This list of ideas for baby's first Christmas goes way beyond simply giving your baby gifts…get great ways to celebrate the holidays with an newborn or infant, including making ornaments and starting new traditions!
1. Watch your favorite Christmas movies. The ones with the most colors and sounds (How the Grinch Stole Christmas, Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, A Charlie Brown Christmas) are great ways to get your baby interested in holiday movies!
2. Give your baby a Christmas heirloom this year. Mine was my daughter's cross-stitch stocking!
3. Make Christmas art. If your baby is old enough, give them red and green crayons to “draw” with (with your supervision, of course). Here is a great site for making larger crayons for a baby. You can also do zipper bag color swirls with red and green food coloring/glitter, tear red and green paper strips, etc.
4. Start a tradition of letting them have their “own” Christmas decoration. Our's was my daughter's tree in her room. We decorated it with her this year obviously, but I think it would be great to let her do it from now on. When she's old enough, I think it would be fun to decorate it with her drawings and art from school!
5. Decorate the Christmas tree together. Let your baby hang a few (non-breakable) ornaments. And don't expect them to be perfectly spaced – my obsessive self has to be ok with that this year. Let them feel the branches and see the decorations sparkle. Let them smell the tree.
6. Sing Christmas carols. Of course they won't be able to sing them, but you can sing them to your baby. We have the radio on constantly in the kitchen!
7. Meet Santa. Yes, be that cliche that stands in line at the mall.
8. Wrap presents with your baby. This might be the biggest mess you've ever made in your life, but that's ok. Let them crumble the paper. Practice shaking the boxes to see what's in them. Let them feel the ribbon (this is one of the reasons I changed to tulle ribbon this year – the texture is going to be so much fun for her to explore!).
9. Practice saying “thank you.” This is something that should be done all of the time, but especially at Christmas, it reinforces an early sense of thanks and gratitude when they receive a present.