Christmas Eve Box Ideas for Kids, by Age, That End the Night in Bed

What a Christmas Eve box is, and where the idea came from

A Christmas Eve box is a shoebox, a wooden crate or a gift bag that children open on the evening of December 24, usually with new pajamas, something to watch, something warm to drink and something to read inside. Its job is the stretch between dinner and bed, when the wait for the morning feels longest.

It is a young custom. In December 2016, BBC News described the box as a pre-gift that had taken hold in the UK. UK searches for Christmas Eve boxes were by then three times their 2014 level, and parents in the US and Canada were already swapping ideas online. The consumer expert the BBC asked could not pin down when it began, pointed to the European countries where children open their presents on December 24, and said that in the UK the box was fast becoming "a clever retail invention".

So there are no rules: nothing has to go in it, and a box that does not suit your family can simply be skipped.

It is also a different custom from Iceland's Christmas book flood, the Jólabókaflóð, in which books are the classic present, given on the night of the 24th and read that same night, as NPR reported. That one has its own history, told in our guide to Christmas Eve traditions.

What to put in a Christmas Eve box: five slots, one thing each

The easiest way to keep the box from turning into a second Christmas is to give it slots, the way the four gift rule of want, need, wear and read gives Christmas morning a shape in Christmas gifts for kids who have everything. Five slots, one thing in each, and nothing else.

1. Something to wear. New pajamas, the most useful thing in the box: they go on right away, which is half of bedtime done before anyone notices.
2. Something to watch. One Christmas special or movie, chosen for its length as much as its story.
3. Something to eat or drink. Hot chocolate, or warm milk in a mug of their own, and perhaps one cookie. Warm and slow, not a bag of candy.
4. Something to do. One activity that ends: reindeer food to scatter, a cookie to decorate, a fifty-piece puzzle, one round of a card game.
5. Something to read. A Christmas book, opened last and read in bed.

Each slot has a job: the pajamas start bedtime, the drink and the movie slow the room down, the activity spends the last of the energy, and the book closes the day. A two year old needs three or four, and once the slots are filled, the box is full, however much room is left in it.

If the read slot is the one to make special, you can see your child drawn as a storybook character first: about half a minute from one photo, with no card and no account.

Christmas Eve box ideas by age, from one to ten

The slots hold at every age. What fills them, and what has to stay out, changes a great deal between one and ten. A starting point, not a prescription:

The leave-out column for the youngest rows is not our caution. The American Academy of Pediatrics asks parents to keep hard, gooey and sticky candy, popcorn, marshmallows, nuts and seeds and whole grapes away from children until at least four, because small children tend to swallow food whole, and it lists balloons, toys with small parts and coin batteries among the household choking hazards. A Christmas Eve box is exactly where those turn up: in the hot chocolate, the movie snack and the little toys bought to fill a corner.

For the book in the three and four year old row, what changes between those two ages is in best books for 3 and 4 year olds.

A Christmas Eve box for a toddler or a two year old

Toddlers need the most editing. A one or two year old does not know what Christmas Eve is, so the box is really a gift to the evening: the bedtime they already know, in new pajamas, with a little ceremony.

• Shrink the slots. New pajamas, warm milk in a new cup, a bath toy and a board book. Three or four things are plenty.
• Make the movie optional. A two year old may watch ten minutes and wander off. If the special is going to cost you the bedtime, skip it.
• Check the pajamas. Children's sleepwear above size nine months must be flame-resistant or snug-fitting, and snug-fitting cotton carries a yellow hangtag saying so. The Consumer Product Safety Commission asks parents not to put children to sleep in loose-fitting cotton, so check the tag on a matching family set before it goes in the box.
• Leave the candy out. Candy canes, mini marshmallows in the hot chocolate and popcorn for the movie are all on the pediatricians' list for under fours. Warm milk in a mug of their own does the same job.
• Look for coin batteries. Poison Control lists flameless tea lights, singing greeting cards, talking books and light-up clothing among the things that hide them, and advises buying products whose battery compartment needs a screwdriver or a tool to open.
• Reindeer food is food, to a two year old. Scatter it together and put the jar away afterward: seeds are on the same choking list.

For a baby's first Christmas Eve, the box is really for the parents, and that is fine: a new sleeper, a board book to read aloud, a photo in front of the tree.

One honest note: our Christmas Eve book is written for ages three to eight. At one or two, a sturdy board book is the better buy, and a book with them in it can wait a Christmas or two.

The book slot, and why it is the one that lasts

By the morning of the 25th, the hot chocolate is drunk, the movie is watched, the reindeer food is on the lawn, and the pajamas will probably be outgrown by next December. The book is the part most likely to still be in the house a year from now, which is why, in our opinion, it is the slot worth spending on.

The American Academy of Pediatrics suggests a bedtime routine for young children as simple as "brush, book, bed", and on Christmas Eve the book is the step that says the day is over. If your family already reads the same book every Christmas Eve, keep it, and let the box add a new one beside it each year.

One way to make the read slot the best thing in the box is a book your child is in. Ours, The Last Present, is set on the same night. The house has gone quiet early, the stockings are hung crooked, and your child is wide awake when a hedgehog in mittens taps at the window. His name is Bramble, and he has a job: when the sleigh has made its rounds, somebody checks it, and there is always one present too many. This year it has no name on it.

The two of them carry it through the sleeping town, past dark window after dark window, and everybody is asleep and already given to. Except one. Up the hill a kitchen light is still on, and it belongs to whoever stayed up wrapping everybody else's. Your child writes the name on the label. The book never shows who it is, and on Christmas Eve, with somebody in your own house probably still wrapping, it does not need to.

What it is not: a story about your own family's Christmas. The story and the pictures are ours, the same for every family who picks this title. What is yours is your child's face, drawn from one photograph, on all thirteen illustrated spreads, their name in the words, and the dedication you write, printed word for word after the story. It is written in rhyme, for ages three to eight.

To see it first, try the free preview with one photo of your child. The page for our personalized Christmas book shows real delivery dates before you pay, and every copy is checked by a real artist before it is printed. If a library book fits this year better, it does the same job on the night. What separates a keepsake from a name printed into a generic story is in our guide to custom children's books.

Siblings: one box or two

With two or more children, both answers work if you decide on purpose.

• One box each, the same slots. The fairest version, and the one that avoids the first argument of the evening: the contents follow each child's age, the shape stays the same.
• One family box, personal things inside. The movie, the hot chocolate and the activity are shared; the pajamas and the book are not, and each is wrapped with a name on it.
• Never one new toy for two. On the most excited night of the year, a toy to share is the start of the fight the box was meant to prevent.
• Give the older one a job. Reading the younger one's book aloud, carrying the reindeer food, being in charge of the mugs: a better present for a seven year old than another thing.

Bedtimes stay as they are on any other night. If the younger one goes first, they go first tonight, and the older child gets the last stretch with you alone, which may be the part they remember.

Older kids and teenagers

From about nine, reindeer food starts to feel young, and some teenagers will say they are too old for the whole thing, which is not the same as wanting it to stop. Keep the ritual and let the contents grow up.

• Change the contents, keep the box. Cozy socks instead of character pajamas, a movie they choose, a novel, a thousand-piece puzzle for the holidays, the snack they would pick themselves.
• Let it start the evening. For a teenager the box can open a late night rather than lead to bed. The book still goes in.
• Make them the giver. The best box for a ten year old may be the one they pack for a younger sibling: choosing the pajamas, writing the note, picking the book.

That turn from getting to giving happens to be what our Christmas book is about, without ever saying so out loud. If there is a younger child in the house, start with a photo of the little one and let the big one judge whether the drawing looks like their sibling.

What a Christmas Eve box costs, and how not to pay for a second Christmas

A Christmas Eve box does not need a budget of its own, because most of what goes in it you would buy anyway: the pajamas were coming in December, the hot chocolate is in the pantry, the movie is one you already have. In a box, they become an occasion.

• Spend on one slot, not five. Put the money into the thing that will last, and let the rest come from the house.
• Skip the fillers. Small things bought to make the box look full are often in the trash by the 26th, and for a toddler they are the choking hazards.
• Keep it smaller than the morning. If the box is more exciting than what is under the tree, the morning has a problem.
• Let relatives take a slot. A grandparent can give the pajamas or the book, and the box becomes a present from the whole family.

The mother the BBC interviewed in 2016 loved the custom and still admitted that it piles pressure on families on tight budgets. It should not: a shoebox, pajamas you were buying anyway, warm milk and a library book make a complete box.

Homemade or store-bought

Ready-made boxes are easy to find online, empty wooden ones with a name on the lid and ready-filled ones. The empty ones are worth considering. A filled one was packed for a child the seller has never met, which is the trouble with it.

• A wooden box with their name on it can be refilled every year, until the box itself is the tradition. If you buy one thing, buy that, once.
• A shoebox the child wraps themselves the week before is a project, a decoration and a box in one. It will not last, and it does not need to.

Then decide who the box comes from. The BBC's list of common contents included a letter from Santa saying the child had made the good list; some families credit the elves, others give it openly from the parents. Any of these works. Changing the story every year does not, because the youngest will notice.

If you write the note yourself, write it like a dedication: one specific thing from this year, in your own words, signed with the name they call you.

When to open it, and the order of the evening

There is no fixed time, but the box needs an evening after it. Open it about two hours before you want them asleep, and empty it in this order. The family the BBC profiled used theirs for exactly this: matching pajamas, hot chocolate and Christmas movies, to get the children ready for bed.

1. Pajamas on, right away. The reindeer food goes out now too, while there is energy to spend on it.
2. The movie, with the warm drink. Finished at least an hour before lights out, the American Academy of Pediatrics' advice for screens on any night. That is why a half-hour special beats a feature film: "A Charlie Brown Christmas" and the cartoon "How the Grinch Stole Christmas!" each run under half an hour, and a feature film runs three or four times as long.
3. The activity. A cookie to decorate for Santa, one round of a card game, the last of the energy spent at the table.
4. Bath, teeth, the usual. The routine they know, in the order they know it.
5. The book, in bed, last. The last thing out of the box is the first thing that says the day is over.

Keep everything after the box as on any other night. A child who senses that the rules are different tonight will test every one of them. If bedtime is already a negotiation in your house, the bedtime routine that ends the stalling is worth setting up in early December, not on the 24th.

And if the book slot is still empty, see how your child looks on the page tonight, free, and decide in the morning.

The mistakes that keep everybody up

The ways a box backfires are few, and predictable.

• Sugar late. Hot chocolate at eight, a candy cane at bedtime. Move anything sweet to the start of the evening.
• The feature film at seven thirty. It ends after bedtime, and the screen was meant to be off an hour before.
• A toy that needs batteries, assembly or a second player. It is what they will want to play with at nine, and what two siblings will fight over. Toys belong to the morning.
• Too many things. Nine items is not a box, it is an event, and the event is tomorrow.
• Candles in a child's box. The CPSC notes that children are most at risk of burns from playing with fire, candles included, just before bedtime and just after getting up. A scented candle belongs in an adult's box.
• Glitter in the reindeer food. The University of Illinois Extension points out that the glitter and foil in many recipes can harm wildlife, particularly small birds. Oats and birdseed work just as well, and nobody sweeps glitter off the porch in January.

A Christmas Eve box checklist

The whole article in one table. Copy it, cross out what does not fit your child, and you have a box.

If the read slot is the one you want to get right this year, all of our personalized books for birthdays and Christmas begin with the same free preview, and The Last Present is the one written for this night. Draw your child from one photo, keep the book for last, and remember the only date we promise for Christmas: order by December 1.