Christmas Eve Box Ideas for Kids and for Adults

A Christmas Eve box works for one reason: it gives the evening before Christmas a shape of its own.

That evening is the longest of the year for a child and one of the strangest of the year for an adult. Everything is prepared, nothing has happened yet, and the whole house is waiting. A box gives it a beginning.

Where it goes wrong is when it turns into a second Christmas, opened twelve hours before the first one. Then it is not a tradition, it is a rehearsal, and it takes the edge off the morning it was meant to build up to.

The rule that keeps it working

Everything in it must be usable that night.

If something has to be put away until tomorrow, it belongs under the tree. That single rule sorts almost every decision, keeps the cost sensible, and stops the box quietly inflating year on year, which is the thing every family who has done this for a while will tell you happens.

The four item structure

Four is the right number. More than that and you are opening presents.

Something to wear. Pajamas is the classic and it is classic because it works. Everybody is in them for the photographs in the morning, and it removes an argument at bedtime.

Something to watch or read. A film chosen in advance, or a book to be read aloud. For younger children a story is better than a screen, because it ends at a fixed point rather than whenever somebody decides.

Something to eat or drink. Hot chocolate, a bag of marshmallows, one good chocolate each, popcorn for the film.

One small thing. A decoration for the tree with the year on it, a torch, a small game, a puzzle. One. The temptation to add three more is exactly the thing that turns the box into a second Christmas.

For toddlers and small children

Keep it calm rather than exciting. The problem on Christmas Eve is never a shortage of stimulation.

A story, warm pajamas, hot chocolate, and something to leave out for Father Christmas: a carrot, a mince pie, a drink. That last one is the item that does the most work, because it makes the child part of the preparation rather than only the recipient.

Avoid anything noisy, anything with small parts you will be finding at midnight, and anything requiring assembly.

For older children and teenagers

The box has to earn its place with an age group that has worked out what it is.

What holds up: a good snack, something genuinely funny, a film everybody has agreed on, and something with a bit of money's worth in it rather than a token. Teenagers spot a box that is mostly novelty items.

The better move at this age is to make the evening the thing. A takeaway, a specific film, a game everybody plays. The box is the wrapper on that.

For adults

The adult version is the same idea with the excitement removed and the calm turned up, which is why it works so well for a couple or for somebody spending the evening on their own.

• Something warm to wear.
• One good thing to drink.
• Something to eat that requires no cooking, on an evening when the kitchen is already full of tomorrow.
• A film, a record, or a book.

The same structure as our New Year's Eve box for couples at home, and it works for the same reason: it turns an evening that could drift into an occasion with a start time.

For a couple, one addition is worth more than anything else in the box, which is something to do together rather than consume separately. A game, a set of questions, a walk agreed in advance.

For somebody spending Christmas Eve alone

This is the version worth sending, and almost nobody thinks of it.

A person on their own on Christmas Eve, whether through distance, illness, work or a bereavement, is facing the longest evening of the year with no structure at all. A box that arrives on the 23rd with four things in it and a note saying which order to do them in is one of the kindest small gifts there is.

If you are putting one together, include a specific time you will call. Our guides to what to gift when you cannot be there and long distance Christmas gifts cover the rest.

The box itself

Use the same box every year. Wooden, or a decent sturdy one that goes back in the loft in January.

That is what makes it a tradition rather than a purchase. A new printed box each year is a product. The same battered box with everybody's names on it, brought down every December, is the thing children remember.

Write the year inside the lid. In a decade the list of years is the best thing about it.

One thing worth adding

If you want the evening to hold something people will still have later, the box is a good place for it because it is opened quietly, at home, with nobody performing.

A letter to a child, to be kept and read at eighteen. A photograph from the same evening last year. Or a song about the family or the year, played once with the lights off and the tree on, which is a substantially better setting for it than the middle of Christmas morning with wrapping paper everywhere.

For more evenings built the same way, our treats and surprises hub covers the rest, and what to write in a Christmas card covers the note that goes in the lid.