Our family has many different Christmas traditions, but perhaps our most favorite tradition is receiving new Christmas pajamas to wear on Christmas Eve. I dare say that most of you reading this have this same tradition. Today I’m going to give you some ideas to make an old tradition new!

1. Use your pajamas before Christmas: Unheard of, I know! In most families new Christmas pajamas are given and worn on Christmas Eve, but if you have small children that grow out of clothes quickly you might not feel like you’re getting the most for your money. You can solve this problem by handing out Christmas pajamas early in the season. Consider giving Christmas pajamas on Thanksgiving Day, on December 1st, or on December 5th (the Eve of Saint Nicholas Day) or you can have a spontaneous Pajama Day and surprise everyone with jammies on a random day.

2. Wear your pajamas for everything: If you give your Christmas pajamas earlier in the season consider wearing them for all of your Christmas-related activities. Wear them to bake cookies, decorate the tree, or watch your favorite Christmas movie. Just don’t wear them to bed…save them for bedtime on Christmas Eve! Wear your pajamas everywhere you go on Christmas Day. Wear them to Grandma’s house and to deliver cookies to your neighbor, but maybe not to church 😉

3. Have your pajamas delivered by Santa or an elf: What better way to receive Christmas pajamas than to have them magically delivered by an elf or Santa himself. If you have an Elf on a Shelf or an Elf Magic elf, they would probably be thrilled to deliver your Christmas pajamas. Christmas pajamas have been known to magically appear on the front porch, at the foot of the bed, by the fireplace, or under the tree. Sometimes they even magically show up in the car while your family is shopping or out and about! Speaking of elves, how cute would matching jammies for your elf be?!

4. Have a scavenger hunt to find your pajamas: Yes, do that. That sounds like fun 😉

5. Pair your pajamas with another gift: You can give robes, slippers, a sleeping mask, or a new stuffed animal. My favorite Christmas pajama companion is a new book. It can be a Christmas book, bedtime story, or just a book you know they’ll love.

6. Pajamas and Christmas lights: Wake up the kids and take them out in their pajamas to drive around and look at Christmas lights. Don’t forget to bring some cookies and hot chocolate with you and pump up those Christmas tunes! You might even consider a Random Pajama Gram…visit the house of friends or family then knock on the door in your pjs and sing some Christmas carols to the unsuspecting residents.

7. Use old pajamas to Countdown to Christmas: If you do a Christmas Countdown, such as unwrapping a different Christmas book each day, you can use pajamas from previous years as the wrapping paper! Whether you’re celebrating Hanukkah, Advent, or the 12 days of Christmas, this idea will work. If your children have gotten to the age where they can wear the same size several years in a row they can wear their old pajamas on the day they are unwrapped.

8. New ways to wrap your pajamas: Put the pajamas inside of a pillow case and wrap a bow around it. Use the pillow case on Christmas Eve. You save on wrapping paper and a new tradition is born! Similar to the Countdown to Christmas you can use your old Christmas pajamas to wrap up the new ones or use the new Christmas pajamas to wrap up another gift you plan to give that night.

9. Turn your old pajamas into a keepsake: For you crafty folks you can use your old Christmas pajamas to make pillows or save a square off of each pair to make a quilt. You want a tutorial? Too bad. I said you crafty folks…I don’t happen to be one of them. I just bring the ideas here, people. However, if one of you crafty people wants to volunteer to turn my old jammies into a quilt…you know where to find me 😉
Here’s someone craftier than me that gave the pajama quilt a try:

10. Give pajamas to someone in need: There are few gifts you could give your children at Christmastime that could compare to the example of a giving spirit. Share your beloved Christmas pajama tradition with those less fortunate than you by donating pajamas. Purchase new pajamas to donate to a nursing home or women’s shelter. You could start your own “Jammie Drive” or give to an already existing pajama charity.

Check out my sponsored post on behalf of Joe Boxer pajamas from Kmart!

What are your Christmas pajamas traditions?

This post is linked to Mama Kat’s Writer’s Workshop!

10 Days of Christmas PJs!: Our Christmas jammies from the last decade!

NOTE: When this post was first published in December 2010 it was my SITS feature day as part of SITSmas. The following was originally included at the beginning of my post.
Welcome, SITStahs! I was confused and thought that my SITS feature was tomorrow and not today, so I’m totally unprepared. You can read all about it here. Thanks for stopping by, I hope you’ll take a look around and decide to stay 🙂 Now let’s pretend none of that ever happened and move on to the post that I’m supposed to have up for you…