals. So we went through all of them and she chose which ones to keep and which ones to donate.
Then I read about this cute idea to fill a bag (like this one) with toys your kids don’t play with anymore and leave them out on Christmas Eve.
Santa will take the toys and donate them to kids that need them (or maybe he brings them back to his workshop to fix them up, whatever you want to tell your kids).
After he takes the presents, Santa leaves the empty bags and a thank you note. Alternatively, he could take the old presents out and leave new presents in the bag for your child.
You could definitely start this tradition with a baby, putting toys that they’re getting too old for in the bag to make room for new Christmas presents.
I love that this tradition helps put kids in a giving mood as well so they’re thinking about helping others and not just what they’re going to get for Christmas.
Final Thoughts On Christmas Traditions to Start With Your Baby
My children were six months and nine months old on their respective first Christmases. We had fun when they were babies but as they’ve gotten older, Christmas has taken on more meaning for them and it’s ten times MORE fun.
Traditions help make the holiday season more meaningful and memorable for kids.
Start traditions on baby’s first Christmas that your family can continue each year to make the holiday magical for your children.
What are your favorite Christmas traditions? Share them in the comments below!