10 ways to keep
the magic of Santa alive
For children roughly three to nine. No craft marathon, no expensive days out. Ten things that make December bigger without costing you a week of your life.
1. Give the countdown a shape
A paper chain where one link comes off each evening beats a chocolate calendar, because the shrinking chain is something a child can see across the room. Write a tiny thing to do on the inside of each link: sing a carol, call grandma, put socks by the door.
The point is not the activity. It is that December has a rhythm instead of one enormous day at the end.
2. Make a Christmas Eve box
New pyjamas, a book, hot chocolate, one small thing. Opened after dinner on the 24th, no earlier. It gives the longest, hardest evening of the year a beginning, which is exactly what small children need when they cannot sleep.
It also quietly takes the pressure off the morning. Some of the excitement has already happened.
3. Let them write to Santa, and make sure it goes somewhere
A letter only works if it leaves the house. Walk to the postbox together and let them drop it in. Most postal services run a Santa letter scheme with a real reply, and those replies get kept for years.
Small children dictate, older ones write. And yes, a reply can also come from you.
4. Let Santa call, and decide what he says
A phone call lands differently from a present, because it speaks to your child directly. Santa says their name, he knows what is on the wish list, and he knows what they have been up to that week.
With Call from Santa you put that call together yourself. For every part you pick from suggestions or write your own: the compliment, the little task, what he knows about this week, and the question he asks. You listen to the whole message back before your child hears it, and you decide when the phone rings: now, with thirty seconds to get the handset ready, or later that evening.
Two messages are free and you get a third when you share the app, there is no subscription, and your child never leaves the story.
5. Track Santa on Christmas Eve
NORAD has been doing this since 1955 and it is still free. Put it on the television around five o’clock on the 24th and let the children check where he is between courses.
It gives you a reason to say bedtime matters without a single threat: he will not come while you are awake.
6. Drive out to see the lights, in pyjamas
One evening, everyone in the car in pyjamas, a flask of something warm, and a slow drive around the streets with the best decorations. Twenty minutes, costs nothing, and it is the thing they remember.
If you do not drive, walk a loop around your own neighbourhood. It works just as well in the cold.
7. Bake something they can ruin
Gingerbread, shortbread, anything where the dough gets rolled and cut. The uneven ones are the point. Children do not want to bake neatly, they want to be in charge of something.
Leave one out on Christmas Eve with a glass of milk. The bite out of it the next morning does more work than any present.
8. Read the same book every year
The Night Before Christmas, or whichever one you grew up with. Same night, same chair, same voice. Repetition is what turns an evening into a tradition, and you only notice that it worked years later.
9. Give something away before you unwrap anything
Let each child choose one toy in good condition to pass on, before the new ones arrive. Do it together, take it somewhere yourselves, and do not make a lesson out of it.
It also solves a practical problem: the house does not grow, and the shelf has to hold more every year.
10. Keep it small if your child finds it a lot
Some children find Christmas mostly overwhelming. Fewer surprises, no strangers in costume, no big reveals. A calm evening with the people they know is a complete Christmas.
And whatever Santa says, make sure it is kind. Nothing about the naughty list, nothing that sounds like a warning. What he says is your decision, so decide it carefully.
Frequently asked questions
How do you keep the magic of Santa alive?
Repetition more than spectacle. The same book, the same chair, the same walk to the postbox each year does more than any single expensive surprise. Small, repeatable traditions are what children remember.
How can Santa call my child by name?
With an app such as Call from Santa. You put the call together yourself, listen to it back, and choose whether the phone rings now or later. Santa says your child’s name and knows what you have told him.
What age do children stop believing in Santa?
Most children start to work it out between seven and nine, and many keep playing along for a year or two after that. Which is to say: you have fewer Christmases of this kind than you think.
What do you do when a child finds Christmas overwhelming?
Make it smaller and more predictable. Fewer events, no surprise visitors, and keep anything Santa says gentle and checked by you in advance.
Written by Flying Dutchman Studios, makers of Call from Santa. Last updated 28 October 2026.
