We wish you and your family a Merry Christmas, and for this purpose we present you the most wonderful Christmas traditions.
Christmas is only really nice when children join in the celebrations, isn’t it?? Because with their joy and wonder, children make Christmas magical again even for adults. Small children believe in Santa Claus or the Christ Child and in miracles. Therefore, they experience the Christmas season as wonderfully exciting. In such tingling, exciting times, rituals are needed to support, give security and structure the time. Accordingly, there are many Christmas traditions. They act as memory anchors and a confirmation that everything is good and right. In the 24 days before Christmas, they are also like a countdown that continuously increases the excitement and Christmas spirit. You want to know more about it? The Leseliebe editors have collected the most beautiful Christmas customs, from the classics to completely new ideas for personal family rituals.
The most beautiful customs in the Advent season – the classics
Many customs or rituals are a kind of common property that a country or region share with each other. They are part of the national identity and convey a wonderfully pleasant feeling of home. In Germany there is a whole arsenal of customs at Christmas time, and it starts already in the Advent season:
Christmas decoration
For the right mood belongs necessarily a suitable Decoration for Christmas. When the days become darker and darker and the first Advent approaches, fairy lights are hung, window pictures and decorative items are placed in the apartment. Typical are, for example, oranges spiked with cloves, pine cones, Christmas pyramids and Christmas figurines. Angels, stars, candles and motifs from the winter forest are classic Christmas symbols. If you have a book easel, it’s also great to put up a particularly nice Christmas-themed picture book. You can find more ideas for atmospheric Christmas decorations in craft books or Advent calendar books for the winter and Christmas season.
According to the Christian Christmas story, many families build a Nativity scene on. Tip: If you have a 24-piece nativity scene, you can use that wonderfully as Advent calendar content, so that the nativity scene is fully assembled in time for Christmas Eve. Or you can let Joseph and Mary walk along 24 stones or candles one step at a time and read the Christmas story to go with it.
Surprises and gifts
To the 1. December there is Advent calendar. It contains a little surprise every day until Christmas Eve. The usual gifts are sweets, pictures or toys. In the Leseliebe editorial team, Advent calendars and Advent calendar books with 24 stories are of course the absolute favorites!
Good children are given gifts at Christmas – this is a common belief. That’s why it takes Wish lists. This can be written on the same day every year, for example on the 1. Advent or just when it’s convenient. Those who can’t write yet dictate their wishes and decorate the wish list with drawings or stickers. For the little ones who still believe in Santa Claus, then delivering to Santa is still a very special ritual. Send it by Christmas mail to one of the seven Christmas post offices at the hands of Santa Claus, the Christ Child or St. Nicholas. Alternative suggestions: Burn it ceremoniously and blow the ashes into the starry sky, have your child put it under their pillow and secretly take it away at night, or create your very own ritual.
Handicraft instruction: Wish list
Holiday traditions
The four Sundays before Christmas Eve are the Advent Sundays. Every Sunday, one more candle is lit from the four candles on an Advent wreath or Advent arrangement. Tying the Advent wreath yourself, for example, with fir and Christmas decorations, is often a tradition itself. If you are short of time, you can also find many beautiful Advent wreaths and arrangements in stores. Many families celebrate every Advent with a cozy Advent tea: light a candle, make Christmas-scented tea, baked apples or homemade cookies on the table. For us in the Leseliebe editorial team, reading a fairy tale or a Christmas story aloud rounds off the reflective Advent mood perfectly.
On 6. December is Santa Claus. For this purpose, on the eve of St. Nicholas Day, your child’s boots are polished up, placed in front of the room or apartment door and secretly filled during the night, for example with a fir branch, tangerines, a gingerbread man and gladly also a portion of reading love. How about, for example, Pixis, a Christmas picture book or a join-in book for the Christmas season? You want to know more? Leseliebe has collected for you many, many information around the St. Nicholas celebrations with children collected!
Christmas crafts and cookie baking
The Cookie baking at Christmas time is a lot of fun for children. The Christmas baking is particularly beautiful with contemplative Christmas music in the background or a Christmas audio book. In many Advent calendar books you will also find great recipes for baking.
For many families a Gingerbread house absolutely to Christmas and to the Advent time. To do this, all the house parts are cut out individually from gingerbread dough using a template, baked and glued together with firm icing. Like Hansel and Gretel, the house is then decorated with lots and lots of sweets. A quick and easy variant is a mini house made of butter cookies.
For all those who like to tinker, the Christmas crafts Also a must-have Christmas ritual. Whether alone with the child or in a large circle with friendly families Christmas tree decorations, window pictures or gifts are made. For those who love to read, children can make beautiful bookmarks and give away. Many Advent calendar books offer ideas and instructions for this as well. Leseliebe has for you great craft ideas for all ages collected. Have a look!
Almost forgotten or brand new: Christmas customs before and during the holidays
Rituals give your child a sense of security, stability and structure, and at the same time a sense of home and family identity. This requires three things first and foremost: Repetition, attention and a fixed time. So if you want to start your own family ritual, set a specific day for it and repeat it every year with the appropriate mindfulness. Here you will find some ideas for Christmas traditions with a difference:
Giving is more blessed than receiving, especially at Christmastime. So how about an annual Donate? Clean out your child’s room together with your child on a fixed day and pack a donation box together with books, games or clothes. These you can z.B. bring them to a charitable fundraiser. For books, the Leseliebe editorial team recommends, for example, the Berlin book table. A nice side effect: you create order for the holidays at the same time.
In memory of St. Barbara are placed on the 4. December fresh twigs (z.B. fruit trees, red thorn or forsythia) cut and placed in the apartment in a water-filled vase. These Barbarazweige should bloom until Christmas Eve and thus bring luck. In the Christian sense, they also remind us of the freedom of faith. Likewise the Barbarazweige in addition, were often used as Orakel. It works like this: write different messages or decision questions on slips of paper, hang them on the individual branches and wait to see which branch blossoms first and thus sends you a sign.
Christmas is the festival of love, also of charity. A beautiful old custom Is therefore to fill a set up crib with a straw at each good deed. Define together with your child what is a good deed. Of course, then the goal is that the baby Jesus has it on Christmas Eve on a thick straw bed really nice and cozy.
Winter sun and Advent breakfast: How about getting up early on an Advent Sunday and heading out into nature for a while? Enjoy the silence with your child, breathe the fresh air and be there at the winter sunrise. Afterwards there is a nice breakfast.
For Christians, Christmas is the celebration of a birth. Even for non-Christians the story of the birth of Christ is part of the general education and is also a nice inspiration for a very own Christmas ritual, namely the Birth stories of your children to tell stories. Take out your photo albums and tell why a star rose for you at the birth of your child.