Holiday traditions

By Leslie

Why is it that when you are a child, the three and a half weeks between Dec 1st and Dec 25th are the slowest, most excruciating days of your life, but when you are an adult, those days just fly by?! 

My mom remembered the delicious yet painful anticipation of Christmas from her own childhood so when she had us, she started the tradition of celebrating St. Nicholas Day on December 5th. In keeping with this German tradition, we would put our shoes by the door of our rooms on the eve of the 5th. When we awoke, St. Nick had visited and filled our shoes with candy and other treats. We never thought to ask who this mysterious St. Nick was or why he was leaving presents for us. All we knew was that tradition gave us something to look forward to between Thanksgiving and Christmas!

I am a sucker for traditions so lately I’ve been researching how other families celebrate the holidays. Here are some fun traditions that we have either already started or will soon:

• Advent Calendars: We have a cute wooden advent calendar with small drawers for each day. I ordered a bag of goodies from Oriental Trading Company and will fill the boxes with them. A new treat awaits my kiddo each day!
• Christmas-Book-A-Day: A fun tradition I found online was to wrap up 25 Christmas-themed books and allow your children to pick one to read together as a family each night, preferably in front of your Christmas tree. Hide the books away until the following year.
• Adopt-a-Family: Contact your local social services organization and have them recommend a family who could use some help through the holidays. We take the money we would normally spend on gifts for our siblings and use it to make another family’s Christmas brighter.
• Holiday Activities: Write down 25 fun holiday activities (making cookies, driving around to see light displays, watching a Christmas movie, decorating a gingerbread house, etc.) on slips of paper and allow your children to pick one for each day/night counting down to December 25th.
• PJ Party: Give everyone in the family a new set of pajamas on Christmas Eve – You’ll all look good in the Christmas morning photos!

What are some of your family holiday traditions?

Leslie lives in northern Virginia with her husband and 2-year-old son.

Comments

[Goldberry]

We do the Advent Calendar counting down until Christmas. Plus, we let our daughter open up one special SMALL gift on Christmas Eve. One year, it was Jammies. I like the book idea. :o)

[chris]

We do all of those things, too. We also do the Advent wreath which we light every night and read our Christmas stories by candlelight. We also make gingerbread houses which we eat on New Year's Day.

[Helene]

I think done myself in, in this area for now my kids (even at just 4 & 6) have expectations :)

Gingerbread houses (love the kits), the annual window decorating of the "Rudolph the Red nose.. " window cling gang and chocolate advent calendars top our list of "must have" family traditions each year :)

[Kimberly]

We do many of those things, actually.

It's not Christmas if Sabrina doesn't get new jammies--it's the one gift she's allowed to open on Christmas Eve. And this year I caved and did something I said I'd never do: The Ladies will have matching Jammies this year. What can I say? The lure of Baby Gap was just too strong.

OF course we do Book-A-Day here. And of course those books are brought to us by Scholastic.

Christmas Eve we go to the early mass, then come home the long way to see the lights. We bake for Santa and watch one of the Christmas Specials that *really* focusses on the season: The Little Drummer Boy or Nestor the Christmas Donkey or something like that. Then we read 'Twas the Night Before Christmas for the bedtime story.

We tried the Advent Calendar in past years, but Sabrina wasn't too good with the "one/day" concept and I finally found the fight wasn't worth it.

Oh, and with a 7 year old girl in residence, of course multiple viewings of that Christmas Classic, To Granmother's House We Go, is on the agenda. It just wouldn't be Christmas without a daily dose of the Olsen Twins.