9 Things That Belong in a Christmas Eve Box
The Christmas Eve box is a lovely idea that goes wrong in one predictable way. You fill it with exciting things, and then you hand a child a pile of exciting things at seven in the evening on the one night you need them to go to sleep.
The boxes that work do the opposite. Everything in them points downwards. A story, a light, something warm, something to hold. The excitement is already in the house on the twenty fourth. Nobody has to add any.
Nine things below, grouped by what they are actually for.
Nine things in four groups. Ratings are live Amazon ratings, never ours.
- 1
A ceiling star projectorBest if you only buy one thing - 2
A bedtime story for the night itselfBest for the sitting down part - 3
A box set of short booksBest for a child who will not sit for a long story - 4
A visual countdown timerBest for the child who asks how long every minute - 5
A cotton weighted lap blanketBest for the sofa hour before bed - 6
An insulated cup with a spoutBest for cocoa that does not end up on the rug - 7
A weighted plush to holdBest for a child who cannot settle - 8
A set of feelings booksBest for the night before a big day - 9
A portable sound machineBest for a baby in a full house
Group one
The three things that have to be in there
Almost every good Christmas Eve box holds the same three things. Something to look at, something to read, and something warm to wear. The rest is decoration.
That is not a rule anybody invented. It is what is left once you take out the things that cause arguments. Sweets are gone by eight. A toy gets compared with a sibling’s toy. A game needs an adult who has not sat down since Tuesday. What survives is quiet, shared and used lying down.
A projector covers the first one. It turns the ceiling into something to stare at while they are lying still, which is a lot closer to sleep than a new toy is. It also stays useful all year, and it is often the item that quietly fixes the dark. If that is a bigger issue in your house, we compared the options in night lights for children who are scared of the dark.
One Fire Dinosaur Night Light Projector
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The book is the part parents remember later. It is the reason everybody ends up on one bed at eight o clock. A single story for the night itself does the job better than a stack does, because there is no choosing and no negotiating.
Some children will not sit through a long story on a night like this. A set of very short books works better. You read two, they choose the second one, and the whole thing is over in six minutes instead of twenty.
Group two
The things that slow the last hour down
The hour between the box and sleep is the part that goes wrong. Everything here is chosen for that hour, not for the morning.
It helps to decide in advance what that hour looks like. One film, one drink, one story, lights out. Children who know the order stop testing it. Children who are handed an open evening on the twenty fourth will test every part of it, and who could blame them.
A visual timer sounds like an odd thing to gift wrap. It is the single most useful object in our house on the twenty fourth. A child who can see the time left stops asking how long, and the asking is what winds everybody up. Set it for the film, or for how long until lights out.
Timer Pal, Rainbow Visual Timer for Kids/Adults, 0-99 Minutes Light
A weighted lap blanket does the same job with no instructions. It is heavy enough to feel like being held and light enough to stay on. The rule with weight is simple. It sits on the lap on the sofa, not over a sleeping child.
Cocoa is half the tradition. An insulated cup with a lid means you can hand it over on the sofa without watching it the whole time. It also keeps the drink warm long enough to survive the middle of a film.
Group three
For the child who cannot come down from it
Some children do not get excited on Christmas Eve. They get overloaded. The signs look like naughtiness and are not. Shouting, silliness, tears over nothing at half past eight.
Something with weight to hold is the most reliable thing we have found for that half hour. A plush with beads in it is easier for a young child to accept than a blanket, because it is a toy first and a tool second.
If the wound up feeling shows up as big emotions, a set of feelings books gives the child words for what is happening. Read one on the twenty third, not the twenty fourth. We wrote about the whole pattern in why Christmas tips some children over.
Group four
If there is a baby in the house
A baby does not need a Christmas Eve box. The people around the baby need one thing, which is a way of getting the room quiet while the house is not.
A portable sound machine is that thing. It clips to a car seat or a travel cot and it covers the noise of a room full of relatives. If this is the first December with a new baby, the rest of the list is in gifts for a baby’s first Christmas.
What we would skip this year
A new toy. It is the most common thing in these boxes and it competes with the morning. Either they play with it until eleven, or they open it, look at the tree, and put it down. Neither of those is what you wanted.
Pyjamas bought a size too big. They get worn once, in a photograph, and then live in a drawer until they fit in April. Buy the size they are now.
Anything that makes a noise. A whistle, a musical toy, a light with a tune. It is the twenty fourth of December. The house is already loud, and the adults have a long evening ahead.
The honest caveat: we have not tested every item here on a Christmas Eve, and what settles one child winds up another. Ratings are live Amazon ratings pulled from our product library rather than typed in by us.
Four of the best things in a Christmas Eve box are not on this list, because they are not things you buy from us. Pyjamas. A film everybody has already seen. A sachet of cocoa. A pair of thick socks. The box works because of what happens around it, not because of what is in it. If the real problem is that nobody in your house sleeps on the twenty fourth, that is a separate job and we went through it in getting children to sleep on Christmas Eve.
More on the last week of December
Questions parents ask
What do you put in a Christmas Eve box for kids?
A book, pyjamas, something warm to drink, and one calm thing to hold or look at. Most families add a film and a pair of socks. The rule that saves the evening is that nothing in the box should be exciting enough to compete with the morning, because the box is opened on the night you most need them asleep.
When should you open the Christmas Eve box?
After the bath rather than after dinner. Opening it early gives the contents four hours to be played with, argued over and lost. Opening it once everybody is in pyjamas turns it into the start of bedtime instead of an interruption to it, which is the whole point of having one.
What age is a Christmas Eve box for?
Roughly two to eleven, and it changes shape as they get older. Little ones want the ritual and barely notice the contents. Older children start noticing the value of what is inside, so a box built around a film, a drink and something to read ages better than one built around small toys.
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I'm for the parent mid-meltdown - theirs or the kid's. I write from the actual floor of it: the crying that won't stop, the dinner thrown, the bedtime that unravels. Blunt because I respect you too much to pretend it's easy. Just what tends to actually work.
More from NourWhat's the one thing that actually calmed the chaos in your house?
No right answers here - tell us how it actually went. Someone reading needs to hear it.
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