Ask anyone what they remember about Christmas as a kid, and it’s never the presents. It’s a specific night. Driving around in pajamas looking at lights. The gingerbread house that collapsed twice. Whatever your family did every single year without ever deciding to.
That doesn’t happen by accident, though. Not in December, not with a school calendar working against you.
So we made a list. Not a to-do list — a get-to-do list.
Below are 30 family Christmas bucket list ideas, and more importantly, where to actually do each one. Some take an afternoon and a bag of marshmallows. Some take a plane. All of them are things our family or our contributors have found worth the effort.
Print it, stick it on the fridge, let everyone pick five. Nobody finishes all thirty. That’s not the point.
Grab the cocoa. Put on the sweater — yes, that one. Let’s plan a Christmas worth remembering.
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What Should Be on a Family Christmas Bucket List?
A good family Christmas bucket list mixes three kinds of things: simple traditions you can do at home, festive outings close to where you live, and one bigger experience worth traveling for. The most popular picks include the easy stuff, you know, decorating the tree together, baking Christmas cookies, driving to a neighborhood light display, visiting Santa, seeing a holiday show, riding a Christmas train, and taking a holiday trip somewhere memorable. Make it interactive and let every family member choose their own must-do.
The Family Christmas Bucket List: 30 Ideas
Skim the list, circle five, ignore the rest guilt-free. Anything with a link jumps down to the full details.
The Family Christmas Bucket List
Skim, circle, and ignore.
At Home
- Decorate the tree together — including the lopsided preschool ornament, which is non-negotiable
- Build a gingerbread house and accept that it will collapse
- Bake and decorate Christmas cookies
- Have a Christmas movie marathon
- Set up a hot chocolate bar with too many toppings
- Declare a Christmas pajama night
- Read a favorite Christmas book out loud
- Volunteer together as a family
Around Los Angeles and Southern California
- Drive a neighborhood Christmas light display
- Ride the Polar Express train in Perris
- Spend a holiday day at Disneyland
- Watch the Newport Beach Christmas Boat Parade
- Go ice skating outdoors in 72-degree weather, as God intended
- Cut your own tree at a Christmas tree farm
- See The Nutcracker
- Shop a Southern California Christmas market
- Visit Santa
- Walk a botanical garden light show
Trips Worth Taking
- Visit Santa Claus, Indiana — yes, it’s a real town
- Wander a European Christmas market
- Book an all-inclusive and let somebody else handle Christmas
- See the Rockettes in New York City
- Skate at Rockefeller Center
- See the National Gingerbread House Competition in Asheville
- Spend Christmas on a beach
- Ski a mountain town over the holidays
- Do a colonial Christmas in Williamsburg
- Float the San Antonio River Walk under the lights
- Take a Christmas lights road trip
- Spend a winter weekend in a national park
Which Christmas Bucket List Idea Is Right for Your Family?
| If you’re looking for… | Do this |
|---|---|
| Pure magic for a preschooler | The Polar Express in Perris |
| Something teenagers won’t roll their eyes at | New York City at Christmas |
| Free, and you can do it tonight | A neighborhood light display |
| A day trip, not a whole vacation | Newport Beach Christmas Boat Parade |
| A tradition built around food | Gingerbread houses and cookie baking |
| Maximum Christmas spectacle | Disneyland during the holidays |
| A Christmas town that’s genuinely named Santa Claus | Santa Claus, Indiana |
| The trip of a lifetime | European Christmas markets |
| Zero planning, zero cooking | An all-inclusive Christmas resort |
| Actual snow | A mountain town or a winter national park |
| No snow, thank you | A Christmas beach vacation |
| Something that means something | Volunteer together as a family |
Want to actually use this list? Download our free printable Family Christmas Bucket List — 30 checkboxes, one page, fridge-ready. Let every person in the house pick five and see who finishes first.
Christmas Experiences in Los Angeles and Southern California
We live here, so this is the part we can actually vouch for. Southern California does Christmas differently — palm trees in lights, outdoor skating in short sleeves, and a boat parade instead of a snow day. It’s not less Christmas. It’s just ours.
Different isn’t worse. It’s just different. Photo by TrueTouchLifestyle
Disneyland at Christmas
Best for: All ages · Time needed: One to two days
Disneyland at Christmas is the version of the park that converts skeptics. Sleeping Beauty Castle gets its icicles, Main Street disappears under garland, and “it’s a small world” is transformed inside and out — the whole ride redecorated, the whole song swapped for carols. The Haunted Mansion becomes Haunted Mansion Holiday, which is either the best or the most alarming overlay in the park depending on which of your children you ask. Over at California Adventure, Disney Festival of Holidays turns the whole place into a food festival with a global holiday menu, and Viva Navidad brings out mariachi and folklórico dancers.
Know Before You Go
The holiday season runs from mid-November through early January, and the first two weeks of that window are dramatically quieter than the last two. Going the week before Thanksgiving gets you every decoration, every parade, and every overlay — with maybe half the crowd of the week between Christmas and New Year’s. If your kids’ school calendar allows it at all, go early. Nothing about the experience is diminished, and you’ll actually get on rides.
Stay
The Viv Hotel is close to the park and offers lots of perks. Read all about it!
Maybe your wish will come true this year? Photo courtesy of Disney Resort
Walk a Botanical Garden Light Show
Best for: Ages 3+ · Time needed: 60–90 minutes
Somewhere along the way, Southern California’s botanical gardens figured out that the same paths that work in daylight work even better lit up in December — and now we have our pick. Descanso Gardens in La Cañada Flintridge runs Enchanted Forest of Light, a walk-through route where the camellia forest glows and the tulip field turns into a field of light. The LA County Arboretum in Arcadia does Lightscape, a mile-long trail through the peacock grounds. South Coast Botanic Garden in Palos Verdes does GLOW.
These are a better fit for younger kids than a drive-through display, because nobody’s strapped into a car seat. You walk, you stop, you look at things, you get hot chocolate. And unlike a lot of holiday outings, an hour is genuinely enough — you’re not committing your whole evening.
Know Before You Go
All of them use timed-entry ticketing, and all of them sell out. Descanso in particular releases tickets in the fall and the December weekend slots disappear almost immediately. Buy in October if you want a Saturday. Weeknight slots stay available much longer and are meaningfully less crowded.
No, those trees are real. Photo by NaturesCharm
Newport Beach Christmas Boat Parade
Best for: All ages · Time needed: An evening · Cost: Free
This is the most Southern California Christmas tradition there is: a hundred-plus boats — yachts, kayaks, gondolas, canoes, the occasional wildly overcommitted dinghy — strung with lights and motoring through Newport Harbor for five nights in mid-December. It’s been running since 1908, and the homes along the water compete right back with their own decorations in the Ring of Lights contest, so the shoreline is as lit up as the water.
The best part for families is that watching it costs nothing. Balboa Island’s boardwalk, the Balboa Peninsula, and the Fun Zone all work, and the parade route means you don’t need a perfect spot — the boats come to you. Bring blankets. It’s genuinely cold on the water after dark, which sounds absurd in Orange County until you’re standing there in a hoodie regretting your choices.
Know Before You Go
Parking is the entire challenge. Lots fill up hours ahead, and Balboa Island street parking is essentially theoretical. Get there by late afternoon, eat dinner nearby, and walk down when it starts. Or take the Balboa Island Ferry across, which is three minutes long, costs almost nothing, and will be your kids’ favorite part of the night.
Stay
Make it a weekend and stay in a beachfront rental for beautiful views and more space for your crew
Fancier than fancy. Photo courtesy of Visit Newport Beach
The Polar Express – Perris, California
Best for: Ages 3–8 · Time needed: About an hour on the train, half a day total
One tradition that tops many families’ Christmas bucket lists is watching favorite holiday movies. These films never get old and somehow manage to warm our hearts year after year no matter how many times we’ve seen them. One favorite Christmas movie is the 2004 film The Polar Express, which is based on one of the most popular Christmas books of all time. The beloved movie tells the story of a young boy who begins to doubt the existence of Santa Claus. He embarks on an adventure aboard the magical Polar Express to the North Pole, experiencing a wild ride, meeting new friends, and learning an important lesson along the way.
The Polar Express film has become so popular in recent years that many local theaters show viewings of the film during the Christmas season. If you have little ones that love trains, a fun way to celebrate this bucket list item is by taking a magical winter journey of your own. Each year, Southern California’s Railway Museum hosts its own special Polar Express Train Ride where families are invited to hop aboard the railways and take a trip to meet Father Christmas himself. As if the train itself is not exciting enough, kids will be thoroughly captivated as lively actors bring their favorite Christmas movie to life along the way. Passengers can also enjoy shortbread and hot chocolate while listening to a reading of the classic book.
Stay
The Fairfield Inn and Suites by Marriott Menifee offers families of all sizes a variety of lodging options, including suites with sofa beds. You won’t have to search for dining because the hotel provides a free breakfast buffet and is close to many popular area restaurants.
Climb aboard for a magical journey! Photo by Chip Vincent on Unsplash
Holiday Lights — Griffith Park
Best for: All ages · Time needed: 60–90 minutes · Distance from LA: In it
The big one is L.A. Zoo Lights: Animals Aglow at the Los Angeles Zoo, which runs from mid-November into early January. It’s a walk-through route of enormous illuminated lantern sculptures — birds, butterflies, big cats, whole African and Southeast Asian landscapes rendered in light — plus a walk-in kaleidoscope, interactive displays, Santa, and the kind of photo ops that will occupy your phone storage for the rest of the year. Budget a full 90 minutes at a casual pace. It’s stroller-friendly the whole way.
Know Before You Go
The actual animals aren’t visible. This is an after-hours event, the zoo residents are asleep, and every year some family arrives expecting a nighttime zoo visit and gets a lantern festival instead. It’s a wonderful lantern festival. It is not a zoo trip. Set expectations with your kids in the car.
Also, it’s timed-entry ticketing, and weekend slots sell out well in advance, so buy early if you want a Saturday slot. And it’s closed most Mondays and Tuesdays plus Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and New Year’s Eve — check the calendar before you drive over. Griffith Park gets genuinely cold after dark, so bring more layers than the daytime temperature suggests.
The budget version: the Griffith Park & Southern Railroad runs its Holiday Light Festival train ride starting the day after Thanksgiving — a gentle evening loop around a mile of decorated track strung with thousands of lights. It’s short, it’s cheap, and for train-obsessed preschoolers it hits many of the same notes as the Polar Express without the drive to Perris.
DON’T MISS! 15 Top Holiday Light Displays Across the U.S.
Griffith Park in its finest. Photo courtesy of Griffith Park Aglow
Christmas Cities Worth the Trip
A lot of the best Christmas experiences are tied to a specific city — the Rockettes and the Rockefeller tree in New York, the National Gingerbread House Competition at the Grove Park Inn in Asheville, colonial Christmas in Williamsburg, the San Antonio River Walk under the lights, skiing at Park City or Jackson Hole, and a warm-weather Christmas in San Diego or Orlando.
We’ve broken all of those down, including where to stay in each, in our full guide to the best places to visit for Christmas in the USA. But here are a few of our favs.
Santa Claus, Indiana
Best for: Ages 3–12 · Time needed: 2–3 days · Snow required: No
Yes, it’s a real town. Yes, the post-office postmark says “Santa Claus.” And yes, if you write a letter there, you get one back — every single time.
Our contributor Steffy McCourt spent a few days there and came back with a story that tells you everything: she walked into the Santa Claus Christmas Store expecting a quick photo-op hello, and instead had a full conversation with Santa, who did not break character once. Not a wink, not a side-eye, not a hint that his shift was ending. That’s the whole town in one interaction.
What’s actually there: the Santa Claus Museum & Village, with the original post office and an 1880 church; Santa’s Candy Castle and its legendary frozen hot chocolate; Santa’s Toys for stocking stuffers with actual one-on-one help; and Lincoln Boyhood National Memorial and Lincoln State Park a few minutes down the road, if you want a little history with your candy canes.
Know Before You Go
Holiday World & Splashin’ Safari — the world’s first holiday-themed amusement park, and the winner of Amusement Today‘s Cleanest Park in the World award for nineteen straight years, at which point they retired the award because Holiday World kept winning it — closes for the season in late October. So a December trip is a town trip: shops, statues, museums, frozen hot chocolate. A summer trip gets you the park and the water coasters. Both are great. They’re just not the same vacation, and a lot of families find that out too late.
Stay
Santa’s Cottages is decorated for Christmas year-round — tree, lights, reindeer portraits, the works — and hands you a bucket of fish food at check-in, which will occupy your kids longer than anything you packed. Lincoln Pines Lakefront Resort is the roomier option with lake access.
Getting there from LA: fly into Louisville or Evansville, rent a car, drive about an hour. Note the time zone flips at the state line.
So many chances to take a photo with Santa… and even pretend to be him. ©SteffyMcCourt
European Christmas Markets
This is the big one — the trip families talk about for the rest of their lives. Old town squares strung with lights, wooden chalets selling hand-carved ornaments, the smell of roasting cinnamon almonds hitting you a block before you see anything.
Read this part before you book anything. Most Central European markets open in late November and close by December 23 or Christmas Eve. There is no after-Christmas markdown, no lingering into the new year. Families who plan a Christmas-week trip specifically to see the markets routinely land in a beautiful empty square with everything shuttered. Go the first three weeks of December.
Our contributor Christy Nicholson took her family through Prague and Dresden and came back with the advice we’d repeat to anyone: skip past the famous one. Dresden’s Striezelmarkt dates to the late 1400s and draws enormous crowds — but traveling with young kids, her family had a far better time at the smaller Romantischer Weihnachtsmarkt nearby, where they could actually sit down and hear each other. Most cities host several markets. The main square is the one on the postcard. The side markets are the ones you’ll enjoy.
What makes it work with kids: Nuremberg runs an entire children’s market with kid-sized booths, a miniature post office, and a hands-on bakery. Copenhagen’s Tivoli Gardens is a functioning amusement park with Santa and reindeer. Leipzig has four carousels, a Ferris wheel, and a fairytale land staging children’s stories. Vienna’s city hall market has an ice rink with skating paths running between the food stalls. And every mulled wine or Kinderpunsch comes in a market-specific ceramic mug you can either return for the deposit or wrap in your socks and take home.
U.S. Christmas Markets
Cambria is about four hours up the coast and runs a market with light shows and fire pits through December 23. Chicago, Denver, and Carmel, Indiana all do serious German-style Christkindlmarkts, and New York’s Columbus Circle market sits right at the edge of Central Park.
Cambria Christmas Market and Lights in Cambria, California. Image courtesy of Visit SLO CAL.
All-Inclusive Christmas Resorts
Best for: All ages · Time needed: 5–7 nights · Snow required: Your choice
This is the option for the year you cannot face it. No decorating, no cooking, no untangling a single strand of lights. Somebody else handles Christmas and you show up.
The honest trade-off: all-inclusive resorts are the most expensive week of the year to book, and Christmas week specifically sells out earliest. If this is your plan, you’re booking in September, not November. What you’re buying is the absence of logistics — and for a lot of families, that’s worth more than the money.
If you want snow: C Lazy U Ranch in Granby, Colorado sets up your cabin with its own tabletop tree and runs caroling, tree trimming, a Santa visit, and sleigh rides, with a kids’ program grouped by age from 3 to 17 that goes into overdrive at Christmas. Club Med Charlevoix in Quebec bundles the ski passes, lessons, and gear you’d otherwise be renting in a parking lot at 7am — plus a 4.6-mile sledding run down the Massif, and Quebec City’s Christmas markets an hour away.
If you want the opposite of snow: Garza Blanca in Puerto Vallarta leans toward the parents — spa, infinity pool, jungle hikes — with a kids’ club and up to two kids staying and eating free. The Nickelodeon resorts in Riviera Maya and Punta Cana are the maximalist choice: character breakfasts in matching pajamas, a tree lighting, a full waterpark on property, and a real chance of getting slimed on Christmas morning.
DON’T MISS our full guide to all-inclusive Christmas trips →
Who says Rudolph has to be a reindeer? Photo credit: Kurt Sebastian, Pixabay.
And If You Don’t Go Anywhere At All
If you can’t make it out to celebrate big this year don’t worry, there are many family Christmas bucket list items that you can do close to home. Why not decorate Christmas cards, make sugar cookies, or host a family game night where you gather to play your favorite board games? Participating in Christmas caroling or a Secret Santa gift exchange are other fun Christmas ideas to put on your list. No matter how you celebrate, the quality time spent with loved ones is by far the most important family bucket list item to check off this winter season.
Everyone loves to help bake at Christmastime. Photo by Christian Bowen on Unsplash
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