How to make Christmas special begins with presence and repetition—simple traditions done year after year that your kids will cherish for a lifetime. Explore meaningful, faith-filled ways to create cozy Christmas nostalgia without the overwhelm.
There’s a phrase I heard recently that I haven’t been able to shake: “You get to create your kids’ Christmas nostalgia.”
It was actually something Shaye Elliot said on the Homemaking Chic podcast and it has stuck in my head as I’ve prepared for Christmas. Because in the middle of the holiday season, when the house is a disaster from Christmas cookies, the trees are shedding needles everywhere, and someone is always asking for a snack…I forget what a privilege this really is.
We aren’t just making it through December.
We’re helping shape the memories our children will carry for a lifetime.
And all the while, woven underneath the traditions and the fun and the hot cocoa spills, we have a hope that anchors us far deeper than anything we wrap in ribbon.
Hebrews 6:19 says,
We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain,
And Psalm 62 reminds us,
For God alone, O my soul, wait in silence,
for my hope is from him.
He only is my rock and my salvation,
my fortress; I shall not be shaken.
This Christmas season, I want everything we do—whether it’s mixing icing for sourdough sugar cookies or heading out on our Christmas tree cutting tradition—to rest on that truth. Our hope is secure. Our refuge is steady. Everything we create for our families comes from that grounding peace.
And that’s really where Christmas nostalgia begins.
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Creating Christmas Nostalgia Through Simple, Steady Traditions
Making Christmas “special” doesn’t mean that we have to come up with new things each year—new decorations, new activities, the perfect gifts, and some kind of beautifully crafted moment worthy of social media.
The longer I mother, the more I realize nostalgia doesn’t come from doing more.
It comes from doing the same simple things, year after year.
Last year, I tried skipping our “Shepherd Tradition,” and my oldest son questioned it on the first day of Advent. “Mom, where is the shepherd? Why isn’t he looking for Jesus this year?” No matter how I tried to reason with them that we were doing a different Advent tradition, they begged for the shepherd to make its usual appearance. I think maybe this year we are taking a break from the Shepherd, but it did help me realize that kids want the same things year after year for Christmas. We don’t have to reinvent the wheel.
It doesn’t take much to create Christmas nostalgia; it just takes intention.
For my boys, Christmas nostalgia shows up in the steady rhythms we repeat year after year, and our Advent Blocks tradition is one of the sweetest anchors. Each evening, as the house settles and the Christmas lights glow, we gather around the table to read the next story—God’s big story—piece by piece.
The blocks click together in little hands, forming the timeline that leads us to Jesus, and somehow it never gets old. It’s as familiar to them as the Christmas music playing while we roll out sugar cookie dough. Our Advent Blocks have become part of that tapestry of tradition, one more thread in the story they’ll carry into adulthood: faith lived out in the small, steady moments of the season.
Kids don’t crave complexity.
They crave consistency.
They crave us.
There’s something powerful about this time of year—a chance to reinforce what “home” feels like, smells like, sounds like. A chance to say with our presence, “You’re safe. You’re loved. You belong.”
And the most wonderful part? None of this has to cost extra.
The traditions that stick are the ones we actually have the capacity to repeat.
The Beauty of Familiar Christmas Activities
Every year, as soon as December settles in, our familiar traditions start unfolding like a well-loved story we’ve read a hundred times—and still can’t wait to read again. We head out to BJ Tree Farm to cut down our Christmas tree, cheeks pink from the cold, boys racing between the rows until we finally agree on the one.
Once we’re home, Mannheim Steamroller fills the living room while we decorate, everyone placing ornaments with their own special flair. Advent Blocks start on December 1st and anchor our hearts in the true meaning behind all the sparkle. I finally made my instrumental Christmas playlist public, which includes all my beloved Mannheim Steamroller music, plus artists like David Lanz, the Piano Guys, Kenny G, and many more. I think it’s the best curated Christmas instrumental list out there!
I could go on and on—from visiting a Christmas tree competition each year, to watching the kids perform in our church Christmas program, to bringing cookies to a nursing home, and doing an abundance of Christmas crafts. There are so many moments we squeeze in.
I’ve learned to slow down our homeschool routine during December, which helps with the number of activities we are typically doing. This year, we’re doing a unit called “First Christmas,” which is by Gather ‘Round Homeschool. I’m finding that there are certain unit studies each year that vie for my ‘favorite’ and this is definitely one of them. It’s pretty hard to beat the epic “Viking” unit study we did earlier this year, but this one is definitely trying to push it out of first place. It’s not super fancy. The main content is learning about each character of the nativity story, plus there is a lot of chance for reflection. It’s not a complicated unit and perfect for our version of Christmas school.
Another tradition we’ve added in recent years is helping the kids write a Christmas letter to Jesus. It’s such a simple practice, but it slows us down in the best way. Instead of focusing on what they want from Christmas, it gently turns their hearts toward gratitude, worship, and the true reason we celebrate. Their letters usually mix childlike honesty with sweet little reflections, and I love tucking them away to look back on later. It’s one more small rhythm—done year after year—that helps anchor their hearts in Jesus during a season that can so easily rush past us.
I have a new printable this year that has prompts for writing a Christmas letter to Jesus. Feel free to check it out and download it for your own use!
Crafts at the table, hot cocoa with too many marshmallows, the Christmas story read by the tree lights, a board game night that goes way too late—these are the things that slowly stack up into nostalgia.
What makes them special is that we do them again and again.
Every single year.
Without needing a new activity or a north pole breakfast or the perfect Instagram-worthy moment.
You already have everything you need to create a beautiful childhood for your kids.
Letting the Mess Happen (Because Nostalgia Lives There Too)
I don’t know who needs permission today, but here it is:
Submit to the cookie mess.
Just surrender. The flour will go everywhere. The icing will drip onto the living room rug somehow, even if you swear you never left the kitchen. Someone will attempt to stack eight sprinkles on a single cookie, and someone else will grab a spoonful of icing when they think you are not looking.
You’re not doing it wrong.
You’re doing it exactly right.
I love my sourdough discard sugar cookie recipe. Although if you’ve made any of my recipes, you’ll probably know that there’s no actual sugar in the dough. I love baking and cooking with alternatives to the ever-present sugar that permeates our grocery stores. Stevia, coconut sugar, honey, maple syrup, and even erythritol make it’s way into my recipes. If you hold similar views, you may want to give the recipe a try!
Years from now, your kids won’t remember whether the cookies came out picture-perfect or if you made sugar cookies with regular sugar or an alternative. They won’t remember if the wrapping paper was folded with crisp lines. But they will remember that they stood beside you, hands sticky, hearts full, and that you let them be part of the moment.
You get to shape your children’s Christmas season simply by welcoming them into it—imperfect, noisy, joy-filled and real. It’s not the flawless homemade gifts or the perfectly strung festive lights that build their memories, but the way you invite them into the moment with you. When the flour explodes across the counter, when ornaments end up clustered on one branch, when hot cocoa gets spilled twice in ten minutes—those aren’t failures, they’re the texture of a childhood being formed. Kids don’t need a polished December; they need a present mother who lets them be part of the beauty and the chaos side by side. Christmas becomes special not because everything goes right, but because they know that joy is welcome in your home—even when it’s messy.
Psalm 62 tells us that God is a refuge.
And sometimes part of making Christmas special is becoming a little reflection of that refuge for our children. A place where they can settle in, make mistakes, spill the cocoa, laugh too loudly, and know they’re safe.
Anchoring Christmas in Hope (The True Meaning Behind the Magic)
Here’s the piece I really want my children to carry with them: nostalgia is sweet, but hope is eternal.
As we shape their Christmas memories—through holiday meals, homemade gifts, gingerbread houses that collapse multiple times—we get the chance to point them back to Jesus. Not through a lengthy sermon, but through those steady rhythms that speak louder than words.
Hebrews 6:19 calls hope an anchor.
Christmas is a perfect time to show our kids what that anchor looks like.
When we read the Advent calendar devotional together, when we pause on Christmas Eve to pray before the chaos of Christmas day, when we talk about the true meaning of Christmas while we stir cranberry sauce or sip hot cocoa—those are the roots we’re planting.
All the fun ways we celebrate are beautiful gifts, but they’re not the reason we celebrate.
Jesus is.
And that hope steadies both our children and us.
Your Presence Is the Tradition
If you’re a mom who feels like you’re always stretched—working in the home and outside of it, juggling winter break chaos, trying to make meaningful memories without losing yourself in the overwhelm—I want to tell you something I wish someone had told me earlier:
You are the nostalgia.
Not the Pinterest-worthy activities.
Not the perfect year of Christmas shopping.
Not the homemade hot chocolate station or the Christmas dinner menu.
Not even the ornaments tucked into the box or the new decoration you found at a Christmas market.
It’s you.
Your voice reading the Christmas story.
Your hands guiding theirs as they pipe icing onto sugar cookies.
Your smile when they show you the new ornament they picked.
Your calm when the wrapping paper explodes across the living room.
Your laughter when the gingerbread house collapses for the third time.
Kids remember the presence more than the performance.
So if you want to make Christmas special, lean into that. The whole family doesn’t need “more”—they just need you showing up in the simple things. And those simple things, repeated each Christmas time, become a legacy.
How to Make Christmas Special for our Kids
You don’t have to reinvent Christmas this year.
You don’t need more money, more elaborate plans, or the perfect Pinterest board.
You already have the two things nostalgia is built on:
Presence and repetition.
Show up. Do it again next year. And again the year after that.
You get to create your kids’ Christmas nostalgia. What a privilege.
And you get to do it with your heart anchored in the unshakable hope of Christ—your rock, your refuge, your steady place.
That’s what makes Christmas truly special.
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