Merry Christmas, happy Hanukkah, joyous Kwanzaa and happy New Year.
To celebrate the season, we’ve rounded up the many questions we’ve asked on our site over the years that can help you celebrate, reflect, discuss, debate, write and remember — all December long.
Whether you use them in the classroom, among your friends, or at your holiday table, we invite you to choose the ones that interest you most, and, if you are 13 or older, post your thoughts in the comments. Each prompt was originally inspired by a New York Times article, essay or image, and all of those pieces are linked here for free.
Happy holidays!
1. What Holiday or Holidays Are You Celebrating This Month?
Hanukkah? Christmas? Kwanzaa? A combination? Something else? Use this prompt to talk or write about your own holiday celebrations — or those that other families have that you wish you could be a part of.
2. What Are Your Family Traditions?
Students who weighed in on this prompt in 2022 told us about preparing 12 meals for Ukrainian Christmas, making the haft sin for Nowruz, lighting the candles on the menorah for Hanukkah and playing the game White Elephant.
When we asked if you had any special or unusual traditions, students talked about watching “The Polar Express” and “It’s A Wonderful Life,” doing themed puzzles, driving to see holiday lights, and making family T-shirts featuring individual hand prints.
What rituals help you mark the holidays or reflect on the year?
And speaking of traditions, where do you stand on Santa Claus?
3. What Foods Will Be on Your Holiday Table?
Food is an important part of holiday celebrations all over the world. What dishes will be on your table this year? You might talk about the best festive snacks and finger foods with this prompt, your favorite cookies with this prompt, or take inspiration from Lunar New Year and share your favorite holiday food traditions with this prompt.
4. How Do You Decorate for the Season?
Traditional or modern? Over-the-top or more understated? Discuss the way your family or community decorates for the holidays — or how you wish it did.
How do you think you will choose to decorate your home when you are older?
5. What Role Does Religion Play in Your Holiday Celebrations?
Several of the winter holidays have religious roots. In “Saying Goodbye to Hanukkah,” a writer asks whether you can celebrate traditionally religious holidays without religion. What do you think? Read the essay and then use this prompt to talk or write about how much religion is a part of your holiday celebrations, or use this prompt to talk about the role of spirituality in your life in general.
6. Do You Look Forward to Family Get-Togethers This Time of Year?
The approaching holidays often mean spending more time with family members, who come from near and far. Who do you look forward to seeing this time of year? Do you enjoy large family get-togethers or do you find them overwhelming? Use this prompt to talk or write about your most memorable family gathering, or this prompt to reflect on what can be difficult about this time of year.
And as you gather, a Times health reporter suggests reconnecting with older family members and asking some of the questions that have been on your mind. What have you always wanted to know?
7. What Makes a Great Gift?
What are you giving this holiday season? What are you hoping to get, or what have you already received?
Do you prefer gifts that you’ve asked for, or ones that are surprises? What are your giving dos and don’ts? What, to you, makes a great gift?
8. Should Phones Ever Be a Part of Family or Holiday Gatherings?
Now it’s time for another holiday debate: Are phones and other electronics welcome at your family or holiday gatherings? Do you think they should be? Can they ever be helpful? Or are they a distraction from spending quality time with your loved ones? Discuss these questions and others with our related prompt.
9. What Will You Be Watching, Listening To and Wearing This Season?
“National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation”? Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas Is You”? An ugly Christmas sweater?
Use these prompts to debate the best and worst holiday films, discuss your feelings about holiday music, share what’s on your seasonal playlist and plan your special holiday outfit.
10. What Can You Do for Others This Year?
#GivingTuesday on social media is a day when you are invited to take a break from buying things, and, instead, show generosity to others. The Giving Tuesday website suggests thinking about it this way:
Whether it’s making someone smile, helping a neighbor or stranger out, showing up for an issue or people we care about, or giving some of what we have to those who need our help, every act of generosity counts, and everyone has something to give.
What do you have to give? What people, issues or causes are important to you? What can you do this holiday season to give back? Here are some suggestions from The Times. What can you give? Tell us here.
11. What Seasonal Story Could These Images Tell?
A magical gift. A sledding adventure. A family gathering. What story could these images from around The Times tell? Choose one or more of the holiday- and winter-themed picture prompts from the slide show above, and then write a creative short story, poem or memoir inspired by them.
Another option? Use one of these images to play Exquisite Corpse with your friends, family or classmates: One person starts by writing or saying aloud the first line of a story based on the image, and then another person adds on, and so on.
12. What Were the Best and Worst Things About This Year for You?
The Times’s art and culture critics often end the year by compiling a series of “best of” lists. For example, here are their best TV shows, movies, music, video games, podcasts and theater of 2024. So far, only the best books of 2025 have been announced, but you can find all the lists here as they publish.
What would be on your “best of the year” list? What would be on your “worst of the year” list? What art or pop culture did you love or loathe? What news, sporting events or viral social media moments did you think were great or terrible? What were the most notable aspects of your personal, family or academic life?
Here is what students told us would stick with them from 2024, and here was their best and worst from 2022. Use either or both prompts to help make your own list.
13. What Would You Pick as Word of the Year?
Every year the Oxford English Dictionary selects a “word of the year” that is meant “to reflect the ethos, mood or preoccupations” of the previous year. For 2025, the publisher chose “rage bait.” What do you think of this choice? What is one word or phrase that you think sums up this year? Weigh in on our related prompt.
14. What Was the Best Day of Your Year?
When you look back on this year, what would you say was your most memorable day? Were you celebrating a big life event or achievement, like getting your license? Or were you doing something more mundane — perhaps talking to a friend on the phone, making a meal for your family or taking a long walk alone? What made that day so special for you?
Even though this prompt was written in 2021, you can still use the article and questions to take some time to appreciate your favorite day of this past year.
15. What’s Special About Winter and the Holidays in the Place Where You Live?
What do you appreciate about winter in general? How will you spend your time off from school this season?
If you will be staying close to home, we have a special challenge for you: We’d like to know what’s special about the place where you live, and we invite you to make a photo essay that explores that question. Whether you choose to depict local holiday lights, a neighborhood deli a cultural celebration, or anything else, send us your work by Jan. 14, 2026.
16. Do You Make New Year’s Resolutions? How About In-and-Out or Gratitude Lists?
As one year ends and another begins, will you take stock of all that you have (or haven’t) accomplished and make resolutions for the year ahead? Or, like other Gen Zers, do you set goals all year round? In January of 2025, we asked students about their resolutions, and about what good advice they’d like to apply to their life in the year to come. Here is what they told us.
Use this prompt to talk or write about the changes, big or small, you’re currently working toward. Use this prompt to reflect on what you’re grateful for. Or, use this prompt to come at the topic a different way and make in-and-out lists for the year that was — or for the year to come.
Natalie Proulx is an editor at The Learning Network, a Times free teaching resource.
The post 16 Prompts for Writing and Talking about the Holiday Season appeared first on New York Times.
