This is a paid advertisement feature in collaboration with Sainsbury’s

When it comes to Christmas, I’m basically a big kid. I love continuing the traditions that I grew up with, and I love being able to create new traditions with my own children. One of my favourite ‘new’ traditions has been the Christmas Eve box, and it’s something that we’ve done for the last 3 years. They originally came about from the German tradition of opening presents on Christmas Eve, and its a lovely way to start off the excitement of Christmas with the children (although if your children are anything like mine, they’ve probably been hyped up throughout the whole of December!).

We tend to keep Christmas Eve as a fairly low key day before the chaos of the Big Day itself, so we tend to open our box on the morning of Christmas Eve. I find that the Christmas Eve box is a great way to keep the boys occupied at home and it’s always lovely to be able to choose things yourself to really personalise it.

This year we’ve been working with Sainsbury’s to fill our Christmas Eve box with goodies, and they’ve made it such an easy process. They have everything you need to be able to put together your box in just one trip (and when it comes to the craziness of this time of year, that’s so valuable).

You can even buy your Christmas Eve box directly from Sainsbury’s to start you off. We went for this beautiful wooden one but there are different options available for you to choose from.

I visited Sainsbury’s in store where they had an absolutely massive Christmas gift section set up which included all of the things I was looking for to fill up our box - Christmas clothing, sweet treats, craft bits, toys, and festive stocking fillers like hot chocolate pots, or cookie making kits. Everything was together in one (huge!) section of the store, which made choosing the items so easy.

How To Keep Them Calm on Christmas Eve

When it comes to what I like to include in our Christmas Eve box, I tend to be very focused on activities that we can do together as a family. This cookie making kit is a great idea and all comes packaged in a cute Santa bag. It includes a packet of chocolate chip cookie mix, and a star cookie cutter, so you have everything you need to make a tray of cookies. Although we let the boys eat a few cookies, we like to bag the rest up to give to family over Christmas, to stop them from getting too hyped up on sugar. Just remember to leave one out for Santa!

After no doubt eating a few of the cookies, it’s time for a bit of quiet time. I always include a craft activity or an activity book, and the We’re Going On A Bear Hunt Christmas Activity Book is such a lovely one, absolutely crammed with stickers, and activities which will keep Max, my eldest, amused over the Christmas period.

And when it comes to my youngest, Ben, we are still firmly in the Peppa Pig phase, so this Dinosaur sticker book is bound to be a big hit.

When it comes to kids and baking, it’s always the decorating that they love the most, so this gingerbread men decorating kit is perfect. It comes with pre-made biscuits, icing, sprinkles and sweeties to decorate your gingerbread men.

As we come towards the end of the day, we always finish with a hot chocolate for the boys. These little hot chocolate Santa jars are ideal. They come with a little supply of marshmallows in the jar in the top which I know the boys will love.

I also pop in some chocolate treats for the boys to enjoy over Christmas. This little basket of Sainsburys Reindeer Nibbles was right up Max’s street.

Ben cannot have cows milk, which is one of the reasons I love putting my own box together - we can make sure that we include things he can eat. So I ordered these vegan mini chocolate gingerbread people and some dairy free chocolate covered raisins for both the boys, so no-one is left out.

And of course, no Christmas is complete without Christmas socks! 4 pairs of Santa socks for Max, and Hey Duggee socks for Ben (because everyone loves Duggee!)

I can’t wait to see the boys’ faces when they see all their treats on Christmas Eve!

Do you do a Christmas Eve box in your family? What do you like to include? I’d love to hear your traditions.

Disclosure: This is a paid advertisement feature in collaboration with Sainsburys