How to make a shareable video showcasing your holiday traditions
Summary/Overview
The holidays are all about traditions. The annual trip to grandma’s house, the handed-down cookie recipe, the Secret Santa shopping trip — these are the moments you look forward to all year, and they’re the ones you want to remember long after the season ends.
Holiday tradition ideas are a wonderful way to reinforce joyful, memorable experiences and connect meaningfully with your community. The rituals that make up holiday traditions help us strengthen family bonds, keep in touch with the social practices of our ancestors, and boost our mental health with a renewed sense of well-being and hope.
Big or small, silly or inspiring, holiday traditions are an important form of self-care — one that we especially need during times of personal difficulty or global hardship, which can feel even more negatively impactful during the winter season.
Whoever you are, whatever you celebrate, these customs and practices matter. This article is all about putting your holiday traditions front and center and sharing them with others in a way that helps every recipient feel the spirit of the season.
Sending greetings is a holiday tradition
One of the most popular holiday traditions is sending season’s greetings to people you love. Maybe you handwrite and mail formal cards. Maybe you email a message and photo annually to everyone. However you do it, sending a unique holiday card this year — perhaps a digital holiday card with video footage of your favorite tradition — can show you care while also showcasing your more creative side to those you care about.
The practice of sending holiday cards dates back to 1838. Sir Henry Cole, a British civil servant and entrepreneur, decided he was too busy to write his customary Christmas letters to all his friends and acquaintances, so he commissioned artist John Callcott Horsely to illustrate a card he could send instead.
Image source: The First Christmas Card (The Greeting Card Association).
Cole had a thousand cards engraved and hand-colored, then sent half to his season’s greetings list and sold the rest for a shilling apiece at a shop in London. They became all the rage. In fact, in 2020, one of the few remaining examples of that first Christmas card sold at auction for nearly $17,000.
Try a new approach to the classic holiday card
Your holiday cards may not be nearly 200 years old or worth $17,000, but they can still be timeless, priceless, and totally you.
This year, try a new approach to sending holiday greetings. Update the annual practice of sending holiday cards by creating a modern, creative video instead — one that celebrates a favorite seasonal tradition. Create a fun, fast, and easy holiday video project that captures your festive moment, then share it across social media to decorate the timelines of your friends, family, clients, or colleagues.
If you prefer to keep things tangible, consider turning your digital holiday greeting or favorite festive designs into beautifully printed custom cards or even holiday-themed t-shirts.
While creating simple “Happy Holidays” videos and branded social media posts may be a quick way to send warm wishes, avoid going the generic route and think about what really makes the season special for you. Sharing a favorite holiday tradition evokes a personal feeling that resonates with others, and chances are they’ll want to share your video — and perhaps even create their own, which builds genuine connections (and greater engagement, too).
Go big on holiday cheer with a creative video
As a social media user, you know the power that video has to capture attention and communicate a message. Certainly, influencers, solopreneurs, and small business owners will tell you that video is the secret to taking your content further — in reach, in scale, and especially in creativity.
This year, try using video as a new way to share a holiday tradition on social media. You could create a digital card that includes a playful video of your kids’ merry scene, or record an Instagram Story showing the behind-the-scenes prep of your holiday dinner in real time, or anything else you might have in mind.
Give a gift they weren’t expecting
You can create a fun, snappy holiday tradition video as a way to connect with your extended family and favorite people wherever they are. Your cousins who now live on the other side of the country? They’ll love an unexpected chance to remember your family holiday traditions. Tagging your siblings who have a serious case of FOMO will ensure they can still experience the family’s annual New Year’s Eve celebration from afar.
Video is the almost-as-good-as-being-there approach to keeping traditions alive and relationships strong. It’s simple, and it lets your favorite people know you’re thinking of them and that you value the connection you share.
Make holiday business more personal
Holiday greetings aren’t only for friends and family. You can easily share a festive video on your work platforms, too. Coworkers, clients, and others will love seeing the personal side of your business through visual stories, making your brand more relatable.
Say you own an oceanside boutique in a warm climate. A holiday video may not seem like a typical choice, since your winter season is more sandmen than snowmen. But you can still showcase some of the sunny holiday traditions you and your business have, such as the annual office karaoke beach party or the surfing contest where you also sponsor a food drive for the local soup kitchen. All that matters is your holiday tradition content reflects what’s personal and meaningful for you.
The creative possibilities are endless. It all starts with a little imagination — and then a couple of tries to get it just right. Once you’ve completed your holiday project, take your content to the next level by sharing it on social media and tagging someone to make their own holiday tradition video and keep the good times going. Video content can be the gift that keeps on giving.
Make a video worthy of your favorite holiday tradition
Because your holiday celebrations are unique, you need tools that make it simple to translate that singular feeling into video.
Adobe Express offers drag-and-drop video creation capabilities that let you build from beautiful templates or use your own original designs. Express also makes it easy to add your own branding, custom visual elements, Adobe Stock music, and more. And when your followers, customers, or family members see how cleverly you’ve packaged your holiday tradition, they’ll want to know your secret so they can create their own.
Here’s how simple, quick, and fun making a holiday tradition video can be.
5 steps to make a holiday video from start to finish
Step one
It’s easy to start all kinds of video projects, whether you want to build from a template or use your own. This time, you want to use your own video.
On the Adobe Express homepage, select Video under What do you want to make. Hover over any video task of your choice and select Create from scratch.
Step two
Upload your video into Adobe Express. Don’t worry, it’s a snap. Once the video is there, you can start editing.
Select Upload from device.
Step three
Now you have the ability to adjust the basic elements of your video, such as volume, speed, and picture size. You can also include all the fun stuff, like effects to set the mood, animations to add interest, and more.
Select the video to open up the panel with editing options.
Step four
Overlay text in your video to produce captions or make a design statement. There are also options to include elements like shapes and backgrounds so you can create something extra special.
Choose Text if you’d like to add text to your video or Elements to add shapes, backgrounds, and more.
Step five
Once you’ve got things looking good, turn your attention to audio. You can easily add festive holiday music or record a voiceover to make your video look, feel, and sound just right.
Select Media > Audio to add music, or select Record voiceover to make your own recording.
Spread your holiday magic with Adobe Express
Once you’ve celebrated and captured your holiday tradition on video, it’s time to share your work on social media.
Whichever platforms you prefer — Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, or something else — be sure to include a clear tag for a family member, friend, or coworker to make and share their own video. This will ensure engagement and keep the traditional holiday cheer spreading far and wide.
From unwrapping presents to decorating for a New Year’s party, Adobe Express makes it fun and easy to turn your favorite traditions into a unique, shareable video that shares the spirit of the season and brings people together. Focus on and capture the details that truly make this time of year wonderful for you, and spread love and joy this holiday season.
This post was updated on December 6, 2024.