Keeping Christmas Traditions Alive With Your Teens

Christmas was such a fun time when my three kids were little tykes. We did so many wonderful things together as a family during the Christmas season. Watching “A Charlie Brown Christmas” on television, frosting cookies and driving around looking at Christmas lights were favorites.

We’ve always had a real Christmas tree, so stomping around a tree farm looking for the perfect one to cut was a highlight. It got even better when we arrived home and pulled out the Christmas ornament boxes. I remember lots of little hands trying to hang ornaments all over the tree.

We had special Christmas books for nighttime reading, and if we really needed to get out of the house on a cold day we drove to the nearest huge home superstore and simply walked around looking at all of the large blow-up outdoor decorations for sale. It was free and our kids loved it.

Fast forward from ages two, four and six to ages 12, 14 and 16, and it’s a different story. Packing everyone into the minivan to spend the afternoon freezing at a tree farm doesn’t have the same appeal to a 16-year-old as is does to a six-year-old. And, that’s OK. I’m 46 and I don’t like doing the same things I enjoyed at 26.

So, what are parents of teens to do? Throw the fun family traditions out with the trash and leave their teens to text, play Xbox and listen to music in their rooms all December? Absolutely not! Traditions — no matter how small or how elaborate — create lasting memories and strengthen the bonds that tie a family together. But be prepared for a little compromise.

Defining Non-Negotiables

As parents, my husband and I had to figure out what was most important to us and hang on to it. I can live without the Christmas books and watching a Frosty cartoon, but decorating the tree together is a nonnegotiable tradition in our house. This year, one of our precious offspring wasn’t really “feeling it” but she still had to be present and watch as the rest of us decorated. That’s fine. Once we pulled out the old handmade ornaments from the preschool years, she softened up and took an interest… even if it was just to make sure that the ornaments displaying her photo at age four were placed in the back of the tree.

Creative Compromising

Maybe a key to keeping teens interested in those precious family traditions is to simply change them up a bit. For example, instead of heading out of town to a Christmas tree farm this year, we headed down the street to the Home Depot and bought a pre-cut tree. Sure, it’s not quite a Norman Rockwell image, but it was quicker and it’s still a real tree.

Serving Others

Don’t forget that new traditions can be created as your kids get older and are able to do more. Send your new driver to Target to buy the gift requests you picked off the Angel Tree at church or volunteer at a local charity or food bank. Teens are infamous for thinking only about themselves, so finding ways to serve others during the Christmas season is a great idea.

Bribing with Food

I’ve never known a growing teenage boy to turn down food. Frosting and cookies will always draw a teen out of his or her room. Turn on the Christmas music, put out the sprinkles and enjoy the fact that older kids make less of a mess.

Keeping It in Perspective

Although they would poke their eyes out before admitting it, teenagers enjoy those family Christmas traditions as much as their parents. It just takes a little extra pushing.

In the end, my husband and I want to keep the true reason for the Christmas season alive in the hearts of our kids. It’s not presents, not Christmas lights, not carols or cookies — but a heaven-sent baby in a manger that came to give His life for ours.