Christmas with a toddler is a special kind of magic.
They're suddenly fascinated by every twinkling light, shiny ornament and Christmas tree they see. They want to touch everything, help with everything and somehow manage to find the one decoration you thought you'd put safely out of reach.
But keeping a toddler entertained throughout December doesn't mean you need to plan elaborate crafts or buy a cupboard full of Christmas activity supplies.
Some of the best Christmas activities for toddlers are incredibly simple.
A cardboard box. Some wrapping paper. Christmas playdough. A walk to see the lights. A few stickers and a cardboard Christmas tree.
That's often all you need.
I've put together 25 easy, low-prep toddler Christmas activities that are perfect for adding a little festive fun to December without creating even more work for parents.
There are Christmas sensory activities, simple crafts, fine motor activities, movement games and cozy things to do together at home.
Most can be adapted for 2 year olds and 3 year olds, and many use things you probably already have around the house.
Because Christmas activities with toddlers should be fun for them, without becoming another job for us.
A quick safety note: Toddlers explore with their hands and often their mouths, so always supervise activities closely and adapt materials to your child's age and development. Avoid small objects and choking hazards, long pieces of ribbon or string, breakable ornaments, batteries, magnets and anything else your child could swallow. Choose larger, toddler-safe alternatives whenever necessary.
Easy Christmas Activities for Toddlers
1. Decorate a Cardboard Christmas Tree
This is one of my favorite easy Christmas activities for toddlers because you can make it from something that would otherwise end up in the recycling.
Cut a large Christmas tree shape from a cardboard box.
Then let your toddler decorate it.
You could offer:
• chunky crayons
• washable paint
• large stickers
• pieces of paper
• child-safe stamps
• washable dot markers
There's no need to show them where anything should go.
A toddler Christmas tree with 17 stickers in one corner and absolutely nothing on the other side is exactly as it should be.
Make it easier: If your toddler loves stickers but struggles to remove them from the sheet, peel away the surrounding backing first. This makes the stickers much easier for little fingers to lift.
2. Make Christmas Playdough
If your toddler already enjoys playdough, you don't need to reinvent the activity just because it's December.
Make their usual playdough feel Christmassy instead.
Add cinnamon or ginger to homemade playdough for a festive scent and offer a rolling pin and large Christmas cookie cutters.
Toddlers can squish, roll, poke, flatten and cut out Christmas trees, stars and gingerbread people.
For younger toddlers who still mouth materials, use an age-appropriate dough and keep the setup very simple.
Low-prep version: Use playdough you already own. Put out the green and red tubs with a couple of Christmas cookie cutters.
Christmas activity achieved.
3. Play With a Christmas Sensory Bin
A Christmas sensory bin can be as elaborate or as simple as you want it to be.
For toddlers, simple is often better.
Instead of feeling that you need to buy special Christmas sensory-bin fillers, start with a familiar, age-appropriate sensory material your child already enjoys.
Add a scoop, cup or small container and introduce a little festive color through larger toddler-safe items.
The fun comes from scooping, pouring, filling and emptying, rather than how Pinterest-worthy the bin looks.
And if your child is still putting everything in their mouth, skip small loose fillers altogether. Water, fabric, large objects or another familiar toddler-safe sensory setup can work just as well.
4. Let Them Play With Wrapping Paper
Before you throw away all those Christmas wrapping-paper scraps, hand some to your toddler.
Seriously.
Let them tear it.
Crumple it.
Put it into a cardboard box.
Take it back out.
Wrap a teddy bear.
Hide a toy underneath it.
Toddlers love exploring everyday materials, and this activity costs absolutely nothing.
You can also give them scraps of paper and a cardboard Christmas tree and let them create a wrapping-paper collage.
5. Make a Sticky Christmas Tree
This is a lovely low-prep Christmas activity for 2 year olds and 3 year olds.
Create a large Christmas tree shape and provide toddler-safe materials they can stick onto it.
Depending on your child's age, that might mean large pieces of tissue paper, paper circles, felt shapes or other lightweight craft materials.
Let them decorate freely rather than trying to recreate a particular finished design.
The process is far more interesting to a toddler than whether their tree looks like the picture you saw online.
Christmas Sensory Activities for Toddlers
6. Set Up Christmas Water Play
If there's one thing capable of keeping many toddlers occupied longer than an expensive toy, it's a container of water.
Put a towel underneath a shallow container and add warm water.
Give your toddler cups, scoops, a whisk, spoons and a few large waterproof Christmas-themed objects if you have suitable ones.
Let them scoop, pour, stir and transfer the water.
You don't even need red and green water.
The fact that you have called it Christmas water play may be enough.
7. Make a Christmas Washing Station
This is a fun variation on water play.
Put a few washable, toddler-safe Christmas items into a shallow container with warm water and give your child a soft cloth or sponge.
Now it's their job to wash Christmas.
They can scrub, rinse and dry everything before starting all over again.
It's simple pretend play combined with sensory exploration — and toddlers often love activities based on the everyday jobs they see adults doing.
8. Explore a Christmas Ice Tray
Freeze water in a shallow container with a few large, age-appropriate festive items.
Once frozen, place the ice in a tray and let your toddler investigate how to melt it.
Offer a small cup of warm water and a spoon.
What happens when they pour the water over the ice?
What feels cold?
What's melting?
You don't need to turn this into a science lesson. Just talk about what your toddler notices while they explore.
Important: Don't freeze tiny bells, beads or other small objects into the ice for toddlers who could put them in their mouths.
9. Make a Christmas Scent Basket
Christmas has so many interesting scents.
Rather than using artificial scented toys, let toddlers explore some of the real smells associated with the season alongside you.
Depending on what you have at home, you might introduce the smell of an orange, cinnamon, fresh evergreen or something you're baking.
Talk about what you're smelling.
"Can you smell the orange?"
"This cinnamon smells warm and spicy."
It's a wonderfully simple way to introduce new vocabulary and sensory experiences.
Just remember that smelling is enough — toddlers don't need direct access to spices, essential oils or non-food fragrance products.
10. Make a Christmas Texture Basket
Gather a few large, safe household items with different textures.
You might include a soft Christmas washcloth, a chunky knit mitten, a large pinecone to explore together, a wooden spoon, a piece of corrugated cardboard or a soft Christmas stocking.
Talk about what your toddler feels.
Is it soft?
Rough?
Smooth?
Bumpy?
Fluffy?
This is particularly lovely for younger toddlers because there's no finished product and no expectation to "do" the activity correctly.
Christmas Activities for 2 Year Olds
11. Decorate With Christmas Stickers
Stickers are wonderfully simple for this age.
Give your toddler a large sheet of paper or cardboard and some large Christmas stickers.
That's it.
They can make a Christmas picture, decorate a cardboard tree or simply cover the page in stickers.
Peeling and positioning stickers also gives little fingers plenty to do.
Budget tip: Don't feel you need a giant Christmas sticker kit. One inexpensive sheet can provide several short activities if you don't put everything out at once.
12. Make a Christmas Posting Box
Take a cardboard box and cut a wide slot in the top.
Give your toddler large Christmas cards, pieces of cardboard or other safe objects that will fit through the opening.
They can "post" Christmas mail into the box and then open it to retrieve everything.
Again.
And again.
And again.
Because toddlers.
You could also pretend the cards are letters for Santa and make a little Christmas post office together.
13. Wrap and Unwrap Toys
Save a small cardboard box and some used wrapping paper.
Help your toddler wrap one of their favorite toys, then let them unwrap it.
Now do it again.
Older toddlers may enjoy trying to wrap the toy themselves using paper and child-friendly tape.
It's a ridiculously simple activity, but that's precisely why I like it.
You aren't buying anything, you're using materials already lying around at Christmas, and your toddler gets to imitate something they've watched the adults doing.
14. Have an Indoor Snowball Game
You don't need snow for this one.
Crumple sheets of scrap paper into large "snowballs."
Put a laundry basket on the floor and let your toddler try to throw the snowballs into it.
Move the basket closer or farther away depending on their ability.
Then gather everything up and play again.
It's a great Christmas movement activity for a cold or rainy December day.
15. Have a Christmas Dance Party
Put on some Christmas music and dance around the living room together.
Add scarves to wave if you have suitable ones, march around the Christmas tree or play a simple version of freeze dance with older toddlers.
No setup.
No craft supplies.
No cleanup.
Sometimes that's exactly the kind of toddler activity we need.
Christmas Activities for 3 Year Olds
16. Go on a Christmas Color Hunt
Ask your toddler to find something red.
Now something green.
Something white.
Something gold.
Walk around the house together looking for each color.
Three year olds who enjoy searching games may also be able to look for specific Christmas objects such as:
• a star
• a Christmas tree
• Santa
• a reindeer
• a snowman
• a present
You can play indoors, in the yard or while walking around the neighborhood.
17. Build Santa's Workshop
Bring out the blocks, LEGO DUPLO, magnetic tiles or whatever building toys your toddler already uses.
Instead of buying a special Christmas construction set, simply change the invitation:
"Should we build Santa a workshop?"
You could build somewhere for the elves to make toys, a stable for the reindeer or a house for Santa.
Toddlers don't need every piece of imaginative play to be represented by a special toy.
A red block can be Santa.
A brown block can be a reindeer.
Their imagination will happily fill in the gaps.
18. Make a Christmas Card
Fold a piece of cardstock or thick paper in half and let your toddler decorate the front.
Paint, crayons, washable markers or stickers are all you need.
Then ask your toddler who they would like to give it to.
Grandparents tend to be wonderfully appreciative of Christmas cards covered in enthusiastic toddler scribbles.
Write your child's name and the year inside before giving it away.
19. Make a Toddler Christmas Collage
Save scraps of wrapping paper, Christmas cards and other paper from your holiday preparations.
Cut larger toddler-friendly pieces and let your child arrange them on cardboard or paper.
You can help with glue where necessary.
The result doesn't need to look like Santa, a Christmas tree or anything else.
Let it be a collage.
Toddler art becomes much more enjoyable when we're not quietly trying to make their project look like an adult made it.
20. Decorate a Cardboard Gingerbread House
Save a delivery box and turn it into a pretend gingerbread house.
Draw a door and windows, then let your toddler decorate it using crayons, washable paint, stickers or pieces of colored paper.
A larger box can become a playhouse they can actually sit inside.
And unlike a real gingerbread house, nobody gets upset when the roof collapses.
Simple Christmas Activities to Do at Home With a Toddler
21. Have a Christmas Book Basket
Gather your Christmas and winter books and put them into a basket near the Christmas tree.
If you don't own many, use the library rather than buying an entire December book collection.
Let your toddler choose one each evening.
You don't need a complicated book advent calendar or 24 individually wrapped books.
A basket works beautifully.
And reading the same Christmas book 14 evenings in a row?
That's toddler life.
22. Have a Picnic by the Christmas Tree
This is almost embarrassingly easy, but toddlers often find a small change to their normal routine incredibly exciting.
Put a blanket on the floor beside the Christmas tree and serve their usual lunch or snack there.
Switch on the Christmas lights.
Put on some Christmas music.
Suddenly, an ordinary snack has become a Christmas picnic.
No tickets required.
23. Go on a Christmas Lights Walk
Bundle everyone up and go for a walk around the neighborhood after dark to look at Christmas lights.
Talk about what your toddler can see.
"Look at the big star!"
"Can you see the reindeer?"
"Which lights do you like?"
This is one of my favorite free Christmas activities for toddlers because it feels magical without requiring you to organize anything.
And when you're two years old, a house covered in Christmas lights genuinely is spectacular.
24. Bake Something Simple Together
Toddlers don't need to produce beautifully iced Christmas cupcakes to enjoy Christmas baking.
Let them help with one or two age-appropriate jobs.
They might:
• pour a pre-measured ingredient into a bowl
• stir
• press a cookie cutter
• sprinkle a topping
• mash something
• help carry safe ingredients to the table
Expect mess.
Expect them to lose interest halfway through.
Expect at least one cookie to look completely inexplicable.
That's part of doing Christmas baking with toddlers.
The aim is to let them participate, not to produce bakery-window cookies.
25. Make a Toddler Christmas Morning
You don't need to schedule an activity every day of December.
Instead, choose one slow morning.
Stay in pajamas.
Put on Christmas music.
Read Christmas books.
Have a special breakfast.
Play with Christmas playdough.
Dance around the living room.
Go outside for a walk.
You could do several of the activities in this article or none of them.
Because sometimes the most magical Christmas activity for a toddler is simply having nowhere else to be.
What Are the Best Christmas Activities for a 2 Year Old?
The best Christmas activities for 2 year olds tend to be simple, hands-on and flexible.
At this age, I'd concentrate less on producing a recognizable Christmas craft and more on activities that allow children to explore.
Try Christmas playdough, stickers, water play, a cardboard Christmas tree, wrapping-paper play, a posting box, dancing, Christmas books or a walk to see the lights.
And don't worry if an activity lasts five minutes.
Five happy minutes is still a successful toddler activity.
What Christmas Activities Can I Do With a 3 Year Old?
Three year olds may be ready for slightly more imaginative and creative Christmas activities.
Try building Santa's workshop, making Christmas cards, decorating a cardboard gingerbread house, going on a Christmas scavenger hunt, baking together or making a Christmas collage.
But follow your child rather than their age.
One three year old might happily spend half an hour making a collage while another would much rather throw paper snowballs around the living room.
Both are having a perfectly good Christmas.
How Can I Make Christmas Magical for My Toddler Without Spending a Lot?
This is probably the most important part of this whole list.
You do not need to buy 25 things to do 25 Christmas activities and you can do Christmas on a budget without missing the magic.
Look around at what December has already put into your home.
Cardboard delivery boxes become gingerbread houses and posting boxes.
Wrapping-paper scraps become collages.
Cookie cutters go into the playdough.
The Christmas tree becomes the backdrop for a picnic.
Your neighborhood Christmas lights become an evening adventure.
Christmas music becomes a dance party.
Books come from the library.
And ordinary toys become Santa's workshop.
Toddlers don't know whether an activity cost $30 or nothing.
They're interested because you're doing something with them.
Read my post on how to celebrate Christmas on a budget for more affordable festive inspiration.
A Simple Week of Toddler Christmas Activities
If a list of 25 ideas feels like one more thing you're supposed to complete before Christmas, don't use it that way.
You absolutely don't need a December activity calendar.
Instead, choose a handful.
A really lovely Christmas week with a toddler could be as simple as:
• Monday: Christmas playdough
• Tuesday: Christmas book basket
• Wednesday: Wrapping-paper play
• Thursday: Christmas dance party
• Friday: Christmas lights walk
• Saturday: Bake something together
• Sunday: Picnic beside the Christmas tree
And if Tuesday's book basket becomes Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday's activity because your toddler loves it?
Even better.
Christmas Doesn't Need to Be Busy to Be Magical
There's so much pressure around Christmas to create magic for our children and to fill the festive season with Christmas traditions.
But toddlers are remarkably good at finding the magic themselves.
They're delighted by the lights.
They want to unwrap the same box repeatedly.
They'll dance to the same Christmas song five times.
They'll proudly hand you a Christmas card containing one enormous green scribble.
We don't need to fill every December day with elaborate activities.
A few simple invitations to play, a little time together and permission for things to be imperfect are more than enough.
Pick the ideas that suit your child.
Ignore the ones that don't.
And enjoy seeing Christmas through those wonderfully curious toddler eyes while you can.
