Simple Christmas Activities for Busy Working Homeschool Moms

If you’re a busy working homeschool mom like I am, you might view the holiday season with a touch of anxiety. After all, you’re already dealing with regular work deadlines, and homeschool lessons, and all the holiday hoopla can seem, well, draining. That’s why I created this quick list of simple Christmas activities for busy working homeschool moms like you and me.

(And just to make life a little easier for you, I also created a free 1-page calendar for you to download, print, and stick to the front of your fridge. You’ll find a link to it at the bottom ⬇️ of this post. )

Ditch the Holiday Mom Guilt

As you know by now, mom guilt never quite goes away. And the holidays seem to be especially challenging when you homeschool and work from home.

After all, you’re at home, so you want to do the full-on “at home mom” Christmas season. But you just can’t find any blank spaces on your Google calendar and homeschool schedule …

The simple truth is that it can be all too easy to start feeling like you’re letting your family down during the holidays, especially when your day is filled with Google meetings, homeschool lessons, and Zoom calls instead of Christmas festivities, events, and all the holiday things that fall on moms.

And if your homeschooling routine has fallen off the rails, or you’ve been homeschooling and working from home through sickness, your stress level could be climbing.

Plus, it seems like all the time management tips in the world won’t help. You need a few tried and true tips to take the hustle out of the holidays.

Here’s what to do.

Forget the Home-Baked Gingerbread House

Don’t let it. Establishing Christmas traditions and making memories for your family doesn’t need to be time-consuming, expensive, or elaborate.

Forget about baking gingerbread from scratch and staying up until 2:00 a.m. to cut gingerbread house walls to size. Instead, simplify, minimize, and create new, easier holiday activities that take less time and effort.

A Plan, A Christmas Calendar, and 15-30 Minutes a Day

What you need is a plan, a list, a calendar, and 15 to 30 minutes a day.

Here’s how I do it.

Sticking with simple Christmas activities means I don’t spend hours setting up and cleaning up. And even better, this lets us stretch the holiday season out for the entire month.

Instead of trying to jam Christmas baking into the last 48 hours before December 25, I can break it down and spread it out over several days.

15-Minute Christmas Activities

When I was brainstorming this list, I wanted to keep the activities simple and short. As in under 30 minutes. So here’s what I did.

First, I chatted with my older kids about what they enjoyed most about our holiday traditions when they were young—the simple Christmas activities and also the not-so-simple ones. And then, I tried to find ways to simplify those complicated ones.

For example, my sons, who are now 32 and 29 loved baking, cutting, building, and decorating gingerbread houses each year. And wow, that took so. Much. Time. But it’s a favorite memory and an experience I think my littles would enjoy.

And while I might do that again with the younger kids next year, this year will be different. Instead, I’ll add frozen gingerbread dough to my meal prep shopping list.

One day, we’ll roll the frozen dough, cut it into shapes and bake two trays. The next day, we’ll decorate it with pre-bought baking sprinkles and icing.

Christmas this year will look very different than previous ones for most of us anyway. So I hope this list of simple Christmas activities helps you to get creative and make the season a fun one for you and yours.

21 Simple Christmas Activities for Time-Strapped Homeschool Moms

1. Grab construction paper, a black crayon and a red one, scissors, a glue stick, and your child’s hand to make this fun reindeer handprint craft.
2. Print out free Christmas coloring sheets for kids as young as three years old.
3. Bake and decorate frozen store-bought Christmas gingerbread cookie dough instead of baking from scratch.
4. If you’re really time-strapped, buy plain storebought sugar cookies, you know, the round ones? And decorate those. The kids will still have a blast.
5. Learn one new Christmas carol – or learn a few as part of your December homeschool music lessons -check out Music in Our Homeschool’s Christmas music course here!
6. Make and mail Christmas cards for elderly relatives.
7. Put together easy Christmas gifts for your kids – Mason Jar Cookie Ingredients Gift Jars are always popular. Assemble the ingredients one afternoon, create pretty labels and/or decorate the jars the next day.
8. Another handmade Christmas gift kids can make is flower petal bath salts – fast and easy to assemble.
9. Handprint salt dough ornament – fun, fast, and memorable!
10. Make a homemade pomander – you’ll need oranges, Christmas ribbons, whole cloves, and a dull-tipped craft needle.
11. Read an old-fashioned Christmas picture book together.
12. Make Microwave Swirl Fudge
13. Serve hot chocolate, fudge, or gingerbread cookies, light a candle, and tell a Christmas story or memory from your childhood.
14. Watch an old Christmas television special – Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer, The Christmas Story, or Frosty the Snowman are all fun.
15. Shape pipe cleaners into candy canes, animals, or other shapes for simple Christmas tree ornaments.
16. Record a family Christmas video message to email your faraway friends or family or share on Facebook.
17. Gather pinecones from your backyard together to put in a pretty holiday bowl for a simple centerpiece.
18. Use a pattern for free printable Christmas ornaments or even egg carton bell Christmas ornaments.
19. Use a roll of wide Christmas ribbon and cut off approximately 9-inch lengths. Teach your children to tie ribbon bows, then slip in a twist tie at the back and use these for a simple Christmas tree decoration.
20. You know those pinecones you collected? Spend 15 minutes dabbing them with metallic paints for a more sophisticated yet simple Christmas home look.
21. So, I seem to have a ton of plain brown wrapping paper. (Hello, Amazon.) One simple and strangely calming Christmas activity we enjoy is stamping our own wrapping paper. Here’s an easy trick- use the end of a toilet paper roll dipped in paint. One end dipped in red paint, the other in green. Even preschoolers can get into this easy Christmas activity!

Simple Christmas Activities Calendar

What’s your favorite fast Christmas activity? Have you found a way to simplify a Christmas tradition? Let me know in the comments below. But first, grab your printable Simple Christmas Activities calendar here!

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