12 Fun Christmas Traditions to Celebrate This Holiday

Thanksgiving has just passed and now we’re looking forward to Christmas and more. It’s a wonderful time of year because the weather is chilly, making a day indoors with a good book next to the fire quite enjoyable. Or snow comes through and it is time to bundle up and build a snowman or throw some snowballs.  Families all over the world have their traditions and make new ones every year. It’s a great time to take pictures of family gatherings, little ones opening presents, baby’s first Christmas, and so many other wonderful memories to hold on to. Nixplay Seed is a great digital photo frame that captures those memories and plays them throughout the year in your home or on the go. Here are 12 fun Christmas traditions to celebrate this holiday and all year on your Nixplay Seed.

• Xmas Eve

Christmas Eve is always a wonderful time and many families do different things. A great tradition is to have a certain food every Xmas Eve. We have potato soup every year and open all our presents. Some families only open a single present on Christmas Eve and save the rest for the morning. But, keep the tradition going by having the same food and take a picture of the kids each year to see how much the kids have grown. Make a slideshow of the year to play during Christmas Eve.

• Who’s Santa

When it’s time to open gifts, a free for all can be chaos and it isn’t very personal or enjoyable. We have always assigned a “Santa” who sits next to the tree and passes out the gifts. We used to alternate “Santa” each year until we forgot who did it the year before. So, now we just pull it out of a hat or draw straws.

• Caroling tag

This is a fun one and it tests your knowledge of Christmas songs. Someone starts singing a carol and sings a line or two. They then tag someone and that person continues where the other left off. Continue until the carol is over and then begin another. You can do the same with a story. Begin a Christmas tale of your own and each new person tagged adds a new part of the story, kind of like Live Christmas Ad-Libs.

• Decorating Duties

Each year, the tree is the center of the home and so beautiful to view at night with the family. Decorating the tree can be chaotic too. You can assign “decorating duties” to the kids, like Timmy is in charge of tinsel, Lucy checks the lights, and Ollie is in charge of ornaments. It adds more structure and also gets everyone involved. Our family always plays old Christmas music by Perry Como and the like on vinyl.

• Snow Treats

If you don’t live near snow, you’ll just have to improvise. Growing up, we always looked forward to the second snow, because the first was “dirty.” As soon as it snowed, we would run outside in our PJ’s and grab huge bowls of snow to make ice cream. It’s easy to make, just add a bit of milk, sugar, and vanilla extract to the snow, stir and freeze for a few minutes. Our mother had a ton of pictures of us in our nighties, freezing our tushes off, just to get some snow. Now, she can scan those photos into her computer and shoot them over to her Nixplay Seed and embarrass us all year long!

• Light Wager

Every year, there is always a ton of lights to untangle and of course, some bulbs that need to be replaced. Make it a little more fun and put a wager on it. Have everyone write down the number of bulbs that will need to be replaced and the person closest wins a prize, or gets to put the tree topper on. It’s a great way to make a tedious task a bit more interesting.

• Sledding

When we were kids, we didn’t always have enough sleds for everyone to ride down the hills. We had to be a bit creative and find something else that worked. If there was enough snow, we would use plastic garbage bags or old sleeping bags, tent covers, or anything smooth that we didn’t need any longer. It was a fun game to see who’s “sled” would last longest or go the fastest.

• Snowball Fight

With snow just around the corner, it’s time to plan and make a strategy for the next snowball fight. Treat it like a game, assign teams, claim a home base, and compete to an ultimate goal. If you aren’t lucky enough to have a snowball fight, a good ol’ fashioned mud brawl is a great (but dirty) way to have the same kind of fun.

• Secret Santa

Each Christmas isn’t always the same. Sometimes money can be tight and getting numerous gifts for everyone just isn’t I the cards. That is when “Secret Santa” is a great solution. Have the whole family put their names in a hat and draw for names to see who you will give a gift to. You can always set a limit for the numbers of gifts that are given as well as a budget to abide by. It’s helps to make the gifts more thoughtful and personal. But, keeping the secret can sometimes be a challenge!

• Advent Stockings

Almost everyone has hear of an Advent Calendar that counts the days until Christmas. Put a new spin on it and use stocking. For each day in the countdown, have a stocking with a little surprise in it. Maybe it is a batch of cookies, a few little toys, or something more sentimental like an old photograph of a family member or an inspirational quote. It’s a great idea to also write a gratitude list to add to the stockings each day instead of pulling something out.

• Xmas Puzzle

A little like the Advent idea, this is to help with the countdown to Christmas that makes kids and adults anxious. Start a Christmas themed puzzle on December 1^st and work on it each day up until December 25^th. It will keep everyone excited each day, challenge them to finish it, and helps with kids focus and memory. It’s a win-win-win! Take a picture of the puzzle each day and upload it to your WiFi Cloud Nixplay to show the progress in a slide show.

• Donating and volunteering

Not everyone is blessed with a large family, a warm home, or gifts to open on Christmas. Help everyone to remember the true meaning of Christmas and, as a family, donate gifts to the needy, volunteer at a senior center, take the pups for a walk at the shelter, or make some treats for neighbors or give canned good to a food drive. Love and caring are gifts that keep giving for both the receiver and giver.

Christmas is a huge holiday and there are so many wonderful ways to celebrate. There are other holidays aside from Christmas that are celebrated in many other ways too. All of them are beautiful, exciting, and send the message of love, joy, and happiness. Taking pictures of all the big events, like Christmas, helps to capture memories that will never happen again. Take pictures of everything because you won’t get those memories back.

Using the Nixplay App on your phone, you can take pictures from anywhere you visit for Christmas and upload them to your Nixplay Seed. You can even create and organize you photo albums for easy access. It’s easy to set up your slideshows with the App and you can visit Nixplay.com to set up your photo account there too.

I gave a Nixplay Seed to my parents, and after showing them the easy steps to set it up, my Mama was stoked to start building her playlists. Even my Pops, who is not computer savvy by any means, was able to get online and make his own slideshows. Now, they have found a way to play their slideshows randomly. My Pops likes to sneak late night snacks and sometimes bumps into stuff in the dark.

The Nixplay Seed has “Hu-motion detection” and turns on once it senses human movement. It can be set for a certain time limit to be on and then will shut off automatically. The only thing I would change is to put a strip of Velcro on the remote and back of the frame to insure the remote doesn’t get lost.

Ironically enough, I took a picture of my parents playing with the Nixplay and now it’s on their slide show. I love to see them happy and now I can share that photo to my own Nixplay frame and see their smiling faces even when I’m hours away. I can send them photos to their frame, so they don’t miss a thing that happens with the grandkids either. Because, as we know, Christmas is a huge time of year and many memories and traditions are being made and enjoyed. There is the Raclette Grill that gets the whole crew together to cook and build their own appetizers! Want to know more and get some recipes? Just click here to check out Raclette Grill Recipes!

This post was made possible by Nixplay and written by me. Any and all comments and opinions are 100% my own.