Planning Christmas with kids gives you an opportunity to get them involved. Christmas is a truly magical season for children, and letting them decorate for Christmas will not only give kids a sense of accomplishment with what they created, it will get your house decorated as well!

If you don’t mind homemade décor on your tree, your kids can craft edible treats to hang. Spend an evening stringing popcorn to drape around the tree. You can make edible gingerbread men or one inedible ones that will last for years. Either one will bring wonderful aromas into your home. The kids can help roll out and bake the gingerbread, and then help you hang them with ribbon. Let your kids decorate ornaments with glitter and paint, or create your own by taking pictures of your kids princess costumes and dress ups and mounting them on construction paper.

Let your kids help you decorate the tree. If they’re not very excited, try letting your girls wear their kids princess costumes and the boys wear their capes and Santa hats. Put music on so the little tots can dance, and let the kids roam around the tree. The music and costumes will make decorating more of a magical experience and less of a chore.

Every Christmas brings a plethora of Christmas cards. Everyone is eager to send off holiday greetings in a red holiday dress. Rather than store the greetings in a disorganized ramble on the refrigerator, try placing them in a photo tree made to slide pictures in. This way the kids can slide the greeting cards in and out by themselves to take a closer look at their family and friends.

Gingerbread houses are a great way to spend an evening together as a family. You can make the house from scratch or buy a gingerbread house kit, and fortunately the kits are typically inexpensive. Let the kids help. Older kids can do most of the assembly themselves; so let them go to it! For toddlers, put the frosting on the house first, and allow them to place the candies on top. Display the gingerbread house. You can use it as a centerpiece on the table, or as an item of décor on a shelf or countertop. The kids will be so proud to show guests their creation!

A personal favorite childhood memory is cutting out snowflakes with my family. I was wearing my red Christmas dress, and my sisters and I were wandering around the kitchen, cutting paper and singing along to Christmas music. The little scraps of paper probably made a mess, but no one seemed to mind. We hung the snowflakes in our windows. We argued about whose was the best, and I felt a sense of pride whenever I walked past one of my snowflakes.

Another fun decorating opportunity for Christmas with kids is to make the countdown chain until Christmas. Let the kids choose an obvious place to put the chain. You can make the chain more interactive by adding topics of conversation on the chain. Suggestions include: “What is your favorite Christmas memory?” “What do you like most about Christmas?” “What is your favorite part of the Christmas story?” While your kids answers to these questions might be short, they open up the opportunity for you and your kids to converse more with one another.

Holiday decorating with kids is a great chance to bond as a family. So pull out those princess costumes, turn on some holiday music, and get started!