Christmas Eve Traditions for Kids

What are the Christmas Eve traditions for kids at your house? Do they like to leave cookies and milk for Santa and carrots for the reindeer? Since it’s almost Christmas Eve, it might be an idea to check if these food items are ready to go.

Kids can be involved in getting things ready. A fun craft idea is to let kids decorate a paper plate with their own special designs. Here’s part of a post from the first time we did this:

Santa-cookie-plateThis week I saw a wonderful idea from Stephanie Haass at Two-daloo for a cookie plate for Santa. Both Big Sister and Little Sister drew on a paper plate, contributing as they were able. Big Sister carefully drew a picture of Santa so he would know it was his plate. Little Sister colored lines back and forth over the whole space.

Just recently, I saw another super idea for Christmas Eve, Santa binoculars. To make the binoculars, look thru the recycling for 2 toilet paper rolls.


1. The first step is to make them red like Santa’s suit. You can do this in a number of ways with markers, paints, or gluing on red wrapping paper, felt, or fabric. We used paint dabbers. To keep the tubes from getting flat, we slipped a plastic bag on the turkey baster, and slid the tube over. That worked surprisingly well.
2. Once done and dry, at the bottom, glue on some white furry fabric, really fuzzy pipe cleaners, or cotton balls stretched long. We used some quilt batting because there’s always some left-overs from sewing baby quilts.
3. Just above the white ‘fur’ trim, wrap a belt around each tube. This could be black fabric, paper, or felt. The easiest to use is black electrical tape.
4. To make a buckle on the belt, you can some tinfoil.
5. Glue or staple the two tubes together and maybe attach some yarn, a shoelace, or string.

(See the video below for Santa binoculars.)

 Now for the fun part. Before going to bed on Christmas Eve kids can scan the sky and see if they see a tiny red light for the sleigh. If they see it, they better scurry to bed. Might these Santa plates and Santa binoculars be new Christmas Eve traditions for kids at your house?

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