Christmas Eve Boxes 2019

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Ah, our tradition continues for the third year 🙂 I always loved the idea of Christmas Eve Boxes, of building the excitement for the big day, of having a special little something the night before. Every year the Christmas Eve Boxes contain two distinct items and one or two additional items that change every year. In this shorter blog post, I am going to be talking about what are in our boxes this year.

Starting with our two standard items…

Christmas Pajamas. This is a staple and one that I absolutely love. We usually stay in our pajamas halfway through the day on Christmas Day (we’ll see about this year as we are opening up our home to others) and I love the whole idea of matching pajamas. My husband hates this idea, so he passes (he actually passes on the whole Christmas Eve box as a general rule), but me and the boys get something either matching or coordinating. I try to keep these more “winter”, less Christmas and this year our Let it Snow shirts are my favorite!

A special Christmas Eve Book. This is the other staple of our Christmas Eve Boxes. I LOVED the tradition in Iceland of sharing a book on Christmas Eve and then staying up late into the night reading your book. The moment I heard about this, I knew I wanted to incorporate it into our Christmas Eve (Jolabokaflod-which has an interesting history, see my Social Media tomorrow for that!). The boys get to stay up a little later and we do a movie watch, so I figured adding a book into the boxes was perfect and so far, they’ve loved it! I try to pick the book that fits into what they’ve been liking the year leading up to it and try to keep it with Christmas. This year Colton is getting a dinosaur one, Andrew is getting a train one, and I am getting a collection of three Capote stories.

A special gift. This year we are attempting something a little different for the special gift. Last year I gave them a little plushy animal, but this year we are doing mugs. I picked up these two adorable toddler sized mugs that are customized for each boy (with dinosaurs!) to include their names and then one for me as well. The hope is that we will make hot cocoa that evening, and all enjoy it in our mugs. Not sure how this will actually go, but I’m crossing my fingers for it going well.

And that’s all in our Christmas Eve boxes! I was thinking about putting a little match box set of cars, but they got those for St. Nicholas day, and we are doing quite a bit more than normal for Christmas and Birthday’s this year, so I figure this will be fine. As always, we will be watching How the Grinch Stole Christmas, A Charlie Brown Christmas and reading our books on Christmas Eve.

Do you have any Christmas Eve traditions?

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Christmas Eve Boxes

I’m really open about the fact that we don’t do a lot presents wide for Christmas (neither for ourselves or for our children). My husband and I “exchange” gifts every other year and we do around 4 gifts for the children. I talked about this last year (you can find my post HERE). I have always been someone who prefers to focus more on the traditions aspects. Things that we do/enjoy that we can continue to do as the years go on and we all grow older.

One of those things we have done for the past couple years (since having kids) is Christmas Eve Boxes. This isn’t a novel concept or anything really extraordinary, but it’s something light and fun that we have come to love year after year (or rather the now 3 years we’ve done it lol). The boxes are filled with just a couple items- items that they would have been receiving regardless, but now given with a small yearly tradition.

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The boxes are gift boxes (different every year) that they come out from nap (or quiet) time in the afternoon on Christmas Eve. The boxes contain a similar items every year:

Christmas Pajamas: They get a new set every year (I try to match them for all of us), and while these ones aren’t Santa centered I still felt like they were cute.

A Book: I think this might be my favorite part of the box. I really love the concept they have in Iceland of exchanging a book on Christmas Eve. The idea of staying up all night reading a book by candle and Christmas Tree/Decoration Light in Christmas pajamas just makes me sing with joy. My boys love and obsess over the books they get every year.

A Sweet Treat: (Not Pictured) This is typically chocolate or cookies and it’s a nice little treat to have. We don’t do too much candy or junk food in the house, so it makes the evening feel even more special that they get to have something fun.

One Last Thing: This year they’re getting a special little addition in their boxes that they don’t (or won’t in the future) typically get. Since we are moving and keeping Christmas small and these little guys were introduced this year, I figured it would be a fun little thing to add in. Those items are little baby Nifflers! If you don’t know this about me, I am a die hard Harry Potter fan, which extends to just about anything in the HP World/Universe. When Fantastic Beasts came out, I fell in love with the Niffler. He is hands down one of my favorites and now we’ve got little baby Nifflers with the second installment. Barnes & Nobles had these, so I figured I would scoop them up for the boys (and one for me as well since I’m secretly a kid at heart).

Outside the Box: The last thing isn’t really in their boxes, but is placed just above them and that is the movie that we will watch that evening. We watch How The Grinch Stole Christmas every year on Christmas Eve, but sometimes there may be a short film or TV Short Film (think Trolls Christmas from last year type thing) that we will watch in between as well. If there is that, it will be included with the box.

The boxes are fun for the boys as a little precursor to the fun that is in store and it’s also just everything that we need to have a cosy night at home. As they grow older I hope that we can continue this tradition on. I have also included the “adult” version of this…aka my own Christmas Jams and the book that I plan on reading Christmas Eve into Christmas Day.

Do you have any fun Christmas Eve traditions? Do you do the Christmas Eve Boxes?

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