- any Christmas music sung by Mariah Carey
- people who decorate their cars (my personal favorite is the reindeer antlers)
- blue poinsettia plants
- my little ones continually 'undecorating' the tree
But there is something that has really been bugging me with each passing Christmas the last few years and that's holiday traditions. The other day I was thinking in my mind over the last few Christmases (this will be our 5th Christmas in this house) and I had a hard time thinking of very many specific things we have done as a family each and every year without fail. If anything, the only consistency we've had is inconsistency!! It seems we do different activities every year. Some years we had fake trees and other years we had real ones. Some years we have taken the kids to see Santa and other years we haven't. One year we made gingerbread houses and let the kids sleep under the tree.
Don't get me wrong, we do things with our kids to make the Christmas season special and meaningful for them, but I wonder if we should be more consistent? You know, the kind of activities that when they are older they can look back on these years and say, "Remember every year at Christmas when we would do..........." Maybe I'm being too hard on myself and changing things up every year is just who we are?
We've adapted traditions from our own childhoods that Andrew and I do with our kids now -- like oranges in the stockings, reading the story of Jesus' birth as the kids reenact the Nativity, opening one gift on Christmas Eve, watching holiday movies, our handmade stockings we use each year, eating soup on Christmas Eve, etc.
When I talk to friends or even other family members, I love hearing what they do during the holidays with their kids. Great ideas that I wish I would have thought of. I know families who leave out shoes instead of stockings, who go to the movie theater or bowling alley every Christmas Day, families who drive up in the mountains and cut down a real tree, families who open all of their gifts Christmas Eve or wrap Santa's gifts in specific paper (we leave ours unwrapped) families who do 12 Days of Christmas, or go to a lights display every year. I've never been a very creative soul who can come up with spectacular ideas all on my own. ( Maybe if I got more sleep my creative juices would flow more easily, who knows!) I've read a couple of great ideas that I will try to implement into our holidays but I would love anyone to share what things you have done or continue to do with your children and families that make the Christmas season magical and more meaningful.
ONLY TWO WEEKS TO GO UNTIL CHRISTMAS DAY!!
9 comments:
Ours isn't a Christmas tradition but we love it. On New Year's Eve we put plates under the tree. During the night Kris Kringle comes and leaves everyone a new pair of shoes and a plate full of goodies. My family has done this for four generations. It's fun and everyone can always use a new pair of shoes.
we understand completely. Kevin and I have come up with a few ideas that we would like to start doing every year. Something we both liked as kids was driving around and looking at Christmas lights was a common one we both enjoyed. But, with the lack of people putting up lights, we have heard wonderful things about the Springs Preserve. We are going next week.
Oh i hear you. I would love to have family traditions. But i just cant come up with any. I think not showering until noon is my tradition. Hahah Good luck to you!
I consider myself to be very sporatic as well, but the thing is that it's the little things like your soup on Christmas Eve, that become the traditions- not some huge event. I feel that just making the holiday season special and a little sweeter is all you really need to have.
We have our traditions, but they have had to change a little. The one we started as the Wiser family was to make stew Chrismas Eve and see the lights at Temple Square- moving to Las Vegas, we just kept the stew part. We watch the Luke 2 video since we always have a child who won't sit and listen tot he scriptures and we share a little testimony of how important it is to celebrate Christs life. New pj's every Christmas eve, and one or two new books to open eve- no toys!They choose wrapping paper to leave for Santa to wrap their presents in- we were almost caught last year- good thing we tied bells to the door so we knew if someone tried to open a door!
I could keep listing a bunch- but really those are our families- your kids will grow up and remmeber the great things you did and how they were different- they get to see and do new things- mine get the same old boring stuff! It's the family together that makes it feel so good, not neccasarily the tradition. Sorry for all the typo's I am feeling lazy and don't want to fix them!!
Did I forget to mention that I CANNOT STAND Mariah Carey Christmas music either. I mean how many runs and piercing notes can you add to Jingle Bells?
These are all great traditions and have given us some great ideas - thanks for sharing!!
Wait just a minute dear kinda sister-in-law-
I think the Christmas lights on my car are dope. You should see how cool they look at night when they all light up.
It's one of our family traditions your just going to have to tolerate haha.
Janae'
I have a lot of childrens Christmas story books because of preschool so this year I have been reading my kids a Christmas book every night before bed. We also get new pajamas on Christmas eve and I make "sticky buns" for breakfast christmas morning. We usually find a family to help and the kids pick out the gifts but this year we have only helped by giving money because finding time to do extra shopping this year was way too hard.
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