With young children, you’ll want to find as many ways to include the entire family in preparing for and celebrating Christmas. The trick can be finding ways to include young ones in a safe and non-exasperating way!

Decorate the Tree Together
Give up your particular ways and leave the glass ornaments in storage. Buy bright, plastic or fabric ornaments and let your children help decorate the tree. You can always move the large number of low hanging ornaments up higher after little ones have gone to bed, and your tree might not win any decorating contests, but it will be the source of many memories – be sure to take pictures.

Decorate Christmas Cookies
Children closer to their preschool years can help roll and cut cookies out, but older babies and young toddlers can help decorate the cookies as well. Make a batch of Christmas sugar cookies. When they are cool, spread a thin layer of icing on the cookies and let your little ones enjoy playing with sprinkles, chocolate candies and other goodies as they make the cookies look creative and lovely in their own way.

Buy Gifts
Children are easily taken in by the thought of receiving gifts at Christmas time, so you should make a conscious effort from very early on to show your child how much fun it is to buy gifts for others. Young children do have trouble keeping a secret, however, so you would do well to buy the gifts immediately before the big event.