The fun christmas traditions for couples post was originally published in December 2013 and updated in December 2021.
Keep reading to see more fun Christmas traditions for couples!
UPDATE: This post has been so wildly popular that I did a whole poll of my blog readers, The “Lovies” and asked to hear YOUR FAVORITE Christmas traditions. I added all 30+ ideas to this new blog post on Christmas Traditions from before Christmas up until Christmas Day.
Pressure. Sometimes that’s what comes to mind when you think of starting new traditions as a newlywed. You’ve always had your own traditions with your family for the holidays and your husband has always had his own traditions. In a season with a lot of hype behind it and perfectly wrapped gifts, as well as a million Pinterest crafts that your neighbor seems to whip out with no problem, the pressure becomes real. Let me rest your mind and help you figure out how to start new traditions for your new family unit of two!
How to Start New Christmas Traditions for Couples:
- Give up on perfect. It just doesn’t happen regardless of how much your friends, family, and neighbors are fooling you with their Instagram or Facebook photos.You don’t have to do every traditional thing your family did and his family did before. Figure out what’s comfortable for you.
- Hang onto what’s important. If you know your husband loves Peanut Butter Blossom Cookies (speaking from experience here), choose to still make those for him so it feels special and he knows you thought of him, perfect way to start your new Christmas Traditions for couples. If your family always goes together to the Christmas Eve service, go together with all family members if possible!
- Sit down and talk about what’s important before the week of Christmas! If you aren’t aware Christmas doesn’t feel like Christmas to your hubs without him seeing A Charlie Brown Christmas, you won’t know it bothers him when you decide to watch Pretty Little Liars on Hulu instead of watching it with him! Each of you should take a moment and talk about what things you love to do each holiday season to make sure you can fit in those things that are most important.
- Let it happen! Seriously, the planner in me sometimes has to be reminded to just let the natural things occur. If it turns out that you end up eating leftover pizza for Christmas breakfast and it sticks, well guess what?, that’s awesome! Because it’s something unique to you two and builds a memory and something to pass down to your children one day.
Some of my personal favorite Christmas traditions for couples or families:
-Going to get our Real tree as a couple and decorating it while listening to Christmas music, OBVIOUSLY! This was actually one of our first disagreements! Should we go real or fake? Luckily, I won him over. 😉
-Christmas Eve service with the family we’re with that year. My in-law’s live in Indiana. My family lives here in Birmingham, AL.
-Our new tradition is eating Chinese food after Christmas Eve service since the one we like is one of the few restaurants open this night. In Indiana, we do appetizers after the service.
-Random act of kindness: Whether it be something simple like leaving a quarter in the Aldi buggy holder or collecting cans in your neighbors for the needy, it really gets you in the spirit!
-Getting ornaments from the places we travel or ornaments that have our life events from the year to go on our tree. It’s like a scrapbook coming to life in the form of your Christmas tree!
-Christmas Date Night: Getting coffee and driving around while listening to Christmas music looking at lights in Homewood. You can see my post about it here.
-Watching a Charlie Brown Christmas (the hubs’ favorite) and The Grinch.
-Eating my momma’s cornbread dressing, sweet potato casserole, and having a coconut cake on Christmas Day! When my nanna was able to, she used to bake a regular coconut cake and then a mini one we used as Jesus’ birthday cake!
-Baking cookies and fudge with my mom and sister and serving the hubs his favorite ones.
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*And don’t let all the trivial things get in the way! At the end of the day, if you have no new Christmas traditions for couples that’s ok too! The most important thing about that day has already been accomplished 2,000 years ago when Jesus was born!
Your turn! What are your favorite Christmas traditions for couples?
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Don’t miss my NEW Christmas Traditions for Family post or our FAVORITE CHRISTMAS COOKIES RECIPE!
One of my tips would be to not be tied to something just because “it’s tradition.” Do something out of love, not obligation. My favorite Christmas memory is when Santa comes to the neighborhood onthe fire truck and passing out Christmas stockings.
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Such a good point, Cate! I completely agree. That is fun. Love a jolly santa and what little kids don’t think fire trucks are fascinating?!
I love this post! We live pretty close to my family, so we always go down there on Christmas Eve so we can wake up early Christmas morning and watch my younger siblings open presents. This will probably be the last year for that though (the littlest is turning 10… yeah huge age difference between us!)
Author
Oh, so fun! I love that. Those are the best memories for me…sleeping with my sister on Christmas eve so we could wake up together to go run and see what Santa got us! 🙂
I love your “driving around to see the lights” tradition – we used to do that, but now we live in a smaller town and there aren’t as many lights to see. So sad!
I love this post! I am all about family traditions this time of year–it makes it so much more special. We always open one gift on Christmas Eve with delicious food and Christmas music playing!
Such great ideas and we started doing similar ones too since we started dating last year 🙂
Such a fun post!! Great tips and ideas! One of our favorite traditions is to exchange our gifts to eachother at midnight on Christmas Eve. This is especially beloved now that we have children…gives us our quiet moment!
This is so sweet, and I love the traditions y’all have! It’s fun to see how different families have come together and have such different things they do for the season… makes me happy. My family, we’ve always baked TONS of cookies (and I have continued on in this vein with my annual Christmas Cookie Week on the blog.) When I get home on Friday, we’ll bake and cook a ton of food, as well as just relax and enjoy our time together. Like y’all, we go to the Christmas Eve service every year, and my family generally hosts friends on Christmas Eve after the service.
I hope y’all have a wonderful holiday and that you soak in the time you have with your loved ones!
I love your tips! I’ve been married 11 yes and we still dont have our own traditions. This will be 1 year, we arent celebrating at someone elses home or are a part of another family members festivities so these are great tips to finally begin our own traditions.
Ours is having family over and playing games like Scattegories. Sounds silly but it is so much fun and now that the kids are older they can play. Opening presents and eating and being together is nice but sitting around playing games and laughing so hard you might pee on yourself is the best tradition we have and I love it!
I LOVE THIS! I am newly engaged and trying to figure out what to do this christmas to make things extra special. Thank you for sharing this! You have officially just snagged me as a follower :)I would love if you check out my blog as well!
http://neatly-packaged.blogspot.com
We have been married four years and we’ve started opening our gifts to one another at midnight Christmas Eve.
Ornaments from where we’ve traveled is my favorite! And then I don’t have to keep knickknacks out all year long too 🙂 Cute list and cute couple!
These are great traditions! One of mine is making Hungarian Nut Rolls, a family recipe that my grandma makes every year. (I’d just eat hers if we lived on the same side of the continent).
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WOw, that sounds incredible. 🙂 How sweet. Thanks for sharing!
12 dates of Christmas, me and my significant other try to go on 12 unique dates, with the final one being Christmas Eve Mass. They can be big, like going out to a new restaurant, or small, like watching Christmas movies drinking Cocoa. We try to take a polaroid picture during each date, and we later put all of them into a scrapbook describing each date. It’s a ton of fun and allows us to look back at all the fun we had since our first Christmas together!
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This is so unique! Thanks for sharing it, Ryan!