The Best Gratitude Activities for Kids This Christmas

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Having entitled and ungrateful children is something that I’ve personally always wanted to avoid. However, it’s not such an easy task when we live in an age of avid consumerism.

Christmas time is a wonderful time to focus on family and caring for others. For children, it can be difficult to see past all the gifts and toys.

A good way to work through this is to focus on gratitude activities for kids this Christmas.

The activities mentioned below will help bring family connections, make wonderful memories, and ultimately bring focus on what Christmas should really be about.

How to Go About Teaching Kids Gratitude this Christmas

While there are gratitude activities that can help your children develop a spirit of thankfulness, there are other ways that are even more powerful.

Here are some ways for teaching kids gratitude.

Teach it Year-Round

First of all, don’t just make it a once-a-year thing. Children aren’t going to learn to be grateful just in December when they’re not encouraged to be so year-round.

It is so important to make thankfulness a part of your home and family.

There are many ways to encourage thankfulness but one way is to encourage your children to earn the things they really want.

Giving out toys and special events consistently feels wonderful, but the downside is that children can easily become accustomed to it and just expect those things for free.

I truly feel that it is easier to teach thankfulness to our children when we don’t have the means to spoil them.

It takes a lot of intention and self-control to hold back in order for our children to truly appreciate what they already have.

Every family does things differently but in our home presents are reserved for birthdays and Christmas. If our children want toys outside of that time, they save up for them with their pocket money. They earn pocket money by completing specific jobs around the home (outside of their regular chores).

This helps them to work on delayed gratification and really appreciate the things that they have.

Practice it Yourself

Our children are so very attentive to the way in which we behave. If they’re not seeing thankfulness coming from you, they’ll be far less likely to show it themselves.

Talk openly about the blessings that you have. Show your children that you’re thankful for your home by taking care of it.

Speak to them often about how thankful you are to have them.

We don’t just want them to learn to be thankful for material things but more importantly to be thankful for the things money can’t buy.

Recognise Entitlement & Address it

Finally, recognize entitlement and address it. A child who is left to feel entitled to everything is going to have a difficult time in their adult years.

Life isn’t fair and work is a necessary part of it. If a child’s sense of entitlement is not corrected they’re really going to struggle with the realities of the real world.

Don’t be embarrassed if you find your children have ungrateful attitudes. I think every parent has been there at one time or another.

Let’s face it, we parents have ungrateful attitudes as well!

The important thing is to acknowledge it for what it is and then work to change it.

Gratitude Activities for Kids

With all of the above said, let’s talk about some fun gratitude activities that are perfect for kids this Christmas season.

#1 Count Your Blessings

Whenever I find myself disappointed about not getting what I want I am reminded to step back and count my blessings.

You could even find a cute Christmas printout that will add a fun element to this.

It amazes me just how much we have to be grateful for. Listing out blessings has a snowball effect. It can be difficult at first but the more you think of the more they just keep coming.

Add even more fun to this by cutting out paper ornaments and writing your blessings on them. You could string them onto a garland or stick them up around the room.

#2 Take Time for Others

Serving others is a wonderful way of instilling gratitude in our children.

One of the things we did when I was a child was go caroling at the old folks’ home. It was such a highlight to the residents there and we children had fun too.

You could take your children and volunteer in a soup kitchen, offer to babysit to give another mom a break, or deliver groceries to a neighbor.

There are always ways to serve our community and it only takes a glance to see what might need doing.

#3 Make Thank-You Cards

It is becoming a rarity to receive thank you cards these days. Perhaps that’s why they seem to offer even more value.

Before Christmas, take an afternoon to sit down with your children and make a batch of thank you cards.

That way, once Christmas has come and gone, your children can pen their gratitude and send cards to those who gave gifts or had a special impact on them that year.

#4 Compliment Others

It can be easy to become critical and hyperfocused on the things that we deem to be wrong with people.

I particularly find this is an easy trap for my children to fall into regarding their siblings.

Love starts at home and we should be making sure that we’re kind to those we live with as well as those in our community.

Sometimes, when my children are bemoaning their siblings for one reason or another, I make them all sit down together and share something that they’re thankful for about their siblings.

This can really help to change attitudes and create better connections between them all.

You can extend this into your community by having your children write cards of appreciation to those they know.

#5 Create a Christmas Gratitude Tree

A really fun way to work on grateful attitudes on a daily basis during the Christmas season is to create a gratitude tree.

Every day, take a paper ornament and write down something you’re grateful for. You can then hang it on the tree.

When all of your children are doing this you’ll find your tree full of blessings by the time Christmas arrives.

Final Thoughts

Gratefulness isn’t something that should just be taught once a year. However, it doesn’t hurt to put a bit of extra focus on it during the holiday season.

With so much advertising aimed at children, it’s easy for them to focus on everything they want instead of everything they have.

Take some time to connect as a family and work on the spirit of gratefulness together.