Hearing families with Deaf members often want to do something more intentional for the holidays but feel paralyzed by the question of where to start. The trick is to think small. The best traditions aren’t big productions — they’re the repeating moments that say you belong here.
Here are ten that hearing families have told us actually worked.
1. Turn captions on as the household default
Year-round. All the time. Not just when the Deaf family member is in the room. When captions are always on, you stop signaling that their access is conditional — and you’ll find your whole family ends up preferring captioned viewing within a few weeks.
2. Read a holiday book together in ASL
Pick a short children’s holiday book — The Polar Express, Twas the Night Before Christmas, Latkes and Applesauce — and have each family member read a page, signing as best they can. Imperfect signing is fine. The point isn’t to perform; it’s to share the story in a way the Deaf member is centered in.
3. Visual gift hunts
Hide a small gift in the house with a chain of visual clues — photos, drawings, written notes, or signs from a phone video. The Deaf child or family member solves the hunt the same way as anyone else. No verbal hints. No advantage to hearing kids.
4. Sign the blessing or toast
If your family says grace, or makes toasts before holiday meals, sign it. Even if only one or two members of your family can sign, having the blessing rendered in ASL each year by the same person becomes its own ritual. Other family members will learn it by watching.
5. Family ASL practice as a holiday tradition itself
Start a December tradition where the whole family learns one new sign per day in the weeks leading up to Christmas. Stick the sign of the day on the fridge. By Christmas Eve, everyone in the family has 25 more signs than they had before December began.
6. Make the Christmas movie accessible — or pick a different one
If your family always watches a particular Christmas movie, check whether it has good captions and audio description. If not, consider a film that’s natively accessible — or one that’s about the Deaf experience. A Quiet Place uses ASL throughout. CODA (2021) won Best Picture and centers Deaf family life.
7. Holiday cards with hand-traced “I love you” signs
Younger children love tracing their hands and writing what they want. Have everyone in the family trace their dominant hand in the ASL “I love you” sign on holiday cards. It’s a tradition that becomes more meaningful the more years you do it.
8. Decorate with ASL fingerspelling
String letters across the mantel that fingerspell “JOY” or “PEACE” in ASL handshapes. Print them, paint them, cut them from felt. Visible representation of the Deaf family member’s language in the decor sends a message every time someone walks into the room.
9. Holiday baking together
Baking is naturally visual: ingredients, measuring, mixing, shaping, decorating. The whole process can happen without much spoken language at all. Cookie-decorating night, gingerbread house construction, or a multigenerational pie-making afternoon all give the Deaf family member equal footing.
10. Plan a visit with Deaf Santa Claus — or a signing Santa — in advance
The standard mall-Santa experience often disappoints Deaf families. Plan ahead. Look for Deaf Santa appearances, signing-Santa events at your nearest Deaf school or Deaf club, or contact local Deaf organizations to find out where signing Santas appear in your region. The Deaf Santa Claus Foundation maintains a calendar of upcoming appearances and screenings.
Pick two, not ten
Trying to install ten new traditions in one December is a recipe for none of them sticking. Pick two from this list that feel doable. Do them this year. Add another next year. Build the habit slowly. Traditions that get passed to grandchildren weren’t built by trying everything at once — they were built by doing one small thing every December until it became how the family does it.
