Do you have any Christmas traditions? Making a Christmas Eve Box can be a fun Christmas tradition for your family. This post will cover what a Christmas Eve Box is and what items you can include inside your box.
RELATED: Letter to Santa Templates
Have you had fun trying some of our Christmas crafts? If you’re looking for some fun and easy craft ideas be sure to see our post which has over 50+ Christmas Crafts for Kids.
Christmas Eve Box
When we first learned about this tradition we thought it was such a fun idea we wanted to do a tutorial on how to make your own personalized Christmas Eve box. We have also included free printables of a Santa Letter, Reindeer Food and Snowman Soup for you to print out and make your box extra special!
See the bottom of the post to get the free printables.
What is a Christmas Eve Box?
A Christmas Eve Box is a small box or crate gifted to your children the day before Christmas. It can also be given the day after Thanksgiving or the first day of December.
It can be filled with whatever goodies you like! This often becomes a yearly tradition and makes the night before Christmas something special to look forward to! We love how this makes Christmas even more magical and fun for your little ones.
What To Put In A Christmas Eve Box
The options are endless on what you can put in your box, but here are just a few of our favorite ideas:
- Pajamas
- Slippers
- Christmas Movie
- Christmas Book
- Reindeer Food (you can grab the Reindeer Food, Snowman Soup & Letter from Santa free printables by subscribing to the form that has the free printable preview at the bottom of this post.)
- Snowman Soup
- Letter from Santa
- Socks
- Playing Cards
- Candy Canes
- Small Christmas Toy
- Cookie Decorating Kit
- Christmas Stuffed Animal
- Christmas Coloring Book
- Christmas Cup
- A Craft Kit – or grab the supplies from one of these easy and fun Christmas Crafts for Kids
- Kids craft book
- A Personalized Christmas book with your child’s name
- An Ornament – or make one of these easy Salt Dough Ornaments
Here are some ideas from our readers:
“I put in Christmas PJ’s, a Christmas book and DVD, a Christmas cup, popcorn and coloring book or dot to dot. I keep the same box every year and stick a photo of that year inside the lid. Then after Christmas, I use the boxes for decorations. This year I’m also putting in a little decoration each so they can start their own collection.” – Daniela
“We’ve started doing this the last few years. They get new pajamas, a film and they get some Christmas crafts to do. Also a little Christmas cuddly to have to cuddle with during the film and a new tree decoration.” – Jodie
Supplies for a Christmas Eve Box
Here are the supplies you’ll need to make your own Christmas Eve Crate:
- Ornament or Embellishment for the Box
- Large wooden crate – we found ours at Michaels or you can buy personalized Christmas Eve boxes here
- Items to put inside your box like PJ’s, movie, book, popcorn, and our free printables
- Paper shred filler or other filler to put in the box
- For the snowman soup: hot cocoa mix, mini marshmallows & a candy cane
- For the reindeer food: oats & red & green edible sprinkles
- Clear Treat Tags for your reindeer food and snowman soup
- For the Santa letter: envelope & paper
- Free Printables – You can grab the Reindeer Food, Snowman Soup & Letter from Santa free printables at the bottom of this post.
How To Make a Christmas Eve Box
If you’d rather not make your own you can get lots of personalized Christmas Eve boxes here.
1. Using your stencils (we purchased ones like these), paint on the words “CHRISTMAS EVE BOX” to your crate.
Use very little paint and dab very lightly to avoid bleeding through the stencil. We love that the crate is rustic looking so the letters don’t have to look perfect!
2. Glue on your ornament decoration to the box.
We found this snowman ornament from Michaels but you could use a large ribbon or any other Christmas embellishment.
3. Make your reindeer food and snowman soup!
Skip down to the bottom of this post to grab your free printables.
To make the reindeer food: Mix oats and red & green sprinkles and add to a treat bag. Staple your free printable treat tag on top.
Note: when sprinkling outside, be sure to sprinkle on a deck or patio so you can sweep up afterwards. This ensures no wildlife accidentally eat the reindeer food.
To make the snowman soup: Add in your hot cocoa mix, handful of mini marshmallows and a candy cane to your bag and staple your treat tag on top.
4. Fold your letter from Santa and place in an envelope.
Grab the free printable letter from Santa at the bottom of this post.
If you need templates for kids to write their own letter to Santa, you can grab our free letter to Santa templates.
5. Now add all of your elements into your crate!
PJs, movie, book, snowman soup, reindeer food, etc
Free Printables for a Christmas Eve Box
More Christmas Crafts
Want more fun Christmas ideas? See over 50+ Christmas Crafts for Kids!
And for adorable keepsakes to make with kids, make this salt dough recipe this year!
If I just put oats in the Reindeer food bag is it dangerous for wildlife?
Hi Janis – if just using oats that should be fine for wildlife.
Thanks for this Box idea. we have done most of these the last several years with our 2 grandsons but have never thought of the idea of putting it all in a box for each of them. Will certainly start this box tradition this year. FANTASTIC IDEA!! Thank y’all!!!!!!
I’ve been wanting to make this box for several years to sell at my church fall festival This year will be it
Love this idea.. I’ve been doing this for 4 years now and the grandchildren love it. I’m going to add an ornament and candy cane to the package this year. Thanks so much for the ideas.
Love the box, Awesome idea!
Thanks for the printables!
Love the box idea will post a picture after CHRISTMAS.
Thank you for the sweet idea! Merry christmas
Thanks for the wonderful ideas. My first one with my daughter
Thank you for all your hard work. You are very creative! LOVE the Christmas Eve box idea, too cute! Too bad my babies are 18 and 23, but I guess I can adjust it using your ideas, haha! Thanks!!
Awesome ideas
Love the ideas
I’m excited to find this post. I’m gonna make Christmas boxes for my 2yr old grandson’s half brother and sissy.
Thank you for this clever idea!! Can’t wait to send a box to my great grandchildren in England and Virginia
So glad to here, thanks for commenting!
I entered my email and name to subscribe, but nothing seems to happen. Am I supposed to be emailed a confirmation, or how am I able to view the printables?
Hi Jessica – you should have received an email to confirm your email subscription and then you’ll receive a follow-up email with the link. You may want to check your other folders to see if it was sent to promotions. If you don’t have it, send us an email and we will help!
Where can i find stencils that were used ?
We link to some above from Amazon but we found this stencil at Michaels. It’s by Martha Stewart and they are adhesive stencils.
What a wonderful idea
i have subscribed to the emailing list and all I received was the reindeer food printable?
how do I get the Santa Letter and Soup Mix?
Go back to the link you received when you subscribed. They are all there under Christmas Eve box. 🙂
Great site, loads of useful ideas, it will be Easter next so get the ideas out soon please
Check back end of January we should have some Easter posts coming then! 😉
This is such a cute idea
Thank you Lori!
Thank you so much.