How to Get to Sleep on Christmas Eve

Co-authored by Chad Denman

Last Updated: December 25, 2024 Approved

Finding it hard to get to sleep on Christmas Eve? Well, you're not alone. It's a hard night to fall asleep, as excitement and eagerness accumulate. Santa is coming and you cannot stand how long it takes for the time to pass. Here are some suggestions that might help you to overcome excitement and get some much-needed sleep before the big day.

Part 1

Part 1 of 4:

Distracting and Tiring Yourself on Christmas Eve Day

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Wake up earlier than normal on Christmas Eve morning. Doing this will make you more tired when you want to go to bed later that day.
- The night before Christmas Eve, stay awake as long as possible. Set your alarm for an early time like 6 am. When you wake up, you will be very tired and will want to go back to sleep, but resist the urge. When you have to go to sleep later that day, you will fall asleep easier because you are exhausted.
  - If you use your phone as an alarm, change it to a sound you hate so you want to get out of bed. Put your alarm across the room so you must get out of bed to turn it off. When you get out of bed, you will be "awake" for the day.
- If you have a calendar in your bedroom, turn it back to a different month and pretend it's that month during the night. Make a playlist of songs you liked listening to at that time to capture the feeling even more.
Do some jumping jacks, go for a walk, or do some cycling.^{[1]
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Research source} If it's too snowy outside to exercise, play an exercising game, such as Wii Fit.

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This will wear out your brain and make you tired.
Keeping busy and being helpful will take your mind off the excitement but will still help you to feel involved and happy.
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Track Santa. Tracking Santa's progress around the world is always a great way to get you excited for Christmas on Christmas Eve! Use websites such as NORAD Tracks Santa or Google Santa Tracker.
- Tracking Santa, in some cases, actually may do the opposite of what you want to happen. It may make you more excited so it's harder to sleep. The blue light from your electronic device may keep you awake as well.

Part 2

Part 2 of 4:

Preparing for Bedtime

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Think of it as a normal night. Tell yourself that tonight is not Christmas Eve. Do the same things you always do in your bedtime routine: brush your teeth, read a book, chat with your friends, etc.
- Say to yourself: "What am I gonna do tomorrow?" -- like it's any normal day: "Oh, hey, tomorrow maybe I will hang out with my 'bud', ______".
A technique that, strange as it sounds, works well is to play a quiet game you can play alone (or with another hyper and excited friend or sibling), such as Mad Libs, while in bed. This will help take away your energy and help you fall fast asleep.^{[2]
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Research source} Santa came a lot quicker than you thought!
Although this may seem counterintuitive, exercise can help to calm you down. A couple of hours before you go to bed., see how many push-ups, crunches, or jumping jacks you can do in your room. Exercise only for thirty minutes, though; you don't want to stay up too late. Exercising is a great way to help you feel physically tired so that your body will want to sleep. Better still, it will take your mind off Christmas for a little while.
Having a warm bath will relax your muscles and make it easier to fall asleep.^{[3]
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Research source} Squirt bath toys at imaginary targets, submerge yourself in bubbles, and relax your muscles. Try scented bubbles and soap.
This might spoil any surprises and will keep you very excited and awake! Remember, Santa Claus knows when you are sleeping and when you are awake. He won't come if you are peeking.
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Drink warm milk. In addition to providing you with nutrients like calcium, magnesium, and L-tryptophan, warm milk can be a soothing, comforting drink that lulls you to sleep. You can also try hot herbal tea; it is soothing to drink. Just make sure it doesn’t contain caffeine!
- When you're setting up a cookie plate for Santa is a great time to have some warm milk.
- Or, drink hot chocolate after you are in your pajamas. This will also help you to relax and stay warm! Don't drink coffee. The caffeine in it can keep you awake.
- If warm milk disgusts you on its own, add some honey. It will make for a relaxing treat.
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Relax. If you are just jumping up and down and feeling hyperactive, you need to calm down; you're only feeding a buildup of excitement that it'll be hard to come down from. Read a book. Listen to music. Whatever makes you calm down and relax.^{[4]
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Research source}
- Read a book. It can be about Christmas, although it doesn't really matter. Try reading a school textbook, a really boring one from your least favorite class. Read a boring book to induce sleepiness; read an exciting one to get lost in and to help take away the urgency of thinking about Christmas things. Some good non-Christmas books are Harry Potter, Twilight, School of Fear, and Diary of a Wimpy Kid. They are fairly long and can keep you occupied for a while.
- Burn a sweet-scented candle for a little while in a safe place in your room. The scent will help you to relax, particularly if you choose a scent like lavender or jasmine. Just make sure to extinguish it before you fall asleep!
- Mind dump your thoughts. If your mind is racing with tomorrow’s exciting events, grab a notepad and write down everything you are excited about and get it out of your system. Dump it all out of your mind and into your notepad.
- Repeat some relaxing mantras. Mantras have been classified as a form of meditation which involves continually repeating a specific word or phrase while passively tuning out any other type of internal or external distraction. The goal of using mantras is to repeat this word or phrase enough times to elicit a relaxation response.

Part 3

Part 3 of 4:

Going to Sleep on Christmas Eve

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Get into a comfortable sleeping position while in bed. Scrunch up really tightly—as tightly as you can. Hold that position for 30 seconds, then relax again, trying to stay still. You will become tired. This is important anytime you try to get to sleep, but relax and close your eyes.
- See some of the related wikiHow links in this article for more ideas on helping you to fall asleep, or visit the whole category on better sleeping.
- Fluff your pillow. If you fluff your pillow, it will give you something more comfortable for your head to rest on and make it easier to fall asleep.
If the pet is small enough to fit in your bed (or wherever you are sleeping), try to fall asleep with it. It helps you to sleep when you have someone else in the room with you. It will make you fall asleep a bit faster, although if it is a hamster or something of that size you may squish it.
If it’s cold, turn a heater on, put on some warm and comfortable clothes, or put some extra blankets on your bed. Just make sure you don't take yourself too hot, or it will be just as hard to fall asleep as it is when you're cold. If it’s too hot, turn on the air conditioning, or open a window and sleep with just a sheet on you.
Any of these methodical, centering and calming methods will help to move you out of being too excited into a calmer state, which may help you to feel sleepy. Try focusing on each of the sheep as they jump over the fence (or any other high platform). What do they look like? What type of fence are they jumping over? How high are they jumping? Focusing on these details will let your mind trail away from the idea of Christmas and will help you fall asleep.
"Relax my toes." (Wiggle them for a moment.) "Relax my arch. Relax my ankle. (Flex your ankle.)" It might sound corny but it really does work through the power of suggestion.^{[5]
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Research source} Continue, working all the way up to your head. Even keeping up the effort of concentration on doing this is a great distraction from the night's excitement. You may not even get up to your head before you're snoozing away!
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Listen to slow Christmas music and think about the real reason why you celebrate Christmas.
- Make a playlist on your iPod "sleep songs." Soothing music will definitely help take your mind off Santa, and lull you to sleep.
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Don't sit at the computer, laptop, or iPad late at night if you can't sleep; this will only keep you awake. The light actually fools your body into thinking it's not bedtime.
- If you watch TV before bed, try to turn off or down all the other lights, so the room is darkened. That will get your body ready to sleep.
If you still have trouble going to sleep, watch a movie. Some good Christmas movies that play a lot during Christmas Time include: A Christmas Story, The Polar Express, Elf, Home Alone 1, 2, 3, and 4, How The Grinch Stole Christmas, A Charlie Brown Christmas, A Christmas Carol, It's A Wonderful Life, Miracle on 34th Street, The Santa Clause: 1, 2 and 3, Frosty the Snowman, and Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.

Part 4

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Waking Up on Christmas Morning

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Set a time to wake up. Make sure that the whole family agrees with it. That way, when it turns (for example 7:00) everyone is prepared to get up. If you get up earlier than this, have some breakfast, go to the washroom, get ready so that you actually look OK on video.
- If you know you are going to be videotaped in the morning, prepare your best set of PJ's. You don't want everybody to remember you wearing that raggedy old t-shirt and a pair of shorts on Christmas morning, do you? Don't forget to brush your hair in the morning before galloping downstairs!

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Tips

The sooner you fall asleep the sooner it will be Christmas, so make sure you fall asleep otherwise it will feel like forever before Christmas comes.

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Stay up late the night before Christmas Eve. It will make you tired on Christmas Eve if you stay up for the whole day.

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Think about how great the day ahead will be and this will make you drift off dreaming.

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In choir, our teacher makes us take a deep breath in so that our shoulders move and we are stiff. Then hold it for a couple of seconds. Holding your breath and then letting it out makes you feel relaxed. If that does not work, try standing for a long time. This will make your legs tired so that it feels nice and relaxing to lay down.
If none of these tips work, take a bath around 7:30 and relax in the tub for about 10 minutes. Drink lots of cold water. This will make your body cold. You don't want your body hot. When you get to bed, read a book, or watch a movie, but only for around 10 minutes. Then try falling asleep.
Search for some calm or soft music on YouTube, or Spotify. Try to find a long one, like 3 hours if calm music. Close your eyes and listen to the music with headphones or earbuds. Think about what the music reminds you of. This will help you get to sleep.
Try sleeping in the same bed as someone. If you share a bed with a relative for the night, you can play a game, read, watch a movie, or have a discussion about what you think you will get. This should make you want to go to sleep.

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Warnings

Be sure to empty your bladder before you go to sleep. It's harder to fall asleep with a full bladder, and if you do manage to fall asleep, you don't want to wake up in the middle of the night having to go to the bathroom.

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Once officially in bed, only get up for bathroom breaks, and if you do, try to get back into bed in the same comfy position you were in before.

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Don't unwrap any presents. Save the excitement so you can share it with everyone else.

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Don't keep looking at the clock, as this will make it seem that Christmas Eve will never end.

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As much as you may want to, peeking at gifts will ruin your Christmas. Sure, instant gratification is nice, but in the long run, it really isn't a good idea.

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Don't leave your room; it will only make you more curious.

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Don't drink any caffeine at least six hours before going to bed. If you go to bed at 10 p.m., don't drink any caffeine after 4 p.m.

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Go to bed at the same time you do on a normal night. If you go normally go to bed at 10 p.m. and go to bed at 11 p.m. on Christmas Eve, it will not feel like a normal night.

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If you do exercise, don't exceed 30 minutes and make sure that it is at least one hour before you want to sleep. The endorphins you get from exercise can keep you buzzed and therefore awake, so leave some time to chill out. Leaving some time before bed gives you time to relax and maybe even try some other techniques!

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When reading your book, keep an eye on the time. You want to be asleep by midnight, so try putting your book down and closing your eyes around 10 or 11 p.m.

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