How to enjoy free and cheap Christmas festivities
With Christmas fast approaching, many households are thinking about how to save money without missing out on the festive atmosphere, especially with children.
There are plenty of activities and entertainment you can access for free or at low cost, so that you can get into the Christmas spirit, whether you have children or not. With a little bit of research and creativity you can take advantage of lots of things to do.
Here are some ideas from 456 Ways to save Money on Christmas Throughout the Year.
25 fun and low-cost activities for Christmas
- Look for local cheap and free entertainment. Local carol street concerts, entertainment at the shops and Christmas markets can all help to create a festive atmosphere for the family. Join local Facebook groups and pages and sign up to the council’s newsletter to keep up-to-date with local activities.
- Arrange play dates with other families. Take it in turns to go to each other’s houses to play Christmas-themed games and eat together. This helps with the atmosphere, offering free entertainment for the kids and saving energy costs on heating and cooking. When it’s your turn, you would have been in and cooking anyway, so will not be incurring extra energy costs!
- Check your local garden centres for any free activities.
- Hold online get-togethers where you make Christmas presents, food or decorations. You can swap ideas and enjoy each other’s virtual company.
- Start family traditions that cost little or nothing. For example, going for a Christmas walk to look at the lights in town, make a new decoration every year or decorate the tree together on the same day.
- Take your walk with children late at night to make it extra special. In the complete quiet, enjoy the winter sounds such as crunching frost, distant carols, church bells, etc.
- Look for the Christmas star on 24 December. It’s the one that shines the most brightly! On a clear night with lots of stars, go with friends or family and the children to look up at the sky and see what patterns and Christmas shapes you can see.
- Snuggle up and watch Christmas films as a family/with loved ones/friends with popcorn, biscuits, hot chocolate or wine, etc.!
- Have Christmas music playing during the last couple of weeks of December. Any earlier and it will become normalised, but in your home keep it for specific times, as this is the time you get festive.
- Create some Christmas games that cost little to nothing. Make a picture of Rudolph and pin on his nose. You can give small chocolates as prizes. Make snowman skittles from paper cups and use a small ping-pong ball to knock them down. You can search the internet for “free Christmas games” for loads more ideas.
- Start a Christmas capsule tradition. Each household member adds a small object, photo or note about the past year into a box, then the family seals it to reopen next Christmas. Then add to it each year. In years to come this will become quite a talking point about memories.
- Go to a carol service. You don’t have to be religious to go to a church service. Taking part in singing carols and enjoying Christmas with others is an easy and free way to soak in the atmosphere.
Take the carol singing door-to-door with family or friends in the local area. People used to love carol singers coming to their homes but you rarely see them nowadays. Contact a local charity and co-ordinate with them on how to collect donations responsibly. Perhaps arrange to sing outside a charity shop to raise money for them?
Maybe even take the carol singing one step further. Organise a Midnight carol flash-mob: Coordinate with friends to sing a single carol at an agreed spot one evening for no cost and lots of atmosphere. Advertise as much as you like!
- Volunteering can have many obvious benefits to an organisation, such as a company or charity. It is also good for the mental health, well-being and social life of volunteers. You learn new skills and meet new people. Around Christmas time there will be a good atmosphere in a lot of places where you can volunteer. Try the foodbank, local community groups, Crisis at Christmas, etc.
- Get the children sticking Christmas pictures, doing festive word searches and Christmas colouring in from free downloadable activities from the internet. A quick search of “free downloadable Christmas” with “templates”, “colouring in”, “word searches”, etc. will provide you with lots of possible sites for this.
- Design a Christmas kindness advent calendar with the children. For each day write down a “kind” activity to undertake. For example, phoning a grandparent, donating an old toy to charity, doing a chore for someone else, offering to help someone, giving a compliment to someone, etc. This can be a lovely activity as a family to think of ideas and carry them out.
- Make your own Christmas decorations. Host a decoration-making party with friends or family as part of your festive celebrations. Provide craft materials and snacks, play Christmas music, and enjoy making baubles, paper chains or wreaths together. This turns the act of making decorations into a fun, social event.
- Go festive foraging. As well as an activity you can do with children, it can bring you free/cheap decorations. Collect leaves and berries for wreaths and arrangements. Take some branches with lots of twigs and paint them and hang decorations. Make wreaths (forage and tie finds together on a “grapevine” wreath from a hobby store), sleep pillows (cotton or organza drawstring bags with a mix of dried loose lavender, dried camomile flowers and mugwort), and bouquets (hang up flowers such as roses and gypsophila for 2-3 weeks, arrange and tie with a ribbon bow). Collect pine cones, paint them white and string together for a wreath. All of these will last for many years.
- Organise a party at your house where every guest brings a contribution. This makes for a party that costs you no more than feeding the family one meal. Different families could host on various dates throughout December or take turns throughout the year. Make a list of everything needed so that costs are equally split. More than one person could bring the costlier items or contribute.
- Organise a street or neighbourhood “advent windows” event where each house decorates a window on a different night in December. Walking around to spot them can be a good game for young children. You can make it a yearly event where people will naturally get competitive! You can take pictures, make a video or turn it into a competition
- Host a “Singalong” at home! Put on a Christmas karaoke (YouTube has endless free carol and Christmas song tracks!) and make it a fun evening.
- Create a do-it-yourself photo booth. Set up a corner with a sheet as backdrop and use your phone for silly festive selfies; gather props from around your home. Print them up to make a collage of memories.
- Candlelit power-cut evening: Pick one night to switch off all electric lights and enjoy candles and torches whilst participating in one or more of the activities in this chapter! Save on energy too!
- Design a photo scavenger hunt for children (and adults if they want to play along!) Make a list of festive items to spot e.g. snowmen, stars, Santas, wreaths, etc. and see who finds the most on a walk. Give a small prize to the winner.
- Festive pavement chalk art. Use chalk to draw greetings or pictures on paths for passers-by. This isn’t just for children! You could become really imaginative and find your house becoming a talking point. Neighbours could join in, too, so you become known as the road with the “Christmas chalk creations!”
- Make a Christmas playlist. Each family member contributes songs then plays them while decorating, baking, wrapping presents or cleaning the house! In this way, everyone has contributed to the playlist and will enjoy at least one tune! Or have your own disco at home!
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