I love Christmas. It is truly the most wonderful time of the year and to make Christmas Eve magical and fun and less stressful start a new tradition by doing "The 12 Hours of Christmas." You will have 12 activities ready to go for your family. This will work for families with children, if the grand children are visiting or for empty nesters. Every hour will have an activity where you gather together and share a Christmas surprise fun filled time together. Plan ahead to avoid stress and bring serenity and calm into your home on Christmas Eve. You can make the activities simple or as involved as you like by doing these things: Get all the shopping, wrapping, and decorating done before Christmas Eve. Have your meals planned out and prepared ahead of time. Follow my list of activities and gather everything you will need to do each activity. Consider the needs and likes of your family and plan according to the ages of those in your family. Plan ahead for optimum success. You will need a hand held bell or jingle bells to signal for your family to gather on the hour. Be flexible and patient. Have a joyful attitude. Play ball or go time! I started my own 12 Hours of Christmas tradition years ago with our children. Our home was filled with 6 children. Three boys and then three girls. I was looking for a way to make Christmas less stressed, more family focused, and magical. Magical in a way that would keep our kids excited to see what our next activity would be as we counted down the hours to Christmas Eve. With a little preparation, and some Christmas magic you can make Christmas Eve memorable, peaceful, fun, and even invite a little more serenity into your home on Christmas Eve. Here is where the magic happens. It's go time so come with me in my Christmas workshop of ideas. And yes you can thank me haha. Get Your Holiday On And Done I know many people approach Christmas as a hot mess but planning ahead really is a thing. If you are already in the throes of Christmas and no decorating or no shopping done, sit down take a breath and whip out a notebook and a pencil or pen. Write down what needs to be done. Start with the needs. Then add the wants. Look at that list. How can you simplify it? Can you delegate any items on that list to your hubby or the kids. You know, some children love to wrap or bake. Enlist their help. For the 12 Hours of Christmas Eve to work, you need to have all the shopping, decorating, baking, wrapping, etc...done. Don't fret. Just figure out how to simplify. You don't have to compete with the neighbors or family, maybe cut back a bit on decorating. Whatever works for you, complete your tasks on that list before Christmas Eve. If you try, you can get it done! Dinner Done Ahead When I think Christmas, I think about the baking for neighbors, parties, and all the glorious goodies. Then there is Christmas Eve and Christmas Day dinners. Whoa! Don't get overwhelmed here. What I am trying to say is do as much baking and cooking for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day as you can before hand so you don't have to spend your days in the kitchen when you want to be celebrating with your family. I've done that before stayed in the kitchen preparing food and missed out on all the fun! Create your menu. Bake ahead. Freeze some of your food so you just have to unthaw it. Use a crockpot. Keep it simple. Whatever you need to do. Plan ahead so you can do as little kitchen work on those two days as possible. Still prepare what food you want. Make it special, take some shortcuts and get ready to play Christmas Eve day! So Much Fun 12 Hours List...Santa May Take A Backseat! I'm not kidding. We have had so much fun over the years with our kids and now our grandchildren that the 12 hours has become a requested must have! We change it up every year to keep it fresh and full of surprises. Get ready to amaze your kiddoes and your hubby! The 12 Hours of Christmas Hour 1: Picnic in A Box Breakfast: Pick up some cute gable boxes or other containers and load each with a blueberry muffin or cinnamon roll , some juice (in the hot/cold cups), and a festive fruit kabob. Or breakfast of your choice. Take a blanket into your family room or another room of your home and have a first hour of Christmas breakfast. Make it simple but special and eat somewhere in your home other than the kitchen. Call it a Christmas Eve picnic. I bought a Charlie Brown Bingo game for our 12 Hours of Christmas. Hour 2: Christmas Bingo Gather everyone for Christmas Bingo. You have at least three options here when preparing your Bingo game. Make your own Bingo game online for free, or or pay to download Christmas Bingo cards from Etsy. You can use candy or mini marshmallows for markers. Buy several cute inexpensive gifts to give to the winners. Play the Bingo game several different ways and then do a blackout. Tailor your game to fit adults and children depending on the age of your family. Play a few rounds and then let the group go Let your family enjoy some painting fun on Christmas Eve. Hour 3: Watercolor To Christmas Music Like The Nutcracker Ballet Turn on Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker Suite Ballet and give everyone a piece of watercolor paper. Have enough sets of paint brushes and watercolors for everyone to paint. Choose a couple of songs from the ballet and let everyone paint away. They can paint whatever they like as they listen to the music. Once their masterpiece is done, make a paint banner by hanging some twine on a wall or across a window and take some clothespins and attach the painted picture to the twine. Hour 4: Shaving Cream Santa's Beard Relay You will need shaving cream, and cotton balls and two willing people to be Santa. Make two teams. The person acting as Santa puts shaving cream on their face. Set a timer. Each team throws cotton balls at their "Santa". Once the timer goes off, count how many cotton balls remain on the Santa's face. The winners get to eat a cookie or a piece of candy. Hour 5: Dance Party Santa Style Last year, my brother's family sent out a Christmas greeting on facebook in a very wow factor way. His kids and their spouses made up a dance. They all wore their Christmas jammies and filmed their dance. Then posted it and wished all a Merry Christmas. You don't have to be quite that fancy but you can get pretty creative with this next activity. Gather your people again for the next hour of Christmas. This time you will need some room to spread out in. Make a Christmas song play list before Christmas Eve. Turn on some Christmas tunes and encourage everyone to rock around that Christmas tree! Choose someone to designate how they will dance. Dance like the abominable snowman, like frosty, like rudolph the red nosed reindeer, like Santa, or like a shopper with their arms filled with presents. You get the idea. Just have fun. Choose A Christmas Movie To Enjoy Together like "MIracle At Moreaux". Hour 6: Projector Movie, Popcorn And A Drink A movie big as life on the wall of your home would make a big impression if you have a projector and if not just gather round the tv. Pop up some corn to add to the fun of this hour of Christmas. Here are some thoughtful Christmas movies to enjoy together. Miracle At Moreaux, good for older children probably 5 and older. It is only an hour long. Annabelle's Wish and Mr. Krueger's Christmas starring Jimmy Stewart are cute movies with good messages too. Once again tailor this activity to fit your families ages and taste. You could even have a variety of flavors of popcorn for your family to choose from. Give each family member a small pop with a festive straw. Play a fun game for one of the 12 hours of Christmas Eve. Hour 7: Christmas Karaoke Dice Game It's time for some fun and laughter. You could so make your own karaoke dice game out of blocks of wood or paper blocks. You have three large blocks. When it is your turn to roll all the dice one die tells you what kind of voice to sing your Christmas carol in. The next die tells you which Christmas carol to sing, and the third die tells you what to do while singing for example like making a snow angel on the floor while singing. It is sure to make everyone laugh. They may have to step out of their comfort a bit but come on it's Christmas Eve! Hour 8: Dance Party Santa Style Last year, my brother's family sent out a Christmas greeting on facebook in a very wow factor way. His kids and their spouses made up a dance. They all wore their Christmas jammies and filmed their dance. Then posted it and wished all a Merry Christmas. You don't have to be quite that fancy but you can get pretty creative with this next activity. Gather your people again for the next hour of Christmas. This time you will need some room to spread out in. Make a Christmas song play list before Christmas Eve. Turn on some Christmas tunes and encourage everyone to rock around that Christmas tree! Choose someone to designate how they will dance. Dance like the abominable snowman, like frosty, like rudolph the red nosed reindeer, like Santa, or like a shopper with their arms filled with presents. You get the idea. Just have fun. Hour 9: Dodgeball With Faux Snowballs Fight I know! Permission to snowball fight in the house! What are you thinking wink wink. You may have real snow at your house but let's stay inside where it is warm and safe with a pretend snowball fight. Gather some white socks folded together in a round ball. There are fake snowballs you can buy if you would rather. You will need two teams and a little room like in a family room or living room where you can spread out. Then let er' rip! Set up a few rules before hand like no targeting the head. When someone gets hit by the "snowball" they have to sit down. Last man standing wins for his team. Then do it again. There is sure to be a lot of giggling and laughter. You can change the game a bit and come up with various ways you throw the snowball like one eye closed, or you have to turn to the wall and throw your snowball over your shoulder. Get crazy within reason and have a lot of fun with it. If you want to throw snowballs at a target, you could do that also. Center a fun activity around this book Night Tree. Hour 10: Night Tree...Feed The Birds There is a delightful children's Christmas book called Night Tree. It tells of a fun family tradition they have at Christmas time making ornaments and decorating a tree for the wild animals that live nearby. Have your family make a simple ornaments covered in bird seed or string popcorn and cranberries to hang in a tree in your yard or the park. Bundle up, take flashlights and head out to decorate a tree. Then come back and enjoy a hot chocolate bar. Hour 11: Open A Gift...PJ's anyone? Not exactly sure how this tradition got started but is is a fun one. Make sure you have PJ's for everyone wrapped and placed under your tree. Don't forget to include some for yourself and your hubby. Your children will have fun modeling their PJ's. Take a selfie...a big selfie of everyone in their brand spankin' new jammies. Hour 12: The Reason For The Season Time to focus on the nativity and the true Christmas spirit. Here is a memorable activity to make the nativity come more to life. Ask each family member to decide on who they want to be in the nativity. Then have them go to their rooms and come up with a costume to represent who they chose and return to the room you are gathering in. Go around the room and ask each person to tell why they chose the person they did. Then read the story of the nativity together by the lights of your Christmas tree. We have done this activity several times and each time it is inspiring and we love hearing our children and grandchildren's feelings and thoughts about the nativity. Extra Ideas: Find the Tomte or Gnomes. You can make little Christmas gnomes or have pictures of them and hide them around your home. If you want to brave the cold and go outside, you can hide them around your yard. Whoever finds a gnome, gets a prize. There are a lot of ways to make gnomes. Search online and you will come up with a plethora of ideas. The hardest thing will be deciding which pattern to use for a cute gnome. You could also just print off a picture of a gnome. Have a fun hot chocolate bar with all the trimmings and read a Christmas book together. Play Christmas charades. Decorate cookie houses or make a Christmas cabin together with icing, cookies, candies, etc... Buy enough battery operated candles so each family member has one. Go caroling in your neighborhood down the sidewalk with a short candlelight procession. Get doughnuts and chocolate milk and drive around town to see the lights. Do relay races in the snow. Build a snowman together. I didn't mention Christmas Eve dinner or lunch because I wanted to share other activities. If you want, make lunch and dinner part of your 12 hour activities (I have before) or just take time to eat during and after your activities. If you have older and younger children, adjust your activities for young and old. You may not get through all the 12 hours depending on when you get up in the morning but make the 12 hours of Christmas work for you. Get your celebration on and make this Christmas Eve nothing short of wonderful! A Few More Pointers For Success Plan ahead for optimum success. This is a no brainer. Ring a bell each hour to signal it's time to gather for the next surprise activity. Be flexible, be patient, and be joyful! If things go array with an activity...don't worry about it. Just try again or scrap it and try something in it's place. Your attitude and outlook is everything so if you are being joyful and happy this will surely spill over onto your family. Choose to have fun. Go out there and try this out. Take mental notes and next year use the successful activities, scrap the ones that didn't work so well and come up with new ones. This is all part of the fun. Merry Christmas you brave Christmas elves and long after Christmas is past, the cherished memories you make with your family will make you smile. You Might Also Like: For a fun hot chocolate bar, make some quick and easy mug rugs ahead of time to give each of your family members to set their mug on. You will find how to's here: Two Easy No Binding Mug Rugs Perfect Christmas Gift Welcome guests by making a festive Christmas wreath to hang on the front door of your home. Here is how Fresh Christmas Wreath For The Front Door How about sewing a quick and easy giant checkerboard to give your children or grandchildren : What Can I Make Out Of Quilt Squares? Quick Sew Woodland Animal Checkerboard Game
