25 Free Christmas Gifts To Guarantee The Best Holiday Ever (2023)

Christmas does NOT need to cost anything to be amazing and memorable. In our house, we drink up every ounce of Christmas Spirit and spend little to no money.

Here are some free Christmas gift ideas to create a joyful and FREE Christmas experience, without any stress on your finances:

DIY Countdown Calendar: Everyone talks about “getting in the Christmas spirit”. But what is uniquely the spirit of Christmas? ANTICIPATION. And guess what, it’s free! Think back to your childhood or look at the children in your life now. The joy of Christmas is so much more in the anticipation, the hopefulness of what is coming. Children can spend weeks wishing, hoping, anticipating what they might receive for Christmas, and that is what brings delight. The best way to build anticipation is to create a countdown calendar using items you already have at home. A regular calendar will do. In our family, we love to use cute holiday stickers an place them on a day that corresponds to the activity we want to do. Pick a date on the calendar for each of the activities listed below – and you’ll fill up the 25 days from Dec 1-24th! So if we’re going ice skating, a penguin ice skating sticker is just what we need. If we’re baking cookies, well then of course we need a cookie monster sticker. The kids get pretty creative in selecting their activities and decorating the calendar.
Decorate: We have a faux tree we use every year so we’ve gotten our money’s worth out of it over the years and its essentially free now. Our daughter loves playing “elf” retrieving each ornament from the box and finding the perfect place for it. That way, when we hang every ornament we get a great reminder of a fab family holiday we’ve taken. We spend about $10 on each ornament over time, but what a return on investment we get year after year in memories. Hubby and I sit on the couch with a glass of red, and get the gift of relaxation! There is something about the warm glow of lights that makes it impossible to feel anything but content and grateful. In our family, we buy an ornament on each family trip we go on.
Camp Out at the Christmas Tree: Allow the kids to sleep in sleeping bags under the Christmas tree on Christmas Eve. This creates a magical experience and a new tradition. It does, however make it a bit challenging for Santa’s arrival if your kids aren’t sound sleepers. If this challenge is too much for you, suggest doing it the night you decorate the tree.
Cookie Baking: Spend time baking cookies. You likely have most of the ingredients in your cabinets already. Up until my 20’s, we had a family tradition of baking cookies with my Mom and my sister-in-law. But over the years, when I moved away, that tradition fell by the wayside and I only made them with my daughter. During the lockdown of 2020, we had an idea to re-start our family cooking making tradition and my daughter and I donned our Santa hats and did a zoom call with my mom at her place and my sister in law at hers. We had all planned to have our own ingredients and make the cookies simultaneously. It was one of the most hilarious cookie baking days we have ever had. We laughed so much we cried, as making cookies by zoom is more challenging than you think. The cookies we made were pretty good but the memories made were outstanding. Don’t let distance stop you!
Scavenger Hunts: Instead of traditional gift-giving, we always create a scavenger hunt around the house with clues leading to one of my daughter’s gift. She gets so wrapped up in the hunt, and enjoys the journey more than the present. It’s a great way to deliver smaller, simple gifts. Her Dad and I enjoy writing the poetic clues. It used to take us hours. But this year, we plan to give ChatGPT a try for help with the poems.
White Elephant/Secret Santa: My girlfriends and I love to get together for holiday girls’ night. We each bring a gift to swap and fight over. We have added a rule to be more in-line with my our minimalist ways – it must be a re-gift from something you have in your house but don’t use. Many times we’re re-gifting items that were gifted to us (and we’ve had quite the laugh when someone realizes a gift they gave a friend was never used and ends up at next year’s party).
Make Your Gifts – Less cost, more joy. Here are some ideas we’ve done in the past, that have really made the family tear up!
- My mom made me a family recipe cookbook. She spent so much time and care selecting all our favorite recipes passed down from my grandparents and her. I now add my own, and will pass down to my daughter.
- We decorated an old mason jar and made a Gratitude Jar. We cut up strips of pretty paper to include inside. Each month your write something you’re grateful for and drop it in the jar, Open it up at Thanksgiving, Christmas (or when you’re feeling low), for a reminder of all the joy you’ve had throughout the year.
- Bake family recipes and share with neighbors – My mother-in-law is Australian and makes the most delicious passion fruit slice. Passion fruit is rather exotic over here so I love baking it for my friends and neighbors as its unique and delectable
- I am the resident genealogist in our family. One year for Christmas I printed a Family History book for my Dad and my brother than covered 7 years of research on our McDowell family history, dating back over 500 years! It has inspired a family trip to Scotland together that we’ll take this summer to see our ancestral castles!
- Offer coupons for baby sitting, pet sitting, housesitting to friends, family and neighbors
- My daughter made her own board game for me when she was about 6. It blew us away how creative it was. To this day, it’s still a favorite on family game night!
Family Movies: Every year since our daughter was born 12 years ago, I have asked for only gift from my husband. Each year he puts his tech skills to work and makes a family movie of our favorite moments over the year. We watch it on Christmas day, along with heaps of past year’s movies as well. Then he adds in our Christmas footage and we watch it again on New Year’s Day. Hands down, it’s our family’s favorite tradition, and it doesn’t cost anything but time. And I know my daughter will enjoy these for years to come as she gets older and her memory of these younger years begin to fade.
Gingerbread House Competition: This one can be free if you make it from scratch, or kits can be bought for a nominal amount, around $10. This has become our favorite annual tradition. We started it in lockdown in 2020 when I was trying to find engaging projects for our Girl Scout Troop given all our meetings were over zoom. We came up with the idea to have a gingerbread competition where every scout built a house with their family and we had a secret judge join the call (who was their favorite teacher) to assess points on different categories. We loved it so much we now make one every year. We take pics throughout the process to show our progress and our setbacks and make a fun holiday reel. We love building, but we love “demo day” more, where we get to demolish it and enjoy every bite.
White Envelope: Years ago I realized I had more than I needed and used to say “no gifts please”. But then I came across and idea that resonated with me. It’s called the white envelope. Each year my daughter and husband select a charity they know is important to me and they make a donation in my name. Then my daughter decorates a card with the info on it and places it in a white envelope on the tree branches. Although this idea is not free (unless you donate your time), I have included it because it certainly focuses on spreading joy without buying presents.
Give the Gift of A Life Story: Spend the year jotting down memories of your children at different ages and compile and share as they grow. Or capture someone else’s story. I used Storyworth (not free but you could use the idea and make your own) to create a book for my parents about their life for us all to share. I had my daughter interview them and choose all the questions she would ask. She loved questions about when they were naughty when they were younger. It was such a fun way for her (and me) to learn more about her grandparents and great-grandparents. Some hilarious stories I had never heard before were also discovered.
Coupons for Chores: My daughter loves creating coupon books for her Dad and me, when she was younger she’d usually offer cuddles, as a tween she often offers to do chores or unpleasant tasks that she knows we parents typically don’t enjoy. This can be a thoughtful and helpful gift.
Movie Nights: Choose classic Christmas movies available on streaming services you already subscribe to. Elf is our go-to, usually followed by a Christmas story. I always through in a claymation like Rudolph or the Grinch, as I was wild about them as a kid, and they’re still great 40+ years later.
Create a video gift: My mentee came up with this idea – making video tributes to show her love and appreciation. As a teenager, she’s adept with her phone and can make some really creative, and touching video cards.
Nature Walks: Go on nature walks to collect pine cones and other natural elements to use as decorations. We spray painted pinecones one year and made wreaths another.
Santa’s Elf: Have the kids pretend to be elves, helping with simple tasks around the house or preparing for Christmas. Supply some ginger snaps as a reward (as elves love ginger snaps).
Crazy Gifts Exchange: Create a tradition of exchanging funny gifts. These items can be made from items around the house, and really inspire creativity and add a fun and humorous element to gift-giving.
Christmas Light Shows: Check out free community events like Christmas light displays, tree-lighting ceremonies. There is a house we visit every year with an interactive display, where you cook s’mores, tour the North Pole and it even snows (given we’re in the desert, this is a real treat)!
Be Neighborly: Invite neighbors over that may not have anyone to celebrate with. Growing up we had a lot of Jewish friends and we loved inviting them for Christmas dinner every year and sharing our traditions. Maybe there is a neighbor whose family lives far away you can invite to join your celebrations.
Christmas Parade: Last year we were driving through a small town (Williams, AZ) on the way back from a Thanksgiving holiday and were pleasantly surprised to learn it was their annual tree lighting and Christmas parade. We had so much fun that night and now make an effort to seek out similar event.
Go Caroling: : My daughter’s girl scout troop did this at a nursing home one year, and another year we joined school friends to go through the neighborhood. We printed the carols out from the internet and bound them up with pipe cleaner we had in our craft box.
Crafting Christmas Cards: Make your own Christmas cards using paper, colors, and other art supplies available at home. My mother-in-law would make the most beautiful hand made cards, and inspired my daughter to do the same.
Christmas Play Lists: Each one of us make a holiday music play list and we always “battle” over whose list is best and which is the right “vibe” for whatever Christmas activity we have planned.
Reading Christmas Stories: Spend time reading Christmas stories or books you already own, or borrow from the library.
Volunteering: As a family, volunteer your time to a local charity or community center can teach children the joy of giving.

Remember, the best Christmas present is spending quality time with your family and friends, wrapped up in recalling great memories and making new ones. Free Christmas gifts are more meaningful and guaranteed to make it the most memorable holiday ever.

LIVE RICHLY. FIND HAPPY.

Christmas is a time that makes us wonder, do we already have Enough? Read more about how to find your balance and recognize “enough”.