25 Amazing Christmas Traditions for Single Moms

25 amazing Christmas traditions for single moms to make this Christmas season one your children will remember for years to come. Traditions help provide your children with a sense of belonging. Enjoy this Christmas regardless of circumstances.

Single-parent families and Christmas traditions

With custody schedules and the stress of “who gets the kids on holidays” during the Christmas season, single moms may feel like making Christmas traditions is not possible. 

But establishing Christmas traditions doesn’t have to be elaborate, nor do they have to include a large family. 

The best part about Christmas traditions is that they are unique to your family. And there are no rules. If it’s just you and your one child, it’ll be memories your child remembers forever for that exact reason.  

Traditions provide your child with a sense of security and belonging. Check out this list of single-parent-friendly Christmas traditions and see what you can begin this year!

25 Christmas Traditions for Single moms and their kids

1. Read one chapter from the gospel of Luke each day in December. Start on December 1st by Christmas Eve you will have read the whole life of Jesus from birth, death, to resurrection. 

2. Give 12 days of Christmas gifts to select family members or friends. Involve your children from planning to delivery of presents. Giving the 12 days of gifts is my family’s favorite Christmas Tradition. For a ton of ideas on how to pull this off, check it out here. 

3. Spend a night driving through the city looking at Christmas lights and playing Christmas music in the car.

4. Attend Christmas Eve service as a family. 

5. Crank up the music and decorate the tree together. 

6. Go to a tree lighting in your area. Even if you have to drive a little bit to attend, watching an enormous tree light up is always a hit with little ones and magical for older kids as well. 

7. Have each child choose out a new ornament each year for the tree.

8. Bake Christmas sugar cookies and decorate with frosting and sprinkles. One of my favorite Christmas traditions is spending our first snowstorm indoors baking sugar cookies. You can make this easy by having refrigerated cookie dough and a can of frosting ready go. 

Related: How to Survive Your First Holiday as a New Single Mom

9. A super fun tradition your children may never tire of is hosting a Christmas cookie exchange. For years, I baked all the cookies then let my kids attend the exchange with my cookies, but as they got older, we transition to my kids baking cookies and hosting cookie exchanges with their friends. 

10. If you have snow in your area, go sledding even if it’s in your backyard. At the very least, go outside and make snow angels!

11. Give your children Christmas coupons in their stockings. These super popular Christmas coupons are included in my Christmas Mini-Bundle!

12. For one night, invite the kids for a sleepover in front of the Christmas tree and under the lights.

13. Experiment with different red or green (non-alcoholic) Christmas drinks. Then when opening presents, begin a tradition that includes a Christmas drink.

Serve your kids their new Christmas drink in wine glasses with colored sugar around the rim if your kids are past the plastic cup stage. My daughter likes to search through Pinterest and make the drinks herself. It’s an activity older kids can do in the kitchen.

14. Each Christmas morning serve a unique Christmas breakfast. In our family, we eat a Sweedish Tea Ring while opening presents. We only have this twist on cinnamon rolls during Christmastime. 

15. One evening gather the kids with hot chocolate and watch as many Christmas shows, cartoons, and movies as you can. 

16. Give your children the gift of Activity of the Month. You give them 12 envelopes marked with each month of the upcoming year. Inside each envelope is a special date night or activity for you and child to do together. For more 12 days of Christmas ideas, click here.

17. If your church is going caroling at nursing homes, bring your kids along to join. 

18. Hand out cookies, hot chocolate, and warm gloves to the homeless on Christmas Eve. 

19. Give everyone a silly Christmas hat to wear when opening gifts.

20. Let your child be “Santa” and deliver the gifts to each recipient when its time to open presents. If you have more than one child who wants to be “Santa” rotate the duties while the other children are acting as elves. 

21. Buy everyone in the family matching PJs. Let this be a present that is opened early in December, so you all enjoy it throughout the holidays. 

22. Decorate gingerbread houses or men.

23. Unwrap one present on Christmas Eve. Depending on custody schedules, you may need to celebrate Christmas on Christmas Eve. In this case, hold back one gift for Christmas Day. 

24. Reverse advent – put a box under the tree and have kids put a gently used toy in the box each day to donate to someone else.

25. Adopt a family for the holidays. Take your kids with you to shop for the family, then if they’re old enough, have them help you wrap the presents. Share your favorite Christmas traditions for single moms below!

BONUS 26. Throw a birthday party for Jesus! For ideas read this post.

My Christmas Mini-Bundle includes a customizable bucket list (and so much more!) to help you make the most out of your Christmas season!