How To Make The Holidays More Exciting

Here are six quick, easy & fun ways to add excitement, surprise & whimsy to your family’s Christmas and holidays.

CanCan Mom’s hundreds of creative Get-to-Do Lists, routines, schedules, and solutions all make motherhood easier and more fun! Recognizing that you “Get To Do” these things because you are blessed to have a family simply reminds you to Interact with love and laughter more often than impatience.

Have fun incorporating my unique Fast & Free Quick Steps into your daily life!

Table of Contents

Moms Crushing It with CanCan Quick Steps

With the holiday season now upon us, instead of feeling overwhelmed by frantic gift-buying at crowded stores, here are six ways to add some excitement, surprise, and whimsy to your family’s holiday season:

Surprise Your Children with Miniature Trees for Their Bedrooms
Surprise Goody Bags for Your Children from an Elf!
Create a Winter Wonderland
Create Sparkling Snow Globes
Personalized Letter or Call from Santa
Incorporate the Sounds of the Season

Make The Holidays Merry and Bright

Tip 1: Surprise Your Children with Miniature Trees

Small 12-inch trees can be found in most craft, discount, or pharmacy stores. Your kids can have fun decorating these trees for their bedrooms any way they like. You can set a small budget for them to spend on ornaments, or they can use art supplies to create their own unique decorations.

the magic of Christmas Trees in a child's bedroom makes the holidays special — Surprise your child with a mini tree for their bedroom. This adds a super magical element to the holidays.

Tip 2: Surprise Goody Bags for Your Children from an Elf!

Grab some of those small party gift bags and create goody bags delivered by elves for your kids.

Put a favorite snack, Christmas cookies, or a Christmas ornament in them—basically anything that will put smiles on their faces. Don’t forget to leave a little bit of “elf dust” (glitter or confetti) next to the bags so your kids’ imaginations can run wild on how they arrived.

In a bigger bag, give a book like The Sweet Smell of Christmas (with scratch and sniff scents inside) —especially fun if grandparents or others are reading to young children through Facetime/Zoom, as scratching and sniffing adds another dimension to the reading experience. Other books to consider are The Very Hungry Caterpillar’s Peekaboo Christmas or The Donkey’s Song: A Christmas Nativity Story

The Sweet Smell of Christmas Book — Delight in the magic of a favorite holiday book such as the Sweet Smell of Christmas.

FOR ADULTS: You can do something similar for your spouse by leaving a surprise invitation in his/her briefcase/car or giving them a sealed card for a romantic dessert called “Naughty or Nice.” Something delicious to enjoy after the kids go to sleep. Ho Ho Ho

Tip 3: Create a Winter Wonderland for the Holidays

Find a corner or nook in your home to create a Winter Wonderland. Gather any large boxes you may have, or visit a local appliance store and ask if you can have some empty boxes for free.

Create a workspace to cut out tall pine trees, large snowmen, reindeer, gingerbread people, etc., and then use poster paint, glitter, buttons, scrapbook paper, white cotton balls or felt, and anything else that you can find to transform these giant cardboard cutouts, along with some twinkle lights, into a dazzling winter display.

Be sure to take photos of your delighted children walking through this Winter Wonderland to share with family and friends.

In fact, be ready to capture the delight on your children’s faces from any or all of these surprises!

Tip 4: Create Sparkling Snow Globes

My grandmother had a gorgeous collection of snow globes. I remember how excited I was as a little girl to visit her during the holidays and admire her collection. I was always mesmerized by the intricate designs inside each globe.

Thanks to the Pioneer Woman’s fantastic reference, 18 DIY Snow Globes That Are Perfect for the Winter Season, it’s super easy to create your own festive snow globes for the holidays. You can even make a few extras to share as personalized gifts.

Snow Globes make the holidays magical. — Have your family make snowglobes this holiday season. They’re festive and can remain a sacred keepsake.

Tip 5: A Personalized Letter or Call from Santa

Several websites, such as Santaclausewrites.com, will customize a letter for your child, complete with a stamp from the North Pole. Free sites such as freelettersfromsantaclaus.com also have a magical option!

For a more immediate effect, call Santa:

One friend has her father disguise his voice to sound like Santa. If her young son is doing kind and helpful things, she calls Santa, who reminds the son that Santa appreciates all the nice things he’s doing.

Santa then congratulates him on being good and on the Nice List.

Works like a charm! Good behavior is something kids want to show, especially when they’re caught being good.

Tip 6: Incorporate the Sounds of the Season

We always play holiday music in our home, but only overnight from Christmas Eve through Christmas Day. There is something enchanting about waking in the middle of the night and hearing the theme from The Nutcracker drifting throughout the house. It’s also wonderful to wake up to music on Christmas morning and the excited squeals from children!

This tradition is still going strong—and now my kids even remind me to leave the music playing as we head to bed on Christmas Eve.

How do you add excitement, surprise, and whimsy to your family’s Christmas? For all kinds of mom-centered creative ideas, visit me on Instagram at CanCanMomCB or on Pinterest at theCanCanMom. If you have questions or suggestions, email me at cheryl@cancanmom.com or leave a comment in the box below.