If your family doesn't celebrate Christmas, December can feel like a holiday happening to everyone else. The school crafts are reindeer, every store plays the same ten songs, and your preschooler wants to know why the neighbors have a tree. This list of winter holiday traditions for non-Christian families is built to stand on its own, without borrowing anyone's religion.

Below are 15 winter traditions besides Christmas, grouped by light, looking back, giving and fun, plus a planner and words for the moments when Christmas is everywhere. Each one works by itself or next to Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Yalda, Lunar New Year or any holiday you already keep.

Traditions built around light

In short: the dark is the one part of winter every family shares, so light is the easiest place to start. These secular holiday traditions for kids feel like an occasion without any special gear.

1. A longest-night candlelight dinner

The winter solstice is the shortest day and longest night of the year in the Northern Hemisphere. It falls on December 21 or 22, depending on the year and your time zone. In 2026, it's Monday, December 21 in all 50 states.

Keep dinner simple and eat by candlelight. Before anything is lit, turn off every light in the house and sit together in the dark for one full minute. Then an adult lights one candle, and each person names one thing they're looking forward to as the days get longer.

Keep candles in the center of the table, out of reach, and never leave them burning in an empty room. If you have a baby or a crawler, the flame-safety setup in our guide to menorah lighting with an infant works for any candle night.

2. A solstice sunset or sunrise watch

Look up the sunset time for your town, bundle up and watch the sun go down on the shortest day. Or flip it and watch the next sunrise, the first morning the light starts coming back. Winter sunrises come late, so early-waking kids can usually catch one without an alarm.

Stand in the same spot every year and take one photo. After a few winters, the row of photos shows the kids growing against the same sky.

3. Ice lanterns or paper luminaries

In a cold climate, fill a bowl with water and set a smaller plastic cup in the middle. An adult weighs the cup down with a few stones. Kids 3 and up can drop evergreen sprigs or orange slices into the water first. Leave it outside on a below-freezing night, pop the ice out in the morning, and set a candle in the hollow.

In a warm climate, paper-bag luminaries do the same job. Fold the bag tops down, pour in a few inches of sand, and have an adult set a candle in a small glass jar inside each one. Keep lanterns and luminaries outdoors, away from anything flammable, and put them out before bed.

4. A lights walk with a bingo card

You don't need to celebrate a holiday to enjoy the lights other families put up. Walk or drive the same loop each December with a bingo card you make at the kitchen table: all-white lights, all-blue lights, a blinking roofline, lights on a fence, a snowflake, an animal made of lights, a glowing window. For kids who can't read yet, draw pictures instead of words.

The walk also gives you an easy, low-stakes moment to talk about how different families celebrate. More on that below.

Traditions for looking back on the year

Winter is a natural pause point. These rituals take ten to twenty minutes and turn into a record you'll want to keep.

5. Five year-in-review questions

Ask the same five questions every year, write the answers on an index card and date it.

"What was the best day this year?"

"What's something hard you did?"

"What can you do now that you couldn't do last winter?"

"Who was kind to you this year?"

"What do you want to try next year?"

For babies and young toddlers, parents answer for them: first foods, a favorite song, the word they said most. Keep every year's cards in one envelope or box, and the answers add up to a small family history.

6. A gratitude chain that counts down to winter break

Cut a stack of paper strips. Each night, one person writes or draws something they're thankful for and adds a link with tape or a glue stick; an adult handles any stapling. Count down to whatever date your family is building toward, whether that's the first day of break, the solstice or New Year's Eve.

If you want more than gratitude in the countdown, our non-candy countdown calendar ideas include copy-ready activity slips. Adapt or skip any that are Christmas-themed.

7. A first-morning-of-the-year height mark

Before breakfast on January 1, stand each kid against the same spot and mark their height with the date. Once a year is plenty, and it shows a whole year of growing in one line.

Heels, back and head go against the wall, eyes look straight ahead, and a hardcover book rests flat on top of the head; mark just under the book. Our yearly height-check guide covers where the marks should live and how to measure accurately. If you rent or might move, a canvas growth chart lets the marks come with you instead of staying on a door frame.

8. A letter to next winter

Each person writes, draws or dictates a short letter to open next year: what they love right now, what they're worried about, what they hope happens. Seal the letters in the envelope with the year-in-review cards. By the second winter, opening last year's letters becomes its own tradition.

Giving traditions that don't need Santa

In short: giving is the part of the season kids grasp fastest. Keep the focus on choosing and delivering, not on the size of the gift.

9. A family giving day

Give kids a real choice. Set a budget or a number of hours, then let them pick where it goes: an animal shelter, a food bank, a coat drive, the local library. Check volunteer age rules before you go. Many food banks set a minimum age, so younger kids can help by picking items off the donation list at the store instead.

10. A neighbor treat or soup delivery

Make one simple thing, the same thing every year, and deliver it to three or four neighbors. Add a tag listing the main allergens, like nuts, dairy, eggs and wheat. Toddlers can carry the bag and ring the bell.

11. Thank-you notes for the helpers

Think mail carrier, garbage and recycling crew, crossing guard, teachers, and the librarian who runs story time. A 2-year-old's scribble counts. Deliver notes the week before winter break: taped to the recycling bin, handed over at school pickup, or given to the mail carrier in person.

12. A winter gift night on a date you choose

If your kids feel the pull of everyone else's gift-opening, give them their own night: the solstice, New Year's Eve or the first night of winter break. Keep it small with one gift each, or the four-gift rule (something you want, something you need, something to wear, something to read), so the night stays bigger than the pile. For kids under 3, skip anything with small parts.

Tell relatives your date early. Their gifts then have somewhere to go besides December 25.

Winter-break traditions that are just for fun

13. A living-room campout on the longest night

Build a couch-cushion fort, add sleeping bags, flashlights and a stack of library books. Kids 3 and up can sleep in the fort with a parent; babies and young toddlers stay in their crib or usual safe sleep space. Any flashlight a child holds should have a screw-secured battery cover, and spare batteries, especially coin-sized button batteries, stay stored out of reach.

14. A first-snow (or first-cold-morning) ritual

The first real snowfall gets the same three steps every year: a photo in the same spot, a mug of cocoa, and one snowy picture book read aloud. Serve toddlers' cocoa lukewarm. In warm climates, use the first morning everyone needs a jacket.

15. A Noon Year's Eve countdown

Little kids rarely make it to midnight, so count down to noon on December 31 instead. Put a clock on the screen, count backward from ten together, bang pots with wooden spoons, then eat a lunch everyone helped choose. It suits toddlers through early grade-schoolers, and bedtime stays exactly where it is.

Quick planner: compare all 15 at a glance

Choose one tradition for light, one for looking back and one for giving. Three is enough to feel like a season without adding work to an already full month. Add a just-for-fun one only if you still have energy.

Plan the whole season in one evening:

• ☐  Pick one light, one looking-back and one giving tradition from the table.
• ☐  Put each on the calendar, using the solstice, the first day of winter break or New Year's Eve as anchors.
• ☐  Tell grandparents and other relatives the date of any gift night.
• ☐  Buy supplies in one trip: candles and jars, paper strips, index cards, one envelope for the year.
• ☐  Keep one just-for-fun tradition in reserve for a snow day or a long week.
• ☐  After the season, write three lines on what worked and tuck them in the envelope for next December.

What to say when Christmas is everywhere

Your kids will meet Christmas at school, at friends' houses and in every store. The goal isn't to avoid it. It's to give them simple, kind words for the difference. Use these scripts as starting points and change the details to fit your family.

When your child asks why Santa doesn't come to your house

"Lots of families celebrate Christmas, and Santa is part of their holiday. Our family doesn't celebrate Christmas. We have our own winter traditions, like our longest-night dinner. You can still enjoy their lights and be happy for them."

So your child doesn't spoil Santa for classmates

"Santa is a special story for some families, and it's their story to tell. So at school, we don't talk about whether Santa is real."

When the class is making a Christmas craft

"Our family doesn't celebrate Christmas. Could [child's name] make a winter or snowflake version of the craft instead? Happy to send in supplies if that helps."

When grandparents celebrate and you don't

"We'd love to come for Christmas dinner as your guests. At home we're keeping our own winter traditions with the kids, so if you'd like to give them something, we'll open it together at our winter gift night on [date]."

When your child feels left out

"It's okay to feel a little left out. What part looks fun to you? Let's see if we can make our own version."

If you also keep Hanukkah, Kwanzaa or another holiday

The 15 traditions above work as a neutral base layer. They fit around any holiday you already celebrate, and they give interfaith families a shared middle ground.

• Hanukkah: Eight nights of candle lighting, with dates that shift each year on the Hebrew calendar. The giving day and year-in-review questions slot into the nights that aren't about gifts; our night-by-night plan for non-toy Hanukkah nights has more ideas.
• Kwanzaa: December 26 to January 1 every year, with one of seven principles for each day and one more candle lit on the kinara each night. The giving day fits ujima (collective work and responsibility), and the letter to next winter fits nia (purpose).
• Yalda Night: The Persian celebration of the longest night, when families stay up late together, eat pomegranates and watermelon, and read poetry by Hafez. It pairs naturally with the candlelight dinner and the campout. For toddlers, soft watermelon pieces are the easier half of the menu.
• Lunar New Year: Falls in late January or February. Families who keep it can move the year-in-review questions and the height mark to that week instead.
• Ramadan and Eid: These move about 11 days earlier each year on the standard calendar, so some years they land in winter and many years they don't. A few neutral winter rituals give kids a steady December anchor either way.
• Interfaith families: One setup that works: keep a shared neutral layer at home, like the solstice dinner and the New Year's rituals, and join each side's holiday with the relatives who celebrate it. Kids get both, and neither feels watered down.

You don't need all fifteen, and you don't need to get them right the first year. Pick three tonight, put them on the calendar, and write down what you did. Next December you'll be repeating something instead of starting from scratch, and by the second or third winter, those three will feel like your family's own.

Frequently asked questions