Christmas Date Ideas
Markets, baking, giving and old classics done differently, one idea at a time.
- Time
- An hour to an afternoon
- Players
- Two people
- Best for
- The weeks from late November to Christmas
- Deck
- 100 ideas in 5 categories
How to use these Christmas date ideas
- Pick a category from the menu under the card, or keep “All categories”.
- Read the idea on the top card. If you both like it, put it on the calendar.
- Swipe the card away, or tap “Next idea”, for another. Ideas do not repeat until you have seen the whole category.
- Tap the heart to save an idea on this device, or tap “Make a 10-idea list” for a list you can copy.
When to plan a Christmas date
December fills up with errands, office events and family visits. Putting a few dates on the calendar early keeps part of the season for just the two of you.
The first weekend of December
Lights and markets or Make it festive at home, while the decorations are new and the crowds are still small.
A busy weeknight before the holidays
One short recipe from Holiday baking and food fits between work and wrapping.
The slow days after the 25th
Christmas classics with a twist for the quiet stretch before New Year, when nobody needs you anywhere.
Ways to use these date ideas
A date every weekend of December
Draw one card each Friday from the first weekend on. Four weekends give you four dates before the 25th.
A whole festive Saturday
Pick one idea from three categories: a market in the afternoon, baking at home after dark, then a classic movie with a twist to finish.
Save the giving ideas first
Toy drives, community meals and gift-wrapping tables can run out of volunteer spots before the holidays, so ask early and put those on the calendar before anything else.
Tips for a good Christmas date
- Book anything with tickets, like a puppet show or an afternoon tea, in November. December weekends go quickly.
- Leave a few evenings with nothing planned. The season needs quiet nights as much as busy ones.
- Short on time? A single tray of baking or one movie still counts as a date.
All 100 Christmas date ideas by category
The complete list, grouped by category. The cards above draw from the same list, so you can read ahead here and pick there.
Lights and markets
Tree lightings, craft fairs and decorated main streets, out in the season together.
- Go to your town’s tree lighting and count down with the crowd until the switch is flipped.
- Cheer on a holiday dog parade if your town holds one, and pick a favorite costume each.
- Visit a farm that brings out reindeer or goats for December and learn every animal’s name.
- Visit a festival of trees, where local groups each decorate one, and pick the tree you would copy at home.
- Find a model train display that runs every December and each follow one tiny figure around the track.
- Visit a big train station or ferry terminal decked out for December and watch travelers arrive with their arms full of gifts.
- Stroll the main street on a late-shopping night and stop at every decorated shop front.
- Take a candlelit tour of a historic house decorated the way homes looked a century ago.
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- Watch ice carvers at a winter festival and guess what each block will become before it’s done.
- Spend an afternoon in a small nearby town that dresses up its main street, then find somewhere warm for lunch.
- Hunt a market for the strangest ornament on sale, take its photo and leave it on the shelf.
- Line up for a photo with Santa as two grown-ups and frame whatever faces you make.
- Look for a gingerbread display at a library or community center and each choose the house you would move into.
- Park near a house whose lights blink in time to music on the radio and stay for the whole show.
- Go to a holiday puppet show or children’s theater matinee and laugh louder than the kids.
- Watch a glassblower shape ornaments at a holiday fair or studio open day, and each choose a color.
- Comb a vintage fair for a decoration just like one from your childhood home, and tell its story.
- Watch a lighted boat parade from the shore if a harbor or lake near you holds one.
- Stand by the music stage at a holiday market and dance to one song, whoever is watching.
- Join the craft table at a library’s December family day, even if you are the only grown-ups there.
Make it festive at home
Ornaments, paper, string and a few new rituals for the place you share.
- Hang every ornament with its story, and invent one for any ornament nobody remembers buying.
- Pick a theme for the tree this year, like all handmade or all one color, and stick to it.
- Split the tree: one of you does the lights, the other the ornaments, with no comments until it’s finished.
- Build a tiny village on a shelf from cardboard boxes, with one house for every place you have lived.
- Dry orange slices in a low oven and hang them on the tree with kitchen string.
- Thread popcorn into a garland for the tree, eating one piece for every three you string.
- Decorate a second, smaller tree for the kitchen with cookie cutters, wooden spoons and ribbon.
- Draw a winter scene on a window with washable markers, each of you taking one pane.
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- Write a list of house rules for December, like music at breakfast and no chores after eight.
- Hang a ribbon across a doorway and clip up every card that arrives, reading each one aloud.
- Wrap the front door like a giant present, bow and all, so the whole street can see it.
- Make your own wrapping paper from brown paper, paint and stamps carved out of potatoes.
- Cut last year’s holiday cards into gift tags with scissors, a hole punch and a little string.
- Unpack the decoration boxes and each rescue one item the other would happily give away.
- Start a keepsake box for the season and add a ticket, a card or a ribbon every December.
- Hide one odd little ornament deep in the branches and let the other hunt for it on Christmas morning.
- String lights along the porch railing or balcony on a dry afternoon, no ladder needed.
- Simmer apple peels, cinnamon sticks and cloves in a pot of water so the home smells like December.
- Stack books into the shape of a tree, wrap them in lights and top them with a paper star.
- Each decorate one room for the other in secret, then give the tours at the same time.
Holiday baking and food
Log cakes, sugarplums and small feasts made side by side in the kitchen.
- Bake a holiday cookie from a country neither of you has visited, using a recipe from a library cookbook.
- Roll a chocolate log cake and decorate it with little meringue mushrooms.
- Roll chocolate truffles in cocoa, nuts and sprinkles, and keep the lumpiest ones for yourselves.
- Bake a fruit-studded holiday bread on a Sunday and slice it for breakfast all week.
- Make hot cocoa bombs: chocolate shells filled with cocoa and tiny marshmallows that burst open in hot milk.
- Cook a whole holiday dinner scaled down for two, from a small roast to a pie baked in a ramekin.
- Roast a tray of nuts with cinnamon and sugar, then snack on them while you wrap gifts.
- Roll no-bake sugarplums from dried fruit, nuts and honey, and finally find out what they taste like.
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- Bake cookies for Santa, set them out with milk, and eat them yourselves at midnight.
- Dip pretzel rods in melted chocolate and crushed candy canes, then line them up to set.
- Shape a cheese ball like a little tree and cover it in chopped herbs and red pepper.
- Make cranberry sauce from fresh berries and listen to them pop in the pan.
- Bake from a cookbook at least a hundred years old and follow its vague directions as best you can.
- Stack homemade cream puffs into a little tree and drizzle it with caramel.
- Arrange a snack board in the shape of a wreath with rosemary, cherry tomatoes and cheese.
- Make three logs of cookie dough, freeze them and label each one for a gray weekend in January.
- Bake a fruitcake with only the fruits you both actually like, and give it a new name.
- Walk between three cafés on a cold afternoon and share one small hot chocolate in each.
- Book a holiday afternoon tea with tiny sandwiches and scones, and dress a little too fancy for it.
- Frost a cake as a snowy hill and send toy figures sledding down the side.
Giving together
Volunteering, gifts for others and small kindnesses that make December warmer.
- Take a tag from a giving tree at a library or store and shop for that child’s wish together.
- Pack care kits with warm socks, gloves and snacks and drop them at a local shelter.
- Volunteer for a shift at a charity gift-wrapping table, where shoppers donate for each wrapped present.
- Make holiday cards for the residents of a care home and leave them at the front desk.
- Spend an afternoon sorting donated toys for a toy drive, matching each gift to an age group.
- Sign up together to serve a holiday meal at a community kitchen.
- Drop off a box of homemade treats at the fire station for the crew working on the 25th.
- Each pick the children’s book you loved most and donate a new copy to a book drive.
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- Bake simple pet treats and take them to an animal shelter with a bag of old towels and blankets.
- Write holiday letters through a program that delivers mail to service members far from home.
- Offer to wrap every gift for a friend who hates wrapping, and do it together on their couch.
- Babysit for friends with kids so they get one free evening of holiday shopping.
- Mail a holiday care package to a friend spending the season alone, with a note from both of you.
- Help a local charity with its December mailing, folding letters and sealing envelopes side by side.
- Fill a box with one pantry item a day through December, then take it to a food pantry.
- Put up a few decorations for an older neighbor who can no longer do it, once they say yes.
- Learn one simple knitted hat pattern together and make a few for a winter coat drive.
- Invite an older neighbor or relative along on a holiday outing, like a market or a lights drive.
- Set up a free cocoa stand on your front steps for an hour and pour a cup for everyone who walks by.
- Empty every coin jar and coat pocket in the house, count it together and give it to a cause you both choose.
Christmas classics with a twist
Old movies, songs and traditions, done a little differently this year.
- Make holiday movie bingo cards with ten clichés each, then watch a made-for-TV holiday romance.
- Play holiday songs sung only in languages neither of you speaks, and guess what each one is about.
- Each secretly choose five holiday songs, shuffle them into one playlist and guess who picked which.
- Learn a holiday duet, one part each, and record it in a single take, mistakes and all.
- Write a letter to Santa as grown-ups, listing what you would wish for the other, and read them aloud.
- Fill each other’s stockings with one small thing for every letter of the other’s name.
- Give each other four gifts: something wanted, something needed, something to wear and something to read.
- Watch a holiday movie everyone loves, then the sequel nobody seems to remember.
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- Recreate one scene from a holiday movie with whatever is in the house, and film it on one phone.
- Find a childhood holiday photo of each of you and recreate it, same pose and same props if you can.
- Open presents with one rule: the giver describes each gift in exactly three words first.
- Spend one December day doing exactly what you loved about the season at eight years old.
- Write ten trivia questions each about holiday movies and quiz each other on the couch.
- Watch two film versions of the same classic holiday story back to back and talk about what changed.
- Swap traditions: do one from each of your childhood homes, exactly the way it was done there.
- Hold your own Christmas for two a week early, before the family visits begin.
- Make December 26 a date of its own, with leftovers, new gifts and nowhere to be.
- Each pick the holiday movie you never understood the fuss about, watch both, and see if either of you changes your mind.
- Catch a classic holiday movie when a local theater brings it back to the big screen.
- Wrap five odd things from around the house and hold a white elephant swap for two, stealing allowed.
Frequently asked questions
How many Christmas date ideas are there?
There are 100 ideas, 20 in each of five categories: lights and markets, make it festive at home, holiday baking and food, giving together, and Christmas classics with a twist. The cards and the list on this page use the same set.
What are cheap Christmas date ideas?
Many cost little or nothing: a tree lighting, a hotel lobby, decorating with what you already own and most of Giving together. For dates on a budget all year, see cheap date ideas.
Is there a holiday game we can play together too?
Yes. Christmas would you rather has festive dilemmas you pick in secret and reveal at the same moment, a good fit for an evening by the tree.
What can we do once Christmas is over?
Plan the last night of the year with New Year’s Eve ideas for couples, then keep going until spring with winter date ideas.