One of our Mad House traditions carried over from my own childhood is new night wear on Christmas Eve so that we always look smart in the photo’s on Christmas Eve.
Christmas Eve is a magical time, full of excitement and awe and we have a Christmas Eve party each year with my best Friend and her four boys, so it is a wonderful time in The Mad House.
For the last five years or so the boys have been given a mini hamper on Christmas Eve Morning for things to see them throughout the day.
What is in a Christmas Eve Hamper?
- New Nightwear, this year the boys have pyjamas and slippers both gifted by Next
- Reindeer Food to sprinkle just before bed outside for the reindeers
- Snowman Soup to enjoy a mug of to help them go to sleep
- A new book each for bedtime reading
- An activity or game. When the boys were younger we were real fans of giving them some Christmas Scented Play Dough (Nurturestore has a great recipe). Now they are bigger they are getting a board game to play.
- Family movie – usually whatever Christmas movie is out to add to our Advent box. If you are looking for a recommendation then the boys LOVED The Nut Job
Over the years the boys have had new DVD’s, jigsaws, puzzle books, colouring books, video games. This is to keep them occupied whilst we prepare the veg etc for Christmas Day and also the food and party games for our Christmas Eve Party.
We also have a great book that comes out year after year called The Pajama Elves 
Names have been changed to protect the not so innocent mnimads!
I made the boys special small sacks five years ago, which Elfred Jingles (out Elf) leaves on Christmas Eve morning when he leaves to go back to the North Pole. However, they will be getting their Christmas Eve gifts in this fab personalised Sack from Next, which instead of scratchy sacking is made from super soft chenille!
I love it, MadDad is always off on Christmas Eve and it is a real family occasion. We don’t visit relatives at all, in fact it is a time for us to spend together and with our friends who we love dearly.
Do you have Christmas Eve gifts or traditions?
We also invite you to join us and welcome you to come and link up crafts, recipes, activities for kids and adults for the Christmas Season helping to provide ideas for a Creative Christmas this year.
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Co hosted by Blue Bear Wood ~ Milk, Crafts & Honesty ~ The Sensory Seeker ~ Rainy Day Mum ~ My Little 3 and Me ~ The Gingerbread House ~ Adventures of Adam ~ The Mad House
What absolutely gorgeous things to wake up to on Christmas day. I love the idea of the hampers. We always feel a little left out at this time of year because we don’t celebrate Christmas. But we do have some lovely Chanukah traditions and we love it when everyone is in a festive mood, whatever their religion! Hope you have a lovely time.
I love this idea of Christmas Eve traditions. I read a blog post recently where a woman bundles her kids into the car in their PJs with hot chocolate to drive round the neighbourhood and look at the xmas lights on Christmas Eve… mind you that was in the US and they do do lights a bit better than us!
We love our Christmas Eve boxes, I’ll be writing about them this week so I’ll add a link to yours in too x x
We’ve never done anything like this. I’m not sure what we do on Christmas Eve!
I love this idea, I think its such a good idea to have a Christmas Eve hamper, wish someone would make me one 😉
Do you live in my house?! Ha ha! We call it the NBC Box (because it likely ends in popcorn warfare). I also get them a family gift to play together – the other year I made the mistake of getting a train for the tree – they were so hyped up at bedtime it was a disaster for me! We just bought the pyjama elves book, I hope we love it as much as you! Merry Christmas 🙂
I might do this with the kids when they are older and Santa doesn’t have its magic anymore
It’s nice to have our own Christmas traditions. We always make party food and snuggle up together in the afternoon with a Christmas film on and the fire roaring away. I don’t do Christmas Eve hampers though – my children get enough surprises the following day!
I love the idea of new pyjamas on Christmas Eve! Our traditions mainly involve food – like eating gingerbread!!
This year I changed our Christmas Eve box to an Advent box as it was packed with too many things to squeeze in on Christmas Eve!
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Such a fab tradition! It’s one we do too – and one I hope we carry on to do even once my little bird has flown the nest!
What a lovely idea! I started buying the children new pyjamas a couple of years ago but I’ve not put together a hamper yet. I’ve always thought that they were more for older children that were going to stay up later with a DVD and snacks and so on, I’d never thought of making one with activities for them to do during the day!
This is handy to see what type of things I can put into Adam’s Christmas Eve Box as he gets older!
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What a great tradition. We always have Christmas dinner on Christmas Eve. This year we are going to the Abbey in the evening too.