35 Memorable Winter Family Traditions for All Ages

by Beth Moore | Dec 13, 2018 | Wellness

Did you know that relationships are healing?  So, this winter season, how great would it be enjoy time together and build great relationships?  Here’s 35 memorable ideas to build Family Traditions for kids and adults this winter season.

I can’t wait to hear which one of these 35 is your favorite family tradition! Don’t forget to let me know on Facebook, Pinterest, or Instagram.

In this Blog Post:

• Build Healing Relationships
• Family Relationships & Traditions
  • 34 Memorable Winter Family Traditions for Kids & Adults
• • 4 Christmas Decoration Ideas
• • 6 Yummy Food Ideas
• • 5 Free Family Outings
• • 6 Affordable Family Outings
• • 9 Family Memory Ideas
• • 5 Family Game Ideas
• Our Memorable Christmas Traditions
• Join Moore Wellness Tribe

Build Healing Relationships

Positive Relationships help us heal by keeping us safe, connected, and resilient.

Family relationships can help us heal from stress, trauma, and challenges. Your family may be your own blood relatives or your family may be the people you choose to love. Create your positive daily relationships with those people who are important to you. 

Positive healing relationships can be built by creating positive memories together. During this Winter season, here’s some positive ideas helping all ages laugh, bond, and create memories.

Important: This article has resources about restoring wellness, and is based on my research and my experiences.  This information is not meant to take the place of counseling or therapy.  If at any time you feel uncomfortable or needto talk to someone, wellness resources can help you find a counselor and other resources that may be helpful.

Family Relationships & Traditions

When families laugh, play, and work together, they build close bonds and family memories.  Creating memories every year together is what family traditions are all about.

Your family can build traditions at any time, starting this year and every year!

Disclaimer: Please note that this blog contains affiliate links.  This means that if you purchase through these links, the price will be the same for you.  And I’ll receive a small commission that helps support my blog and my family.  Hope you have a blessed day!

34 Memorable Winter Family Traditions for Kids & Adults

4 Christmas Decoration Ideas

Get the whole family to help decorate for Christmas, see their eyes light up with memories as you decorate the inside and outside of the house together. If your family is mostly adults, be sure to invite them over with cookies, something yummy to eat always adds more Christmas cheer.

“Do you remember this Nutcracker from our vacation?”
“I love this snowman family!”
“The kids will have so much playing with this Nativity Set.”

Decorate with Christmas decorations:

1. Decorate with fun Christmas Decorations all around the house: tell some of your favorite Christmas memories while you decorate
2. The Christmas Tree: put on Christmas Carols & sing together, we love to tell the Christmas story while we hang up ornaments, and we celebrate with cookies and hot chocolate afterwards
3. Outside decorations on the front door & windows: hang a wreath or homemade garland or jingle bells, make a Christmas Tree out of paper handprints, make homemade snowflakes to hang inside the windows
4. Make & decorate Christmas Cards & give to friends/family/neighbors: glitter, glue, construction paper, stencils or cookie cutters, markers or crayons, scissors (kid friendly for kids), and lots of stickers

6 Yummy Food Ideas

All ages love yummy food, whether it’s for holidays, football, or birthdays gatherings. Ask your family to come together to make some yummy food. Then celebrate with a feast.

1. Make yummy cookies together: gingerbread people, sugar cookies, pumpkin cookies
2. Make gingerbread houses together: so much fun to put together and get creative, and then eat after you’re all done, don’t forget to take pictures of your creations
3. Cook a meal together: have one person fix a yummy appetizer early in the gathering, one teen or adult chop the vegetables, one person cook the main meat, and one person fix a side dish
4. Fun snack mix — have fun choosing yummy ingredients (popcorn, M&M’s, pretzels, mini-marshmallows, flavored cereal, nuts and place each one in a bowl, gather around and make your own yummy snack mixes, add another level by choosing a few of your own recipes you just created and write them down as new favorite family snack mixes made by your very own
5. Make your hot chocolate and coffee bar. Get out the marshmallows, creamers, flavors, and create your own speciality hot chocolate and coffee.
6. Make homemade s’mores together. Use the microwave or fireplace inside, or fire pit or bonfire outside. They’re yummy, affordable, and fun.

5 FREE Family Outing Ideas

Our family loves to go on fun outings together!! And we have a lot of people in our family of all ages. So, we are always on the lookout for activities that an accommodate a lot of ages.

1. Drive/Walk around and see Christmas lights! If you live by any special light shows and go see them together. Get in a large car (or a few large cars), or walk through a local area with lots of Christmas lights. It’s way more fun, memorable, and very affordable!
2. Have a Picnic in a Park. Yep, if it’s cold, bring something warm to drink. Pack snacks and finger goods, something to keep little ones and older ones happy while you walk. Many parks have Christmas lights this time of year, so it can beautiful and memorable.
3. Go out for hot chocolate/coffee and dessert. In New Orleans, Louisiana, we have a tradition of going to Cafe du Monde for ‘cafe au lait & beignets’. In your community, this may be going for hot chocolate and doughnuts, or coffee and cake. It’s a fun way treat!
4. Visit your local assisted living, nursing home, or hospital to bring Christmas cheer. Homemade cards and singing a few Christmas carols is giving the best gift of all, your love.
5. Go to Christmas Eve service together, and singing Christmas carols together.

6 Affordable Family Outing Ideas

There’s something magical about family gathering outside during the winter season. Maybe it’s the cool air and the holiday cheer all around. Since most families are budgeting gifts plus extra expenses, this list is all about affordable family outings.

1. Ride a train or carousal. Go find something fun for all ages that would be a great memory.
2. Bowling: Families of all ages can go bowling, it’s hilarious watching young ones roll that bowling ball. And for our family, quite competitive!!
3. Putt-Putt (miniature golf): it’s great watching all the ages swing their clubs and try to get a hole in one. Make it a contest: lowest number of swings, largest number of swings, most determined swinger, most fun at swinging.Be a tourist in your town. Yep, go take that tour you’ve always wanted to take. This could be your gift to everyone and you’re making family memories at the same time.
4. Visit your zoo. Our family loves the zoo every year, during any time of year. It’s so neat to see big bears swimming in freezing waters, they love it. The penguins and wolves are running around, too. Zoos usually have special events during the holidays, check it out.
5. Go ice skating or roller skating together.
6. Go see a movie together at the theatre. Choose a movie everyone will love and make a memory of it together.

9 Family Memory Ideas

Okay, so these are some of my favorite memory ideas for families in the winter! I love our family gatherings and I love Christmas, so it’s a double win!! Anything that can make it fun to get together, where we laugh, and tell stories is even better.

1. Family Photo Sessions. Each year, our family takes a family photo together. This helps us remember each year, how each child has grown, and who we could be with each year. Include your pets in the family photo session, reindeer ears look really cute on our 4 footed friends.
2. Wearing pajamas, matching is a plus. Eating yummy cookies or popcorn. Watching a family movie together.
3. Paint nails: have fun and get creative with fun designs
4. Wear ugly sweaters: make it a contest and vote on who has the ugliest sweater of all
5. Read a favorite book together. Make it a tradition by reading it every year together.
6. Sponsor a child, village, or farm animals to help those in need. One year, we sponsored animals in other countries for families to make their living off of (goats, chickens, cows).
7. Make Christmas ornaments together. Some of our best memories were making affordable Christmas ornaments when I was little and when our kids were little. We cherished those ornaments, and still do for the ornaments that are still going strong.
8. Watching holiday movies together. There’s so many holiday movies to choose from on Netflix, Amazon Prime Movies, Hulu, and just on TV!
9. Video chat (Skype, FaceTime) with a family or friend who lives out of town, bring a smile to their face and yours. If you are not able to video chat, make a short video for them and send it to them.

5 Family Game Ideas

We love playing family games together, from cards to scavenger hunts to White Elephant Gift Exchanges! Look at my Pinterest Board: Holiday and Christmas Fun for more ideas.

1. Play Hide the Elf and whoever finds it has to hide it again. This game can last for hours and days, making it all time favorite!
2. Playing games as a family: Dominoes, puzzles, Yahtzee, charades, Monopoly, Candy Land, Life, Risk, Go Fish.
   
3. Create a scavenger hunt of candy canes around the house. Whoever gets the most candy canes gets a prize: first hot chocolate or choice of Christmas movie that evening.
4. Play Family Feud or Scattergories, with small groups of your family
5. White Elephant Gift Exchange: every person brings one gift (bought or from home) usually affordable (under $10 for example), all the gifts go under the tree, each person draws a number (21 people = 1-21 numbers), number 1 goes first & chooses a gift under the tree, number 2 goes next: either choose a gift under the tree or ‘steal’ someone else’s gift they’ve opened, number 3 does the same and so on, if one person steals then the other person (whose gift is stolen) gets to either open a gift from under the tree or steal another gift. The white elephant gifts get pretty goofy and hilarious, some are great gifts worthy of stealing! Teens and adults love this game. If you have younger ages, make sure to have some gifts they they’ll love, even small gifts count!

Our Memorable Christmas Family Traditions

Our family has done quite a few of these traditions, and we have so much fun together!! We have lots of ages, from babies to enriched ages, so we get pretty creative. Here’s some of our favorite combinations over the last few years:

Check out my Pinterest Board: Holiday and Christmas Fun for more ideas.

• Family photo session first at a favorite city park. Driving through a big city seeing the beautiful city decorations for Christmas and all the beautiful houses all decorated. Going to Cafe du Monde for hot chocolate and cafe au lait and beignets. Then ending with riding around and seeing synchronized Christmas lights together.
• Christmas Eve service at our local church, and Singing Christmas carols. Drinking hot chocolate and Christmas punch, while eating warm yummy cookies. Wearing matching pajamas and watching family Christmas movies together.
• White Elephant Gift Exchange, decorating and eating yummy Christmas Cookies (sometimes exchanging Christmas cookies), playing games like cards and puzzles together, and decorating the Christmas tree together.

Family Life Application:

Which family tradition is your favorite? I’d love to hear about it.

Which family traditions will your family choose this year?

I’d love to hear from you, please leave me a comment, or join me on Facebook, Pinterest, or Instagram.

If this article helps you or someone you know, please share it with a friend.  

Join the Wellness Tribe

I’d love to help you on your journey of improving your wellness.  

This tribe is a gathering place to improve wellness & connections, receive life-giving coping skills, and restore health in mind, body, and spirit.

Join the Moore Wellness Tribe

Blessings,
Beth

Need help finding a counselor?

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• time management
• stress management
• procrastination
• relaxation skills
• goal setting
• personal development

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