15 Christmas Traditions for Couples That Make December Feel Magical

You don’t have to wait until December.

Our unofficial starting line is the moment Halloween has been packed away. There’s something lovely about having your own marker in the calendar: the first weekend in November, the day the tree arrives, the first Sunday of Advent or simply the evening you decide it’s finally acceptable to play Michael Bublé again.

One of my favourite parts of Christmas is looking forward to it, so I don’t wait for December to begin. I usually start buying presents for Bas in September. There’s a sensible reason for this - spreading the cost makes Christmas considerably easier on the bank account - but that’s only half the story. I also just really enjoy it. Finding the first present makes Christmas feel as though it’s somewhere on the horizon.

If you’re creating Christmas traditions together, don’t focus only on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Anticipation can be a tradition too.

Pick your moment. The anticipation is half the fun.

I don’t decorate our entire house in one heroic weekend. Christmas gradually appears.

Boxes come downstairs. A few decorations appear. Another little corner gets finished. Eventually the main tree goes up and, by the last week of November, the living room, front garden and back garden are all unmistakably ready for Christmas.

Letting it happen slowly makes decorating feel less like a job and more like part of the season.

In our house, Christmas decorating is largely my territory.

Bas knows this.

I have eight Christmas trees, so by this point resistance would probably be futile anyway.

But he helps me assemble the big tree and usually takes care of putting up the outdoor tree.

Then I do what I love: Christmas music on, ornament boxes open and several hours disappearing into decorating.

Your tradition doesn't have to mean doing every part together.

One person can cook while the other puts lights outside. One can assemble the tree while the other decorates it.

The ritual is simply changing the house together.

And once it's finished, have an evening where you actually enjoy it.

Don't immediately move on to the next job.

Turn everything else off. Leave the tree lights on. Make something nice and sit there.

This is one of my favourite ways to let Christmas collect memories over time.

When we travel and I find a Christmas ornament I love, I'll bring it home.

We have decorations from the Cotswolds and from other places we've visited, alongside all sorts of ornaments that represent things we simply like.

The result is that decorating our main tree isn't only decorating.

It's rediscovering things.

A Christmas ornament is small enough to bring home in a suitcase, doesn't need to be expensive and comes back out every December.

Years later, your Christmas tree quietly becomes a map of places you've been together.

This is one of the easiest Christmas traditions to start.

Our car is basically taken over by Christmas radio from mid-November onwards. At home, it’s vinyl. Michael Bublé and Mariah Carey are two favourites, and Bas has given me a new Christmas record almost every year, so the collection has quietly become a tradition of its own.

Choose an album, make a playlist or find a Christmas radio station you both love. Years later, those songs will instantly take you back.

We usually start visiting Christmas markets from around mid-November, and we visit almost every year. Partly because I love them, obviously: the lights, the food, the cold, the stalls and the excuse to stand somewhere outside holding something warm. But they’re also brilliant at providing that first proper oh, it really is nearly Christmas feeling.

Wrap up, wander without too much of a plan, order something warm and eat whatever looks good. Make an evening of it or turn it into a Christmas weekend away.

We’ve visited Christmas markets across Europe, and some places have become much more than simply destinations. Returning somewhere creates a completely different feeling from ticking another city off a list. You remember where you ate last time. Which market you liked best. The shop you want to return to.

A travel tradition doesn’t need to mean an expensive Christmas holiday either. Find a Christmas market within driving or train distance and make it your December day out.

Not every tradition needs to be original. There is absolutely no requirement to find a new Christmas film every year.

In fact, I think Christmas is one of the few times when watching exactly the same thing is part of the pleasure.

Home Alone appears in our house every Christmas. The Santa Clause and The Polar Express aren’t far behind. And, because Christmas and Harry Potter seem permanently connected in my head, Harry Potter inevitably finds its way into the season too.

We know these films. That’s why they work.

Put one or two on your unofficial Christmas calendar every year and eventually the opening music alone will tell your brain what time of year it is.

Food is one of the quickest ways to bring old Christmas memories into a new Christmas.

There are things from Christmas when I was younger that I still enjoy now - like everyone sitting around the table gourmetting together.

As an adult, you get to decide which pieces come with you. You can make something your partner grew up eating. Bring back something you loved. Or start completely from scratch and accidentally create the dish everyone expects you to make forever.

And then there’s the other half. December supermarket shopping is dangerous in the best possible way: every year there are limited-edition drinks, snacks, cheeses and desserts that neither of us particularly needs but absolutely wants to try. So we do.

It doesn’t have to become a permanent tradition. The tradition is simply choosing something new together. Sometimes it’s delicious. Sometimes there’s a very good reason it was a limited edition. Both outcomes are entertaining.

Christmas Eve is probably my favourite tradition of all, and it belongs to us.

Ours starts at around four in the afternoon. Comfortable clothes go on because we’re not going anywhere. We make picky bits rather than a formal dinner - French cheeses, salads, toast, tapas, little fried snacks and whatever else looked good when we were shopping. There’s wine and beer, but usually some interesting festive soft drinks too.

Then we put a film on, exchange presents and settle in for the evening. No formal timetable. No rules. Sometimes I can’t wait any longer and a present gets opened during dinner, which is the advantage of making your own rules.

This is one tradition I’d particularly recommend creating as a couple. Christmas Day can come with family plans, meals, travelling and other people’s traditions. Christmas Eve gives you the opportunity to create something that’s specifically yours.

It doesn’t have to look like ours. Order your favourite takeaway. Open one present. Cook something elaborate. Drink champagne. Go for a walk to see the lights. Watch the same terrible Christmas film every year. Midnight, Christmas morning, Christmas Eve, one present early - you’re adults. You make the rules.

Protect one little piece of Christmas for the two of you.

Even when you share finances. Even when you know what the other person wants. Even when you’ve technically already seen the box arrive.

We still give each other Christmas presents. There’s something about having a few wrapped gifts waiting under the tree that I don’t want to grow out of.

I loved the mountains of presents as a child and I still love giving them now. But some of my favourite Christmas giving isn’t about the main presents. It’s finding a small thing that makes me think of someone and surprising them with it: a favourite snack, something silly, something they mentioned months ago. Something that costs very little but proves you were listening.

You can turn that into a tradition between you too. Maybe stockings are only ridiculous little things. Maybe there’s always one surprise present. Maybe you have a €10 challenge. Christmas giving becomes much more enjoyable when it isn’t simply exchanging shopping lists.

Christmas morning deserves more than an ordinary piece of toast.

Because we exchange our presents on Christmas Eve, Christmas morning doesn’t begin with ripping paper off boxes. It can begin slowly. We set the table properly, light the candles and make a long breakfast together - freshly squeezed orange juice and warm bread rolls, with Christmas music playing and nobody needing to rush.

Croissants are non-negotiable in our house, alongside festive spreads, juice and the things we’ve deliberately bought for Christmas morning.

This is one of those traditions that sounds almost too simple to mention. But that’s precisely why I am mentioning it. Not every tradition needs an activity. A pace can become a tradition. Maybe your Christmas morning rule is that nobody makes plans before noon. Maybe you make the same breakfast every year. Maybe coffee and Christmas music come before phones.

It doesn’t need to be complicated. It just needs to feel different from Tuesday.

One of my favourite parts of Christmas Day is having nowhere urgent to go and being able to immediately enjoy whatever was under the tree.

A new book gets opened. Something gets sprayed, tried, plugged in or put on. And there’s a reasonable chance Bas is sitting somewhere assembling the Lego I’ve given him while I’m reading nearby.

Don’t rush straight into the next activity. Play with your presents. We’re all still allowed to do that.

One of the best things you can give yourselves in December is an empty evening. Light the candles. Put a Christmas record on. Make coffee, pour some wine or open one of those festive drinks you bought because the bottle was pretty. Read. Build Lego. Watch a film. Sit around doing very little.

Christmas doesn’t need an itinerary. One of the advantages of celebrating as a couple is that sometimes you genuinely don’t have to consider anybody else. If we want to watch films all afternoon, we can. If we want to eat again two hours after breakfast, also fine. If we decided to spend half the day in bed, Christmas would survive.

Every year, I have Christmas pyjamas. And Christmas socks. Are they necessary? Not remotely. Does that matter? Also no. There is room in Christmas traditions for things that exist purely because they’re fun.

Traditions should make Christmas nicer, not turn it into another to-do list. Sometimes staying home is the event.

At some point over Christmas, we often end up outside. Usually it’s a walk through the woods: coats on, cold air, no particular objective. After days of eating, drinking and being wonderfully cosy indoors, going outside for an hour feels surprisingly good. And coming home afterwards feels even better.

Another version requires almost no planning and I love it. When Christmas decorations start appearing outside people’s homes, I look at them constantly. There is something wonderful about driving through a street where house after house has lights outside.

So make an evening of it. Put Christmas music on in the car, get something warm to drink and find the streets where people have gone slightly overboard. The slightly overboard ones are obviously the best.

We decorate outside too, partly because I love that feeling when we arrive home and Christmas is already there waiting for us.

This is perhaps the most important one. It doesn’t have to make sense to anybody else.

Maybe you order the same takeaway every Christmas Eve. Buy each other one ridiculous decoration. Drive somewhere to look at Christmas lights. Open a bottle you’ve saved all year. Make pancakes at midnight.

You don’t have to inherit every Christmas tradition either of you grew up with. Keep the ones you love. Change the ones that don’t quite fit anymore. Bring back the things you miss. And make new ones.

There isn’t a committee checking whether you’ve done it correctly. If you want eight Christmas trees, I can confirm there is no Christmas law preventing it. If the two of you want to spend Boxing Day in pyjamas watching six hours of films, congratulations: you’ve just invented a Boxing Day tradition.

The loveliest Christmas traditions aren’t necessarily the impressive ones. They’re the tiny things that would feel strangely missing if you skipped them one year.