Tips to Make Christmas Meaningful for Children

If you are looking forward to the festive season, like many families, this can become very much about the giving and receiving of gifts and nothing else! It’s all too easy to lose sight of what Christmas is really about and to instill this into our children. To help with this, Children’s charity Tree of Hope has put together 5 tips for helping make Christmas more meaningful for your Children.

Get children involved with the shopping

Encourage your children to think of ideas for gifts their siblings, grandparents or family members would like. This is a good way to take the focus off them and get them thinking about others. You can even get them helping with the wrapping of the gifts once they have been bought.

Children love to be involved. Being part of the shopping process will get them excited about giving the gift to those they love and it will mean a lot to them.

Focus on their other favourite things about the holidays

If you ask any child what they love most about Christmas the answer is likely to be a resounding ‘presents!’ This is a very special time of the year and there is a lot more to look forward to than just gifts. Talk to your child about what other things they love about the holidays and list a few of your favourite things too.

Whether this is baking, seeing family, watching festive films or just spending time together. Get them to make a list of the other things they love about Christmas other than presents. Encourage your children to think about the ways they enjoy giving at this time of year as well. By doing this, it will help your kids to understand that giving is just as important as receiving particularly at this time of year.

Give back

Getting involved with a charity is one of the best ways to teach your children the art of giving back. Whether you get involved in fundraising, volunteering or donating money or items, there are so many way ways to give back to those less fortunate than yourselves during the holidays. By offering your child the opportunity to see the struggles of others and showing them they can make a real difference, this can ignite the spirit of giving within them.

Chat to your children and pick a charity they would like to help. Together come up with ways they can give back. Do they have old toys they would like to donate? Could they bake something for a bake sale or perhaps take part in a fun run? They may even like to go through the cupboards at home and choose items to donate to a local food bank. Giving to a charity helps children to understand the joy that comes with helping others and expecting nothing in return.

Start a new tradition

Some of our favourite memories centre on a fun tradition that’s totally unique to your family. As the holidays get closer, speak to your children about new traditions they could begin and how that would work. Have they always wanted to try something festive like attending a winter festival or perhaps ice skating? Maybe their friends’ families have a particular tradition they would like to try.

Some families enjoy an evening driving around town looking at decorations and lights, while others might spend the evening volunteering at a shelter. If you can somehow combine the act of giving into your new holiday tradition, it will go a long way to making sure your child looks forward to giving each festive season and also creating memories around doing this.

Have a good deed day

In the run up to the holidays, get the whole family together to take part in a good deed day. Come up with a list of things you’d like to do to help others as a family. This could involve gritting your elderly neighbour’s drive, leaving mince pies you have made yourself for the postman or bringing hot drinks to construction workers or security guards or anyone else who has to work out in the cold.

Coming up with ideas for random acts of kindness and getting your children involved in this will go a long way in creating excitement about giving back, but more importantly, helping them realise how rewarding this can be.