Christmas Traditions

[5ft Diva]

What are your Christmas traditions? What have been your favorite growing up? What traditions do you hope for your children to carry on?

[runamyrun]

Last year and this year I wrapped 24 books that we already owned. We have several that have a Christmas theme, but most of them aren't. Then, each day one child picks a book and unwraps it. Then I read it to them. My kids are young and very excited about unwrapping the Christmas presents, and this helps a lot. They absolutely love this, and I love that it gives me the excuse to cuddle with them! They are also each given a book for Christmas.

My mother-in-law made us a binder that has a countdown to Christmas. Each night we sing a Christmas carol, read a scripture and read a poem or a Christmas story. Then we put up a piece of the nativity scene on our wall. The nativity scene was done on paper and covered with contact paper. We love doing this.

Most years my mom buys the kids a chocolate advent calendar. The kids love it!

When our children turn two, I make a levi quilt (with flannel on the other side) for them for Christmas. We move our children to a big kid bed when they turn two (because that is when I am pregnant with the next child). So, the quilt is for the big kid bed. I think it is fun to have something I hand made for them. My youngest turns two the day after Christmas, so I need to start working on her's!

Each time we have a baby, I knit them a Christmas stocking. They are all matching with slight variations. Eventually I will make one for DH and me. I know I could buy cuter stockings, but I feel like these are special because I made them with love!

One of my favorite traditions is the stockings. According to my kids, Santa fills our stockings, but my husband fills mine and I do all of the others. My husband and I don't really care about getting presents, we are more excited about the kids. So, we try to think of anything fun (foodwise--we love to eat!) to put in each others' stocking. On Christmas Eve, when the kids are asleep, we take turns filling each others' stocking and then we cover it with a blanket so it can be a surprise in the morning. It may sound silly, but it is a lot of fun for us!

As for spending time with extended family, we take turns. When we were first married it was overwhelming. My family, his family, and my grandparents all wanted us to spend time with them. It felt like we were spending most of our time driving. And then when we started having kids, it was stressful because we weren't able to start our own traditions. Thankfully my husband's family decided that one year we would spend Thanksgiving with them and Christmas with my family, and the next year we would switch. Now we have the rule that we stay home on Christmas day, and I love it. We are still able to see family, but we have our own time too!

When I was growing up, I loved the tradition of buying a new ornament for the tree each year (see my post on the Christmas tree thread). I hope my kids love this as much as I do, and that they carry it on. We also had a tradition of opening one present on Christmas Eve. When we were really little it was always matching pajamas that my mom had made. I thought that was a lot of fun. Now I feel that my children don't need to open a present on Christmas Eve, because they are already opening the books (and I don't want to make pajamas). And of course another of my favorite traditions from when I was young, is all of the yummy food. For some reason this time of year I crave certain treats. Good thing I run (not while I'm pregnant--I am too lazy!).

[PhillyGirl]

Since my husband and I are out here in Philly for school this will be our third Christmas by ourselves. It has been so nice to carry on traditions and make some of our own. My parents always had us open our stockings on their bed before we went into the living room to open our gifts. I always loved that and so we have kept that but just added on a little. My husband makes us hot chocolate and we drink it while we open the stockings.
We then come out and Hailey opens her gifts and my husband and I exchange the gifts that we know we are getting from each other. Also, we open the gifts from family members. Then we have a wonderful breakfast casserole that my family has had every Christmas that I can remember. After my daughter is down, my husband and I exchange our surprise gift/s. We always buy at least one thing that the other person doesn't know about. I love this new tradition because it makes Christmas last the whole day. You still get to anticipate something at the end of the day. When our kids are older maybe we will keep one gift for them to open at the end of the day. We will see I know I couldn't have handle to wait all day.

[sunrisegirl]

We have a tradition that started with my husbands family that is a dutch tradition. We have the children leave there shoes by the side of there beds on each Saturday night in December and the "elves" come and leave a little gift in there shoes. It keeps suprises going on all month for us.
Sometime during the month we go to Winder Dairy in West Valley and see Santa and have some scones and hot chocolate.
On Christmas Eve we have a box that is wrapped up like a gift and in it we write our gift to Jesus that year. It helps keep us focused on what Christmas is about and it's fun to look at the past years and see what we've written and how much we've grown and changed.

[5ft Diva]

These are such great ideas! I remember you talking about wrapping up the books last year, Amy. I think my two little ones would benefit from knowing that there will be one gift opened each day. I'll have to try to figure out how to implement that.

[Dia Minha]

I have been very grateful this year, that we have just a few very simple Christmas traditions.

I would have to say that Nutcracker is our biggest tradition. It starts way back in September. Well, maybe actually more like October, when we find out what scene the girls are in. Then it's pretty much Nutcracker until the first week of December and last year all the way to the weekend after Christmas when we went to our first annual Ballet West Nutcracker. I love the story of the Nutcracker. It encompasses everything magical about this season. My goal each year is to give at least one gift to one of my children, where they fall as much in love with it as Clara does with her Nutcracker. This year I believe I have hit it just right with at least 3 of my children.

The Wednesday after Thanksgiving I always check my kids out of school early and we go to the Festival of Trees. I love going earlier, because it is not crowded and we find we can enjoy every moment, if we don't have to fight the crowds. We can walk down the middle of the aisles and see the trees on both sides of us. If there is one the children, or my mom, or I want to see up close, then we slide up next to it to get a better look. This way we spend more time looking at all the things we want to see and less time just moving about. I really wanted to donate a tree in Levi's name this year. However, I'm having a hard enough time just getting my dishes done and dinner on the table, so it didn't happen. But my mom and I got lots of ideas for next year. We are going to hit the after Christmas sales and get our lights and stuff to do a tree for him next year. We picture it with white lights, a few blinking, small blue ornaments, and blue and white fabric butterflies. I recently realized that Greg Olsen has a picture of Christ with a child on his lap and a blue butterfly on his finger, I want to add a small print in frame and a globe with a large hand holding a tiny baby in blue, my mom and I found earlier, to go with the tree. I want to make it a tradition and do a tree every year for my Christmas baby.

In some years past I have done pajamas, but it is not something I feel like I have to do every year. Last year I didn't, because their pajamas from the year earlier still fit and were in good condition. This year they really need new ones. I found the perfect material about two months ago. The girls are pink with sparkling, silver, shooting stars and the boys are blue with the same print. It will only take an afternoon to put all the bottoms together, and because I'm not the best sewing probably two afternoons at my moms to finish the tops.

Christmas Eve is my favorite tradition. We have waffles for dinner, a tradition carried on from when I was little, with lots of fruit, cool whip, and a very seldom treat at our house, bacon. I would love for the kids to open and put on their pajamas and then have our "magic" hot chocolate, but I learned my lesson several years ago, that if the kids have their chocolate with their new pajamas on, the pajamas will not be clean for pictures Christmas morning. So, we have our magic chocolate first. This is hot chocolate with two Hersheys kisses stirred with a candy cane, topped with mini marshmallows. The magic is in the kisses, which help the children fall asleep. Hehehehe. A placebo effect really, but it works. The kids put on their new PJ's and we curl up under the lights of the Christmas tree and Daddy reads the story of the first Christmas from the Bible. I then read the story from the Book of Mormon, which just happens to be my favorite. I love the phrase "a day and a night and a day with no darkness". What an amazing promise.

After the kids are asleep, DH and I get to play Santa Clause. Santa doesn't wrap gifts so we get to pull them out of the boxes and play with them while setting them up. I love those quite hours, when my most favorite man a I get the opportunity to act like children. There are some years I feel like I will never feel the excitement I felt as a child. Then Christmas Eve comes and the spirit of Santa arrives and imagining my children's excitement in the morning, brings it all back.

This year my DH and I are starting a new tradition. One of the biggest stresses of our holiday in the past as been gifts for each other. This year we have solved the problem by planning two nights away the day after Christmas. It will be our gift to each other, and let me tell you, I can't wait. We have a room reserved with a big jet tub and I get spend two days with my most favorite person, lying in bed or in a warm bubble bath, watching movies.

I think traditions can be hard. If you have so many things that you have to do, in the name of tradition, it can make the holiday so stressful. I love the fact that way do what we feel this time of year. If we don't feel like having waffles Christmas Eve, (like the year we spent Christmas Eve afternoon in the emergency room, because my 5 yr old had sucked a bead up her nose) than we just don't, and no one is upset about it. I also love that it gives us an opportunity to try and do new things each year. This year my children decided that instead of exchanging gifts among themselves, they wanted to buy toys for Toys-for-Tots. I'm excited to see how this works out and if they will want to make it an annual tradition. I would love to be able to plan far enough ahead to adopt an angel from the angel tree. Probably when the kids get older and can earn more of their own money we will look into it more.

Dia

[5ft Diva]

Those sound like fun things to do for the holidays, Dia.

We like making gingerbread houses. I got a pattern and recipe from a friend a few years back and my kids love doing them so we've kept it up. I think that's really the only thing we do consistently every year. We're still trying to figure out what our traditions are, I think.

[mxmama]

Were figuring ours out as well..


But we have been doing the gingerbread homes and men for some time too.


Pictures!!!!!!

I love the ideas from this thread!

Awesome stuff!

[5ft Diva]

Originally Posted by mxmama

Were figuring ours out as well..


But we have been doing the gingerbread homes and men for some time too.


Pictures!!!!!!

I love the ideas from this thread!

Awesome stuff!

We'll definitely of the gingerbread houses and post them. I just can't guaruntee when you'll see them. Hopefully soon!!!!!