Free Printable Christmas Bucket List (24 Things to Do)

December disappears. You mean to go see the lights, you mean to bake cookies together, and then it's the 23rd and you've done neither. A Christmas bucket list on the fridge is a low-effort fix — twenty-four things written down where everyone can see them, checked off as you go.

What's on the List

Twenty-four activities, each with a checkbox, chosen so that the list is actually completable by an ordinary family in an ordinary December. Nothing on it requires travel, a large budget, or a free Saturday:

• Kitchen days — bake and decorate cookies, build a gingerbread house, make hot chocolate with all the toppings, try one new Christmas recipe
• Going out — drive around to see the lights, go ice skating, visit a Christmas market
• Cozy nights — watch a Christmas movie in pajamas, read a Christmas book by the tree, sleep under the tree
• Making things — handmade ornaments, letters to Santa, decorating the tree together, wrapping presents as a family
• Giving — donate toys or coats, take treats to a neighbor, call a relative just to say Merry Christmas
• Christmas Eve — leave cookies for Santa, light a candle, pick one tradition to keep next year

There are also two blank lines at the bottom, which are the most important part of the sheet. The traditions a family actually keeps are usually the strange, specific ones nobody else does — the diner you always go to, the one relative you always call, the ornament argument you have every single year.

How to Print and Use It

Step 1: Print at 100% Scale

Set scaling to 100% or Actual size in your print dialog and margins to minimum. The sheet is designed for US Letter; if you're printing on A4, "Fit to page" is fine here since there are no cut lines to align.

Plain paper is fine for a single season. Light cardstock survives a month on the fridge with wet hands reaching past it.

Step 2: Put It Somewhere Annoying

The fridge door, the inside of a kitchen cupboard you open daily, or the wall by the coffee maker. A bucket list in a drawer does nothing. The whole mechanism is that you see it, remember December is finite, and pick something to do tonight.

Step 3: Let the Kids Check the Boxes

Hand the pen to whoever is smallest. Checking a box is a genuinely satisfying moment for a six-year-old, and it turns "we did a thing" into a visible record of the season. By Christmas Eve the sheet is a diary.

Step 4: Laminate It for Next Year (Optional)

Run the printed sheet through a laminating pouch and use a dry-erase marker. Wipe it clean in January and the same sheet comes back out every December, which is one fewer thing to print next year.

Make It Yours

Don't aim for all 24. Twelve is a good December. A list treated as an obligation defeats the point; treat it as a menu of options for evenings you'd otherwise spend on your phones.

Turn it into an Advent calendar. Write each activity on a card, fold it, and put one in each pocket of an envelope Advent calendar. The list becomes a daily reveal instead of a menu.

Score it. Families with competitive teenagers have surprising success assigning points and declaring a winner on Christmas Eve. It is ridiculous, and it works.

More Free Christmas Printables

Our printable Christmas gift tags put eight tags on one sheet in four designs. For planning the bigger picture — budget, shopping, and the December calendar — the Christmas planner walks through the whole season, and the Christmas countdown tells you exactly how much time is left.