7 Expert Tips for Traveling with Kids During Christmas
A Guide for Christmas Travel with Kids
“Holidays (any holiday) are such a great opportunity to focus on bringing the family together.”
Despite being a majority Muslim country, Christmas decorations are plentiful throughout Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. This large Christmas tree was located near the world’s tallest twin towers: The Petronas Towers.
If you're reading this in mid-December and your stomach is in knots about your upcoming holiday trip, I need you to know something: I've been exactly where you are.
Four years ago, I was convinced we were about to destroy Christmas for our daughters. We'd committed to three months in France, September through December, before I'd fully processed what that meant. No trick-or-treating in our neighborhood. No Thanksgiving with family. No decorating our house for Christmas. No familiar traditions.
"We're going to ruin Christmas for the girls."
I never said it out loud to Kevin, but I thought about it constantly. And if you're traveling this month, you might be thinking the same thing right now.
Here's what I wish someone had told me then: I was completely wrong.
If You're Leaving in Days, Start Here
Before I tell you what happened in France, let me give you the reassurance you need right now, the practical stuff that will make the next two weeks actually work.
7 Essential Tips for Celebrating Christmas While Traveling
After celebrating Christmas and New Year's in 4 countries over four years, we've figured out exactly what works. Here are the seven tips that transformed us from anxious holiday travelers into a family that actually looks forward to celebrating anywhere.
Determine Your Non-Negotiable Christmas Traditions
This Is The Most Important Thing We Learned.
Start by sitting down together and deciding what you’re NOT willing to give up.
You cannot recreate your entire home Christmas while traveling! Trying will make you miserable.
Instead, ask your family: “What 2–3 things make Christmas feel like Christmas for us?” Then figure out how that tradition might look while traveling.
For us, it really comes down to a few must-haves:
Holiday and Christmas movies
A Christmas Tree (even a small one)
Special Christmas meals and treats
We’ve found ways to adapt these non-negotiable Christmas traditions into our holiday travels. It doesn’t always look exactly the same, but we make it work. Sometimes, the creativity involved actually helps keep our spirits focused on what’s most important.
We usually kick off the Christmas season by watching National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation. This year, we got busy and didn’t get to watch the movie until a week after Thanksgiving. Afterwards, Rachel said, “I finally feel like it’s Christmas season now.”
While in France, we even added a new movie, Arthur Christmas, to our annual list (which wasn’t available in the United States at the time). Through a VPN service like Surfshark ($1.99/month with this Holiday Sale link), you can access your home country's Netflix or other streaming platforms to find your family's beloved holiday films, no matter where you travel.
Trees work anywhere. We love the festive glow of Christmas lights adorning a decorated tree while watching movies. Last year, in Kuala Lumpur, we purchased a small tree with all the lights and decorations. It wasn't the biggest or prettiest tree we've ever had, but we sure did enjoy it. We even donated it to our Airbnb hosts for future guests; they were thrilled. This year, we arrived at our Melbourne pet-sit to find a fully decorated tree in the home. We all instantly felt "at home."
Click of photo to enlarge and show caption
Foods can be a little more difficult. It’s hard to create favorite recipes when you’re in a hotel, but you can always improvise. We’ve made our favorite cookies to share while visiting family for the season. This year, we have access to a full kitchen, which may mean getting to have Kevin’s famous cinnamon rolls.
For you, it might be different. Maybe it's attending a Christmas service at a local church, making sure stockings are filled on Christmas Eve, or driving around to look at Christmas lights. Almost any tradition can be recreated in some way wherever you travel.
Action Step: Before you leave, write down your 2–3 non-negotiables. Pack what you need for those. Let everything else go.
Download Your Christmas Entertainment Before You Leave
Don't wait until you arrive to figure out entertainment. Bad wifi when you're trying to stream Christmas movies at 8 pm on Christmas Eve will ruin the mood fast.
Music makes anywhere feel like Christmas. Visiting the Southern Hemisphere during the Christmas season? That doesn't mean you can't appreciate Bing Crosby's "White Christmas" or Mariah Carey's "All I Want for Christmas Is You."
Turn up the volume on your way to a Christmas market in Europe, during a family road trip through North America, or even while getting ready for Christmas dinner at a resort in the Dominican Republic.
Create a family playlist combining classic carols with newer holiday favorites. Play it while you're enjoying meals or activities in whatever new place you're exploring. Music has remarkable power to transport you emotionally, connecting you to memories and moods regardless of geography.
Streaming platforms like Spotify and YouTube Music make it easy to access traditional holiday songs from anywhere in the world.
Movies & shows. Watching Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, or any of your children’s favorites from a tablet or laptop, can make a long international flight much more pleasant for everyone. Download your must-watch holiday movies plus enough kids' content for travel days.
Books & audiobooks. I love the Libby app and always make sure to borrow several books (including audiobooks) to enjoy during long flights and drives. One of our family favorites is an Amazon Audible membership, offering top audiobooks from every genre, interest, or topic.
Maps. Download offline maps in Google Maps for your destination. Navigate without data and find local bakeries for Christmas treats.
Translation app. Google Translate works offline if you download the language pack, which is essential for reading menus and finding cookie ingredients.
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Scale Back on Christmas Gifts (& Embrace Experiences)
One unexpected benefit of celebrating Christmas break away from home is that it forces you to reconsider what really matters. You simply can't purchase numerous gifts and cart them around for the rest of your travels.
This limitation becomes liberating. Be intentional about what you buy and how it fits in your luggage for the rest of your journey.
Experiential gifts create lasting memories without weighing down your suitcase. Consider:
Booking a cooking class where the entire family learns to make fresh pasta
Arranging sleigh rides through snowy landscapes
Upgrading to business-class flights to your next destination
Purchasing tickets to special events like tree lighting ceremonies or hot air balloon rides
Planning a family trip to see the Northern Lights
We've discovered that scaling back on material gifts has actually increased our family's holiday joy. Instead of unwrapping dozens of presents, we focus on one or two meaningful items per person, plus a memorable shared experience.
Action Step: Before you leave, talk to your kids about simplified gifts. Frame it as an adventure: "This year, we're doing Christmas differently. Fewer things, more experiences together."
Seek Connection Across the Miles
For some families, being surrounded by extended family is fundamental to enjoying the holidays. If you're traveling during the Christmas season, you don't have to sacrifice connection. You just need to get creative.
Host Virtual Celebrations: FaceTime, WhatsApp, Zoom, and similar platforms make it possible to schedule virtual Christmas morning gift exchanges, New Year’s Eve countdowns, or holiday dinners where everyone eats together on screen. When your kids open gifts “with” their grandparents via video call, seeing each other’s faces makes the distance seem smaller.
Connect with Local Expat Communities: There are expat groups in bigger cities and small towns worldwide. Reach out through Facebook groups to find locals from your home country who are also seeking connection during the festive season.
Most expats welcome newcomers with open arms, especially during the holidays when everyone's feeling a bit homesick. You'll leave with new friends, fresh perspectives, and perhaps entirely new traditions to treasure.
Indulge in Culinary Christmas Traditions – Both Old & New
The food we eat can be deeply nostalgic. The smells and flavors of certain dishes can transport you across time and space, triggering memories of loved ones and cherished celebrations.
Every year when we bake Christmas cookies together, I remember making them with my sister, mom, and grandmother. The simple act of measuring flour and rolling out dough connects generations. Creating this experience away from home simply requires adaptation.
Bring Your Christmas Traditions to New Places:
Find the ingredients for your favorite holiday recipes and cook together in your rental accommodation. Can't locate the exact ingredients? Get creative with substitutions. You might accidentally create something even better.
Explore Local Holiday Cuisine:
Don't just recreate home recipes; embrace the traditional festive foods of the country you're visiting. You might discover a dish that becomes part of your repertoire, forever reminding you of your adventures.
Christmas markets are the perfect place to sample regional holiday treats. For example, German Christmas market stalls offer everything from gingerbread to bratwurst and glühwein (mulled wine). Each taste becomes a memory.
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Fully Immerse Yourself in Local Christmas Celebrations
Fully immerse yourself in how your host country celebrates the holidays. The best way to celebrate a destination Christmas isn’t by replicating what you would do at home. It’s about experiencing the holiday spirit through a different cultural lens.
For example, you could visit Christmas markets throughout Europe, where ancient cobblestone streets are adorned with festive lights and decorations for a more traditional experience.
Or go completely counter-culture. Embrace a holiday experience in the Southern Hemisphere where Christmas means outdoor summer activities, maybe even a sun-soaked beach outing.
Why this matters: Seeing how different cultures celebrate Christmas showed our girls that our traditions are special to us, but families everywhere have their own ways of celebrating what matters. This didn't diminish our traditions; it made them more meaningful.
Action Step: Research what's happening locally for Christmas and New Year's where you're going. Christmas markets? Local festivals? Special meals? Add one local experience to your itinerary.
A New Year’s Eve skyline view of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Collect & Create Meaningful Christmas Keepsakes
Physical reminders of your holiday travels will trigger happy memories for years to come.
Collect Location-Specific Christmas Souvenirs: We maintain our Christmas ornament tradition wherever we travel. That hand-painted Santa from the Strasbourg Christmas Market hangs on our tree every year, instantly transporting us back to those magical streets.
Sophie has a nutcracker collection that now spans multiple countries, and when she's an adult with her own home, each figurine will represent not just a Christmas, but an adventure around the world.
Create Commemorative Albums: Document your Christmas adventure with photos and physical keepsakes, such as train tickets, restaurant menus, show programs, or entrance tickets to special events.
Create a traditional photo album with printed pictures and collected items, or design a digital album using Canva or Shutterfly that can be shared online and printed. These albums become treasured family heirlooms.
Start New Collecting Traditions: Beyond ornaments, consider:
Purchasing a small, packable item from each place you celebrate a holiday (magnets, patches, pins)
Having family members sign and date a special travel journal during each celebration
Taking a family photo in the same pose at each holiday destination
Collecting recipes from places you've celebrated, building an international holiday cookbook
Insider Tip: Choose Christmas keepsakes that pack easily. We learned to avoid large or fragile items after a glass ornament for our neighbor broke before we arrived home!
When Someone Told Me I'd Ruin Christmas
Recently, a friend told me about traveling across the country with her husband and three boys (all 12 and under) to celebrate Christmas with her mother. She spent weeks stressing over logistics like wrapping presents for checked baggage, sneaking the Elf on the Shelf across the country, and trying to replicate their entire at-home Christmas experience in someone else’s house.
In her determination to preserve the familiar, she missed an opportunity. What if “different” could be just as memorable and magical?
I understood her stress completely. For years, I thought being away from home during special occasions would diminish them. That little voice in your head might give all the reasons that it can’t work. Trust me, the resistance is real, and it’s completely understandable.
We tend to build our lives around traditions, especially during the Christmas season. The thought of disrupting them can feel like betraying everything you hold sacred.
But here's what I discovered: I was wrong. Travel didn't diminish our celebrations; it magnified them. Sometimes the "sacrifice" of leaving home for the holidays isn't a sacrifice at all. Sometimes it's actually a treasured gift you give to yourself.
Travel didn't replace our most treasured traditions. It created new memories that we will cherish forever. It took my husband's ever-present optimism and creativity, along with my willingness to just dive into something new, to help me realize that Christmas magic is something you create when you're all together, enjoying each precious moment of the season.
The Best Way Forward: Flexibility & Openness
Here's what we've learned after multiple holiday seasons on the road: The Christmas spirit, or the magic of any special occasion, isn't confined to a specific location or exact replication of traditions.
The Christmas season is about spending quality time with the people you love, creating moments of joy, and building memories that last long after the decorations come down. It’s about being present, in the moment, no matter where you are.
While the tree may have been smaller last year, the entire family agreed it was one of our best Christmas celebrations ever, not despite being away from home, but because we were in a new place, experiencing the season through fresh eyes. This year, we’ll be celebrating the season in Australia, and we can’t wait to see what new memories we create.
A kind stranger snapped a family photo for us in front of the Christmas decorations while we were exploring a mall in downtown Kuala Lumpur.
Your Holiday Adventure Awaits
Whether you're planning a Christmas trip to Europe's famous markets, a family vacation to warm beaches, or a road trip through North America, you have the power to make it extraordinary.
The gift of travel during special occasions teaches children (and adults) that home isn't a building; it's the people you're with and the traditions you protect, adapt, and create.
So this year, instead of worrying about being away during Christmas, embrace it. Your family's most treasured memories might be waiting in a place you've never been, celebrated in ways you've never imagined.
The perfect time is now. The perfect place is wherever your family gathers with open hearts and adventurous spirits. The whole family will thank you for it; maybe not immediately, but years from now when they're decorating their own Christmas trees with ornaments from around the world, remembering the year you traded familiar comfort for extraordinary adventure.
Pack the Christmas movies. Bring the music. Make or buy one special treat wherever you are. And then let go of everything else.
Christmas isn't about perfection. It's about presence. And you're giving your kids the gift of being fully present in an extraordinary place.
You've got this. Your Christmas is going to be beautiful. Just maybe not in the way you expected.
Safe travels. Merry Christmas!
Have you celebrated holidays abroad? What traditions did you adapt or create?
Share your experiences in the comments below. We'd love to hear how your family makes holidays and special occasions memorable, no matter where you are in the world!
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