15 Low-Key Family Holiday Traditions You Can Start This Year (AI Edition)

Six hours. This person spent six hours stringing cranberries with their toddler and posted the whole thing to Instagram like it was normal.

I closed the app.

Look, I love holiday traditions. I want my son to grow up with those cozy December memories. But I also live in reality — where I work full time as a software developer, parent a seven-month-old, and most days I'm just trying to make it to bedtime without crying. The cranberry thing? Absolutely not. Not happening.

So I did what I always do when I need ideas but my brain is not cooperating: I asked ChatGPT to help me figure out what “meaningful holiday traditions” could actually look like for real life families who aren’t trying to audition for a cheesy Hallmark movie. I wanted things that felt special without requiring a glue gun, three trips to Michael’s, or the kind of energy I simply do not have after working all day, keeping a human alive, and running a household.

If you’re curious what that process looks like in real life, I wrote a whole breakdown of how I actually use ChatGPT in motherhood so you can see how simple it really is.

What came back was honestly way better than I was expecting. Some of these I’d heard before, some were new, but the whole list felt doable in a way that “make matching family pajamas from scratch” absolutely does not. I’m sharing all fifteen here because I think we need more permission to keep things lowkey during a season that’s already overstimulating enough.

1. Hot Chocolate Before Bed on Fridays in December

This one’s so simple it almost feels too easy, but that’s kind of the point. You pick a night — doesn’t actually have to be Friday, whatever works — and you make hot chocolate a thing. Add marshmallows if you want to feel extra fancy. Sit on the couch with the fireplace going in the background. But that’s it. The ritual is the tradition, not the production value.

2. Read One Holiday Book Every Night Leading Up to Christmas

If you’re already doing bedtime books anyway, just swap in holiday ones for the month of December. You don’t need twenty-five different titles. You can read the same three books on rotation. I promise your child won’t care. They’ll just remember that December meant snuggling up with the one about the snowman.

3. Light Candles at Dinner During the Holidays

Candles make everything feel special, and this requires literally nothing except remembering to light them. If you have a kid who’s old enough, let them help blow them out at the end. If your kid is seven months old like mine, just let them stare at the flame like it’s the most fascinating thing in the world. Because to them, it is.

4. Play the Same Holiday Music Every Year

Pick an album or Spotify playlist and make it the soundtrack for December. It doesn’t have to be traditional carols — it can be jazz versions, indie covers, whatever you actually want to listen to. The repetition is what makes it feel like a tradition. Your little one will grow up associating those specific songs with the holidays, and that’s the whole thing. Literally the signal for the Christmas holiday for me is hearing “The Christmas Song” played in the wild — thanks to my childhood and my mom’s love for the song.

5. Make Pancakes (or Whatever) on Christmas Morning

This one’s about consistency, not complexity. It can be pancakes, cinnamon rolls from a can (do not get me started on these delicious little devils), frozen waffles with whipped cream — it doesn’t matter. The tradition is that Christmas morning tastes like this specific thing. You can prep it the night before if that makes it less stressful. The goal is comfort, not Instagram content.

6. Take One Photo in the Same Spot Every Year

Find a spot in your house — in front of the tree, on the couch, wherever — and take a photo there every December. Same spot, same time of year, different humans getting incrementally bigger. You don’t need matching outfits. You don’t need professional lighting. You just need a phone and maybe forty-five seconds if you’re lucky.

7. Pick One Night to Drive Around Looking at Lights

You don’t have to go to the fancy neighborhoods with the synchronized displays (although those houses are pretty sick, let’s be honest). You can just drive around your own area, point out which houses have lights, let your kid say “wow” seventeen million times. If they fall asleep halfway through, honestly, that’s a win. You still get to look at the lights.

8. Leave Cookies Out for Santa (Bonus Points if You Eat Them Yourself)

If your child is too young to understand the spirit of Santa, you’re really just leaving cookies out for yourself at this point, and that’s absolutely acceptable. The tradition starts now, even if it doesn’t fully make sense yet. Also you get cookies at the end of the night, win-win, all I’m saying.

9. Write One Thing You’re Grateful For as a Family

I’m actually fond of this suggestion. This can be as simple as everyone saying one thing at dinner on Christmas Eve, or you writing it down in a notebook while your baby gums a teething toy. It doesn’t have to be profound or anything. It can be as simple as “I’m grateful the baby napped today.” The point is pausing to acknowledge something good.

10. Make the Same Meal Every Christmas Eve

Pick something easy that you actually like eating. It can be breakfast for dinner, it can be takeout pizza, it can be soup and grilled cheese. The tradition is the repetition and the coziness, not the culinary ambition. If cooking stresses you out, literally order the same thing every year. That’s allowed.Your local pizza joint will thank you.

11. Open One Gift on Christmas Eve

If you celebrate Christmas, this one’s nice because it stretches out the excitement without requiring extra effort. Let your little one pick one gift to open the night before. If they’re too little to pick, you pick for them. It’s a small thing that feels special, and it gives them something to focus on that isn’t just waiting for morning.Which, full disclosure, they still will.

12. Put Out a Special Blanket or Pillow Only During the Holidays

Sensory traditions are underrated. If there’s a specific blanket that only comes out in December, that becomes part of how the season feels. It doesn’t have to be expensive or matching or even particularly festive. It just has to be consistent.

13. Watch One Holiday Movie Together Every Year

Pick one movie and make it the official family watch. You can start this even when your kid is too young to sit through it — they’ll absorb the vibe, and eventually they’ll recognize it as “the thing we do.” When they’re older, they’ll request it. For now, you just put it on and let them exist near it.

14. Bake One Thing Together (Even if It’s Semi-Homemade)

This can be slice-and-bake cookies. This can be brownies from a box. This can be decorating store-bought sugar cookies with icing. The tradition is doing it together, not making something worthy of a baking show. If flour gets everywhere and someone cries, congratulations, you’ve created a memory!

15. Say Goodnight to the Christmas Tree

This one surprised me but I highkey love it. Before bed, you say goodnight to the tree. That’s it. If your kid is little, you can make it a whole thing where you point at the lights and say “goodnight tree, see you tomorrow.” If they’re older, it becomes this tiny ritual that bookends the day. It’s weird and sweet and costs nothing.

Why I’m Sharing This

I’m not doing all fifteen of these. I’m picking maybe three or four that feel right for our family, and I’m giving myself permission to let the rest go. You can do the same. The goal isn’t to collect traditions like they’re merit badges or proof you’re doing motherhood right. The goal is to create a few small pockets of warmth and consistency in a season that can otherwise feel like it’s moving too fast and demanding too much.

Traditions don’t have to be elaborate to matter. They just have to happen more than once. The repetition is what makes them stick. Your kid isn’t going to remember that you hand-stitched their stocking or spent four hours making ornaments from scratch. What they will remember is the feeling of safety and warmth that came from knowing what to expect.

If you want to generate your own version of this list tailored to your actual life, here’s what I asked ChatGPT:

“Give me 15 simple, meaningful holiday traditions for a family with young kids that don’t require elaborate planning, expensive materials, or leaving the house. Focus on connection over perfection.”

You can adjust it based on your family — add ages, mention specific constraints like sensory needs or your hatred of crafts, include cultural or religious context. The point is to let it do the initial brainstorming so you can spend your energy deciding what actually feels right instead of generating ideas from scratch when your brain is already clocked out.

If you try any of these, I hope they feel less like obligations and more like the kind of quiet comfort that actually makes December special. And if you don’t try any of them, that’s fine too. You’re already doing the most important tradition of all, which is showing up for your kid even when you’re tired. Everything else is optional.

Written by Shae — alt millennial mom, developer, M.S. in Psychology. Fascinated by using AI to translate developmental research into survival tools for parents. Real experience where she’s lived it, evidence-based prompts where she hasn’t.