7 Ways You Can Treasure Your Baby's First Christmas

Your baby might not be so aware but their first Christmas is an incredibly special milestone to most parents and, if this will be your little one's first festive season, it's one that I'm sure you want to cherish. Over the next few years, your house will be filled with festive thrills every December but there is something irreplaceable about the first. As your baby grows, there will be many first moments but equally as many last moments. Their first Christmas is unique because it will be both their first and last simultaneously. As with many exciting life events, blink and you miss it so if you are needing some inspiration, here are a few fun ideas to help you mark the special occasion.

1) Create Personalised Gifts

Never has it been easier to utilise the cutest picture of your baby in a million different ways! You can get it put on to a mug, a calendar, a key ring, a fridge magnet, a cushion, a canvas, a hat, a t-shirt, a sticker, a cake… the list is endless. The great thing about these gifts is they are completely personalised and unique and the value of them to the recipient is often far greater than the actual cost. Just be sure to send them to the right people! Not everyone wants a picture of your baby on their cushions, no matter how cute he or she is!

2) Baby Christmas Characters

With a wide variety of Christmas fancy dress available in baby sizes, your little one can look the absolute picture of perfection as a mini elf, Santa, snowman, reindeer, or even a Christmas pudding! If you have older children as well, you can dress them all up, creating a hilarious photo opportunity and a memory to treasure for many Christmases to come. You can also keep the little outfit and marvel each year at how small he or she was.

3) My First Christmas Stocking

Stockings are a big part of Christmas tradition and your baby is never too young to start traditions. You can buy some beautiful little stockings that would be perfect for the occasion and you can even get them personalised or marked with the words ‘First Christmas’ to help you to remember the first time Santa visited your house.

4) Keepsake Tree Ornament

There seems to be a natural carousel of Christmas ornaments. Every year, as we unwrap our decorations and furnish our tree, we see that some of the ornaments have broken, faded or have just lost their sparkle. We throw these away and head to the shops to buy more.

Some ornaments are too special to dispose of though. We buy some at specific milestones and baby's first Christmas is a perfect example of this. You can get one made with their name on it or even make one. It is the memories you attach to it that matter more than what it looks like.

5) Make a Handmade Card

Christmas is all about spending time together and having fun in each other’s company. So why not use this opportunity to create handmade Christmas cards from your baby, even if it is just for the immediate family.

There are lots of fun and messy ways to be creative, including potato printing Christmas ornaments, white painted feet shapes made to look like snowmen and hand prints with red noses to symbolise Rudolf (like the one in the picture)

Check out the beautiful designs over on Pinterest for more ideas.

6) Make a Christmas Treasure Basket

There are so many sensory experiences for your baby to enjoy over Christmas, so why not remember some favourites by making a collection of those things your baby seems most mesmerised by and putting them into a small basket for him or her to explore on Christmas day. Ideas might be some tinsel, a favourite bauble, wrapping paper, jingle bells, a pine cone, a light up item or fairy lights. You might even want to keep some of these items as keepsakes to remember what your baby enjoyed that first Christmas.

Here is an example below. Please do make sure to supervise your baby as he or she plays.

7) Your Unique Family Tradition

Maybe you had your own family traditions that you want to carry on, maybe your partner has some. Have a think about how you can combine and integrate these traditions and make them unique to your family. Consider what made you feel excited when you were growing up, what made you feel like a family and bonded you together. Traditions give us the opportunity to come together and feel like we belong to something bigger than ourselves. Growing up with these is so important and so it is never too early to get started.

Share Christmas with Tots Play

If you already attend classes, you may have been to one of our Christmas events, or have one coming up. These are a great way to enjoy this special time in ways that are appropriate for your baby, plus pick up ideas to carry on at home, so thank you so much if you have been part of one of these sessions!

Of course, Tots Play is not just for Christmas! All year round, we are here to provide practical support and encouragement to help you and your baby on your journey. Our baby classes are a place to spend quality time together learning skills like baby yoga, massage and sign language, as well as sharing your experiences of parenthood with others at a similar stage, while having lots of fun too, so if you haven't been along yet, do get in touch to book your place for January. You can find details of your local classes HERE.

We have had a fantastic year watching so many bouncing babies grow and would like to take this opportunity to wish all of you a very happy and joyful Christmas filled with beautiful memories to treasure forever.

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