10 Unique Christmas Traditions For A Meaningful Holiday

These meaningful and unique Christmas traditions you might like to try to enhance the spirit of faith, joy, and togetherness in your family during this festive holiday season. Embrace these heartwarming customs to create lasting memories and share the magic of the merry Christmas season together.

unique meaningful Christmas traditions

What are your favorite Christmas traditions?

When we first married the week before Christmas, our families stayed with one another and we celebrated Christmas together.

On our second Christmas as a married couple, we visited my (Tiffany’s) family to exchange gifts and announce our first pregnancy.

Then our third Christmas was spent with Phillip’s family visiting us for our daughter’s first holiday season. That’s when we realized we needed to spread out our presents.

It wasn’t until our fourth December that we celebrated Christmas with just our little family.  By that point, we still hadn’t established any real Christmas traditions around the world.  That year, however, I was determined to set some firm, traditions around the world that we could carry throughout the years.

Combining our favorite traditions for a Christmas like no other

We combined favorite traditions from our individual families that we grew up with, like these Christmas cookies.  We’ve also incorporated some Puerto Rican traditions from our beloved island where we served our missions.

So without further ado, here is a list of our favorite meaningful and unique Christmas traditions.

You may also like these five family Christmas activities that are not food or opening presents.

One-of-a-kind Christmas Traditions around the world

So without further ado, here is a list of our favorite meaningful and exceptional Christmas traditions around the world.

You may also like these five family Christmas activities that are not food or opening presents

unique meaningful Christmas traditions

1. Christmas Devotional

On the first Sunday in December, the First Presidency for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints hosts a Christmas devotional.  It can be streamed online for free on the Church’s website.

These devotionals are filled with beautiful music from The Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square (formerly called the Mormon Tabernacle Choir) and inspirational messages.

You also get to see beautiful images and videos of the Christmas lights at Temple Square.

This night is also the perfect time to prepare your 12 days of Christmas gifts for naughty children and your neighbor.

unique meaningful Christmas traditions

2. Christmas Ornaments

Every time we go on a family vacation or have a special family event, we purchase a Christmas ornament that fits where we have been.  This can be difficult sometimes, like when we went to a resort town in March – no one had Christmas ornaments in stock!  (We finally found one, though.)

When we decorate our tree as a family, we tell stories about that particular event or trip that we remember.  Sometimes we end up laughing so hard we cry as we relive those fun family times.  It also helps keep the memories alive for the younger children who may not remember it on their own.

You can also help your kids make their own ornaments, which can beautifully adorn your Christmas trees and sparkle with twinkling lights.

3. Read Luke

Most families have the tradition of reading Luke 2 on Christmas Eve.  However, the reason we celebrate Christmas is because Christ’s birth led to His Atonement and Resurrection.

Instead, we read a chapter of Luke each day for the entire month.  There are 24 chapters in the book of the around the world of Luke, so you get the entire life of the Savior throughout around the world the entire month!

unique meaningful Christmas traditions

4. Meaningful Christmas Movies

On Saint Nicholas Day, families gather to celebrate the age-old tradition of watching movies filled with heartwarming Christmas stories, all while eagerly anticipating the visit of Saint Nick.

This cherished tradition, which dates back centuries, keeps the spirit of Saint Nicholas alive and spreads joy and merriment during the holiday season.

Watch Christmas movies together on Sundays throughout the month. 

Here is a list of our favorite Christmas movies:

Nicholas: the Boy Who Became Santa

This is the story of the real Santa Clause.  Since we don’t do Santa in our home, this video makes a perfect bridge that allows us to pretend about Santa without losing the true source of Christmas gifts

A Christmas Story 

I (Tiffany) grew up watching this movie and I kind of hate it. Our first Christmas I had Phillip watch it and he absolutely loved it. So it grudgingly has become one we watch each year.  It’s a classic!

Home Alone 

All of the Home Alone movies are holiday classics.  The kids think they’re hysterical, and each one is heartwarming.

Muppet Christmas Carol 

This is one of Phillip’s favorite Christmas movies, and it’s mine as well!   We tend to burst into these songs all year long.

ELf

This movie is just hilarious and shows how family and faith are the real parts of Christmas

The Polar Express –

Another heartwarming Christmas classic about faith and belief

How the Grinch Stole Christmas 

Whether you watch the cartoon version or the live-action version, this movie which is based on the Dr. Seuss book demonstrates how Christmas is about what is in your heart, not what you receive.

unique meaningful Christmas traditions

5. Unique Christmas Traditions Advent Calendar

When I became pregnant with our first child, I struggled with antepartum depression and hyperemesis gravidarum, I couldn’t work (or even leave the house).

After binge-watching way too many TV shows, I tried to be a bit crafty (which is not my forte). A friend down the road showed me how to make this cute advent calendar! It later gave me the courage to make this car play mat as a Christmas gift.

Here are the activities I put in it:

  • Boil a cinnamon stick on the stove
  • Call Grandma and Grandpa to sing Christmas carols
  • Visit a stable or manger to imagine what the Savior’s birth was like
  • Have a slumber party under the Christmas tree
  • Decorate the Christmas tree
  • Bake Christmas goodies
  • Go caroling with these treats
  • Have a snowball fight and build snowmen
  • Hang some bells.  Each time someone serves you, ring them.
  • Watch a Christmas movie
  • Imagine you lived at the time Jesus was born.  Eat a meal of broiled fish, crackers, and grapes.
  • Pick out a real Christmas tree
  • Write in your journal some way your life has changed for good because of Christ’s birth and life.
  • Draw names for Christmas presents
  • Visit a lonely person.
  • Find a family in need and play Secret Santa
  • Draw a Christmas picture and take it to a neighbor
  • The shepherds testified of Christ; and held a family testimony meeting
  • List the names Christ is called in the scriptures.  What do we learn about Him from His name?
  • Talk about what has been your best Christmas ever and why.  What makes the best Christmas?
  • Eat sandwiches cut in a Christmas shape (cut bread with cookie cutters)
  • Start a Christmas puzzle that can be put together throughout the month.
  • Dramatize the nativity using props and simple costumes
  • Go ice-skating
  • Go sledding
  • Make Christmas-shaped pancakes for breakfast.
  • Give service at a local homeless shelter
  • Invite a non-member of a less-active family to the ward Christmas party
  • What a Christmas parade, either nearby or on TV
  • Decorate the house for Christmas
  • Write a family Christmas letter to mail out
  • Make count-down paper chains to Christmas day
unique meaningful Christmas traditions

6. Christmas Tradition Pajamas

In a very Christmas morning tradition in our family growing up, we always opened a new pair of pajamas on Christmas Eve and slept in them that night. Some years the pyjamas have been really dorky, other years they’ve been matching, and then most years they’re comfortable and warm.

I like this holiday tradition because we get fun family pictures and holiday cards out of it. Some years we gift robes or slippers, depending on our needs (and what sales I find!)

We exchange Christmas cards and share tales of joyous holiday gatherings, the most heartwarming Christmas stories often remind us of the true spirit of the season, encapsulating the wonder of Baby Jesus’s birth.

7. Baking The Famous Christmas Cookies

In our family, the Christmas tradition of having Mom make her famous Christmas cookies during the holiday season brings a sweet sense of togetherness and joy, filling the air with the aroma of love.

It’s said that sharing these delicious treats with our loved ones brings us extra luck, making our festive celebrations even more magical. Kick off your holiday festivities by baking Mom’s famous Christmas cookies. Gather the family in the kitchen and embark on a delightful baking adventure. Whether it’s gingerbread men, sugar cookies, or intricate snowflakes, this is an activity that never goes out of style.

8. Eat Out

One of the most difficult things about Christmas, Thanksgiving, and other holidays is all of the time spent cooking and then cleaning up afterward.

To help with this, my dad instituted a family tradition of going out to eat dinner (or late lunch) on Christmas Eve so that we only had one large meal on Christmas day to contend with.  To make it more fun, we would always choose a restaurant we had never eaten at before.

Some years we’ve adjusted this slightly if we lived in a place with no open restaurants or if Christmas Eve fell on a Sunday.  It’s a tradition that Phillip and I have carried into our own family.  Since we rarely eat out, it’s extremely fun for the kids!

To help save money and have a no-cost Christmas, we use restaurant gift cards we’ve earned throughout the year.

9. Christmas Lights

On the night of Christmas Eve Christmas day and Christmas morning, after we eat out at the restaurant, we go home and put on our new Christmas pajamas.

Then drive around and look at cool Christmas lights while singing Christmas songs.  “Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer” is a favorite!

You can search your local newspaper or Facebook pages to find out where the best Christmas lights are!

When I was a kid in Denver the newspaper would publish the top 20 homes and a route to drive.  Now here in Houston, there are several subdivisions where the HOA holds Christmas decoration competitions. Some are even interactive – you can get out and walk around in them!

We also love going to the zoo and seeing the lights there.  Both our zoos in Denver and Houston have had amazing Zoo Lights.

10. Meaningful Christmas Books

Read Christmas books together!  Phillip’s mom sent us some beautiful Christmas books over the first few years of our marriage that I had never heard of before.

The most prominent one that Phillip recalls is A Newberry Christmas, which is a collection of short Christmas stories written by Madeleine L’Engle, Beverly Cleary, and many more.

Here are some of the other books that Phillip grew up reading each Christmas and that he now reads to our children:

I love having these books and all of these traditions with my children.  We’re forming memories that I hope will last a lifetime.

What are some of your favorite unique and meaningful Christmas traditions?

We also love to stuff our stockings with these 50+ stocking stuffer ideas that aren’t candy.

More Christmas Inspiring Stories:

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