Christmas traditions worth starting with young kids

Kids tend to remember the traditions that happened every year, the same way, until they became part of what Christmas means in your house. Those are rarely the expensive ones, which is good news for your budget. Most of the good ones cost little and get better with every year you add. Here are the ones worth starting while your kids are small, and a couple we'd skip.

One ornament a year

Each kid gets one new ornament every December, chosen to match something from that year: the year they learned to swim, the dinosaur phase, the new puppy. Write their initials and the year on the back with a paint pen. By the time they move out, they have a box of their own to start their first tree, and every ornament comes with a story.

• From about age four, let them pick. They'll choose something odd, and that's the point.
• Keep a note on your phone of what each one was for. You will not remember by 2035.
• Store each kid's ornaments in a separate labeled box so nobody argues over them later.

A Christmas Eve box

A box opened on the evening of the 24th with things for a cozy night in: new pajamas, a movie or a book, hot cocoa mix, maybe a small card game. It does two practical jobs. It gives kids something to open when they're bouncing off the walls, and the new pajamas look good in the Christmas morning photos.

Keep it modest. If the box grows every year it turns into a second Christmas, and you'll start to dread shopping for it. Reusing the same cardboard box every year is part of the charm. For small things to put in it, our list of stocking stuffers under $25 overlaps a lot.

The same photo, in the same spot, every year

Pick a spot: the bottom of the stairs, in front of the tree, the front door. Every year, same spot, same pose, ideally around the same time on the same day. Year one feels like any other photo. By year five you have a little flipbook of your kids growing up.

• Choose a spot that won't change when you move furniture or repaint.
• Keep one thing in the frame for scale, like the same stuffed animal or the same chair. Growth shows best next to something that doesn't grow.
• New siblings and pets simply join in the year they arrive.
• Save every year's shot in one album named for the tradition.

For getting a decent shot without a meltdown, our tips on phone photos of kids apply here.

A book a night

Wrap picture books and let the kids open one each night in December for bedtime. It doesn't have to be 24 new books. Mix in library books, books from the back of the shelf they've forgotten about, and holiday books that come out of storage every year with the decorations. The unwrapping does most of the work. If 24 sounds like a lot, do the twelve nights before Christmas.

Iceland has a tradition called Jólabókaflóð, the "Christmas book flood": new books come out in the fall, they get given on Christmas Eve, and the evening is spent reading. For kids past picture books, it's easy to borrow: everyone gets a book on the 24th, and the screens stay off.

A giving tradition kids can actually see

Dropping coins in a red kettle is nice but abstract for a five-year-old. Kids get giving when they choose something themselves for a specific child.

• Angel Tree. The Salvation Army's Angel Tree program pairs donors with a child's age and wish list, and you shop for it. Kids are good at this, since they know exactly what a seven-year-old wants. It runs through local chapters and deadlines vary, so check yours in November.
• Operation Christmas Child. Samaritan's Purse collects shoeboxes packed with toys, school supplies and hygiene items for kids in other countries. Packing one together makes a good Saturday afternoon. It's a Christian ministry, which matters to some families more than others. Their site lists National Collection Week as November 16 to 23 this year, so this one comes before December.
• Toys for Tots. The Marine Corps Reserve program collects new, unwrapped toys in drop boxes at stores and offices. Let your kid pick one toy, pay for it and put it in the box themselves.

Giving works best as a tradition when it repeats. "We always pick an Angel Tree tag on the first Saturday of December" sticks. A different cause every year usually doesn't.

Small ones that stick

• A drive to look at Christmas lights in pajamas, with cocoa in travel mugs.
• A height mark on the inside of a closet door every Christmas morning.
• One new board game a year, opened and played that afternoon.
• The same breakfast every year, even if it's just cinnamon rolls from a tube.
• A letter from each kid to their future self, sealed on Christmas Eve and opened the next year.

Traditions that tend to fizzle

Anything that needs a fresh idea every night for 24 nights. It's easy to start a nightly routine with energy on December 1 and be inventing something at 11:40pm by the 9th. If you love that kind of thing, enjoy it. If you're on the fence, choose traditions that stay the same every year, because sameness is what makes them traditions.

We'd also skip anything that depends on a perfect performance. A posed, matching-outfits photo is fine, but the pajama photo on the stairs is the one that gets easier, not harder, every year.

Starting late is fine

If your kids are already eight and eleven, start this year anyway. Kids don't count years the way adults do. Two Christmases in, it's "what we always do."