Christmas Eve Box Tradition and Ideas
What Is the Christmas Eve Box?
Our Family Christmas Eve Box Tradition
This is now 2025, and a lot has changed over the years — we officially have three married kids and three grandkids — but we still do essentially the same Christmas Eve tradition. If anything, it’s become even more special as our family has grown.
Several years ago, I decided I really wanted to start some meaningful Christmas traditions with my family. Traditions are such a big part of what makes holidays feel special and memorable! Today I’m sharing one of our favorite traditions, the Christmas Eve Box, along with lots of Christmas Eve Box ideas that the entire family — kids and adults — can enjoy together.
After we spend the evening with my family eating soup bowls and singing our favorite Christmas songs, our little family heads home to enjoy our own Christmas Eve time together. For years we did the traditional Christmas Eve pajamas, but eventually I decided to mix things up a bit with a Christmas Eve Box.
As a kid, I was always begging my parents to let us open a present early — so why not make it a tradition? A Christmas Eve Box is a fun way for the family to open something together and enjoy simple, meaningful activities the night before Christmas. You can wrap everything inside if you want, or simply place the items unwrapped in one big box.
Where Do You Get the Christmas Eve Box?
You can use whatever you want to hold the items — a bag, box, basket, or chest. It doesn’t even have to be the same container every year. If you want something durable that can be reused year after year, a Bankers Box works great. Just reinforce the seams with tape and wrap it in festive Christmas paper.
Christmas Eve Box Ideas
You can include as little or as much as you’d like. If there’s already a Christmas Eve activity your family loves, add it to the box! My goal has always been to include items we can enjoy together that very evening. I also like to include something new or surprising, plus at least one Christ-centered item to remind us what Christmas is really about.
Nativity Set
My kids have treasured the little nativity sets we’ve collected over the years. It’s always fun pulling them out again and rediscovering them — sometimes it feels brand new all over again. You can find lots of cute nativity sets for kids here.
Family Christmas Movie and Popcorn
Choose a family favorite or try something new! There are so many great Christmas movies to pick from. One year we watched Christmas with the Kranks for the first time and loved it — it was also a fun reminder of life before constant screens and smartphones. This year I’m thinking about The Man Who Invented Christmas.
Card Games, Board Games, or a Family Puzzle
We love playing games together, especially during the holidays. Some of our family favorites include Headbanz, Spot It, and Telestrations. We also love working on a big puzzle together during Christmas break.
A Christmas Book
Every year or so, we add a new Christmas book to our collection. Some longtime favorites include The Polar Express, Room for a Little One, and a recordable storybook my parents made years ago that we still treasure.
Christmas Pajamas or Cozy Blankets
New pajamas or blankets are always a hit! You can find great deals at Amazon, Old Navy, Kohl’s, or Walmart. One year we gifted fuzzy blankets instead of pajamas — they’ve been used nonstop and don’t get outgrown.
More Meaningful (and Budget-Friendly) Christmas Eve Box Ideas
One of my favorite things about this tradition is how flexible it is — you don’t have to buy all new items every year. In fact, some of the best ideas use things you already have at home:
- Raid what you already own: Pull out Legos and challenge the family to build a Lego Christmas tree together. Grab mugs from the kitchen, throw blankets from the closets, or cozy socks and pillows for a comfy night in.
- Snow-day fun: Add gloves for a snowball fight and toss in a bag of marshmallows just in case it doesn’t snow.
- Movie & video playlists: If you use Netflix or another streaming service, bookmark a couple family-friendly Christmas movies ahead of time. YouTube is also great for classic cartoons or narrated Christmas stories everyone can enjoy together.
- Story time: Print classic stories like The Night Before Christmas or The Gift of the Magi and take turns reading aloud — or listen to a narrated version together.
- Homemade coupons: These are always a hit and cost nothing! Ideas include skipping chores for a day, choosing the next movie night, staying up an extra hour, or requesting a favorite meal.
- DIY cookie decorating kit: Bake plain cookies ahead of time, then include frosting, colored sugar, sprinkles, mini chocolate chips, or small candies to decorate together.
- Craft or ornament kits: Make ornaments, do origami, paint handprints, or create simple keepsakes together. One year we even made tiny books to decorate and hang on the tree.
- Christmas photo booth: Cut out Santa hats, beards, or elf ears from poster board and tape them to sticks. A cheap Christmas tablecloth makes a fun backdrop.
- Simple, inexpensive fun: Things like play dough, silly putty, flashlights, slinkies, or card games are easy crowd-pleasers.
- Party favor packs: Dollar stores often sell sets with multiple small toys — perfect if you have a lot of kids or grandkids.
A Fun Twist: The “Ugliest Gift” Tradition
One reader shared a tradition I absolutely love — instead of opening a regular gift on Christmas Eve, their family opens the ugliest or tackiest gift they can find. The rule? It has to be ugly! It’s all about laughter, not liking the gift, and it sounds like such a fun way to spend Christmas Eve together.
I hope you can take this idea and adapt it to fit your own family. It’s such a simple way to slow down, create memories, and focus on what really matters during the holiday season.
Share your favorite Christmas traditions in the comments!
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On Christmas Eve we always have homemade soup in “soup bowls” (huge bread bowls) – veggie cheese and clam chowder. Yum!! I’m LOVING this Christmas Eve box idea!
I’ve heard of people doing soup and it sounds especially great with bread bowls! Too bad my little guys won’t even eat soup.
Put spaghetti in bread bowls, fun to eat out of and sauce soaks into the bread. Slice bread, top with cheese and air fryer for a quick snack
That is the BEST idea! Thank you for sharing.
this is brilliant!!! and it gets rid of the “was this the Christmas Eve gift” dilemma! (one year my sister opened pj’s, and I opened a 6 pack of DVD’S!)
Ha ha. Good point!
We do something similar to the Christmas Eve Box, however each member of the family gets their own box which includes for the kids :new Pj’s, a stuffed toy, and slippers or robe. The adults would get new pj’s and popcorn and family movie or book.
We also order Chinese food 🙂
Traditions are great! And so is Chinese. 🙂
Such fun ideas Melanie. We do the Christmas Eve soup tradition and I think your Christmas Box will be a smashing success with my family. Thanks and Merry Christmas.
Thanks!
We always do the PJ thing. It is nice to have the kids wake up Christmas morning in new pjs instead of old raggedy ones. Love the idea of family and Christ centered activities! Gives you something to keep everyone engaged when eagerly awaiting Christmas day!
So true!
This year I decided to do this too. I’m putting pajamas, hot chocolate, snacks and a Christmas movie in my kid’s boxes this year. Does anyone have any other cheap ideas of what to add? I have 6 kid’s so I’m trying to be frugal! 🙂
One of the beauties of doing one box for the family is that you don’t have to have an item for each kid. It can just be a few things that the whole family can use together. 🙂 It sounds like you have a great box put together for this year!
But, yes, I’d love to hear of some more frugal ideas too!
Puzzles or coloring books and crayons or deck of cards or crossword puzzles or other game books depends on the age of kids.
Here are a ton of ideas:
Use stuff you already have: Raid their toy boxes for Legos so the family can try to build a Lego Christmas tree together. Raid the kitchen for mugs. Raid the closets for throw blankets, cushy socks, pillows, etc.
Put in gloves for a snowball fight, and a bag of marshmallows in case it doesn’t snow.
If you do Netflix or a similar service, you could bookmark a couple movies. I like to watch YouTube videos of classic cartoons from the Betty Boop era, lol, so I make a playlist of those to watch.
YouTube also has narrated story videos, so you can all enjoy having a story read to you. You could also find christmas stories on the net, like gift of the magi, or the night before Christmas, and either read from your phone/computer, or print them off and pass them around, letting everyone take turns telling the story.
I like to make coupons, things like: get out of chores for one day, valid for one trip to the park, good for one movie night, or I will prepare your favorite meal, or this coupon entitles the bearer to stay up one hour late (valid one night only, coupon must surrendered upon redemption, lol). It can be really fun and free.
You can also make a diy cookie decorating kit, make plain cookies, make some colored frosting, and tint some sugar with food coloring. You can even include store bought sprinkles, mini chocolate chips, or little candies.
Similarly, you could together a craft or ornament kit, so the family could make ornaments together, or do origami together, paint handprints. One year, we made tiny books to hang on the tree, and the kids got to decorate inside the little books.
Or you could put together Christmas themed photo booth props- cut shapes out poster board or construction paper, like a Santa hat, a beard, elf ears, etc. decorate them with markers/paint/etc, and glue or tape to a stick. If you want a special backdrop, you could hang a Christmas tablecloth (the cheap plastic $1 kind).
Cheap store bought items- slinky, play dough or silly putty, a flashlight, card games.
Also, party favor sets are great for when you have a lot of kids. Most dollar tree or everything for a dollar type stores carry them, they usually have at least 6 in a set, and it’s usually little toy or game type trinkets.
And I second the family gift idea, as mentioned before. It really helps cut costs, but it also helps to create a sense of togetherness, when the kids all work together to open and empty the biggest cardboard box I could find, lol. And the gifts tend to promote family bonding, because a lot of them are meant to be shared. Well, except for the pajamas of course, lol.
Anyway, I hope something here helps anyone who comes along looking for frugal Christmas Eve box ideas. Merry Christmas!!!!
Those are amazing ideas!! What a great plan!
We do pajamas or sweatpants, a special treat not normally in the house (fancy box of choc covered pretzels this year & big gourmet candy canes) and a new family game.
Love it. We usually get a game for Christmas too.
We’ve lived away from our families since starting our own. I tried to hang on to traditions I grew up with but they just didn’t work. So years ago I started the tradition of buying new pjs and a new ornament for each kid. They love it! And they hang the new ornament on the tree that night. that used to be the only gifts we let them open, but we decided to let them open extended family gifts too because it was too overwhelming to have so many things on Christmas day. I love the soup idea, we normally do finger foods but soup seems simpler and healthier.
We would always get to open one present on Christmas Eve. It was always pajamas but that didn’t really ruin the fun. When we were really little, we would get a pair of new tights to go with our Christmas dresses. We were pretty easy to please.
Last year we made a box (my daughter and me) for her boys with P.J.’s, a movie, popcorn and a letter from Elf of the Shelf about leaving for the year…..
Cute
Oh we do something SO much better. We do Christmas baskets on Christmas Eve BUT we give them away! First we load them with Christmas items, goodies, mugs , socks or winter hats, decorations, movies etc. that we have bought on special offer in the run-up to Christmas then we PRAY that God would lead us to the houses of people who need them and we drive around the less affluent neighborhoods until one of the kids says ‘THAT house/trailer!’ then they jump out (wearing their Santa hats) and put the basket on the doorstep and run away quick. SO fun for them to play at being Santa and hopefully, bless someone else too. Then we go home, put on new PJs – yes we do that too and read the Christmas story together before putting out our stockings and going to bed.
Love it!
My parents are divorced, so we separate the celebrations. We have a big Christmas dinner at my house with my siblings and my mother. We open gifts with them. Then, we are doing a family box with PJ’s for everyone, a family DVD, popcorn, hot chocolate, candy canes, and a family game. Then, on Christmas day, we are able to have lunch at my father’s house. We get to do a big meal with each, and the kids get to do presents several times.
Lots of celebrating and lots of family! Can’t go too wrong with that, right?
There has been a tradition in my family since I was in High School. Growing up we always open 1 gift on Christmas Eve, at some point we switch to having @Ugliest gift on Christmas Eve. It was the best cause we would all laugh at each other’s gift. It didn’t matter if we liked it or not, it HAD to be ugly or very tacky! Best was to spend Christmas Eve, laughing with family!!!
That’s an awesome tradition! 😀
I like this plan so much, as well as all of your ideas for what to put in the box. We are heading to Australia that year so it will be a small difficult and my daughter is only 2, but I think we might start the tradition next year.
Sounds like a good plan! Thank you!