What are Your Family Christmas Traditions?

Danielle - That is adorable! I think I might steal your tradition and do that with my hubby!

As for Christmas traditions:
Christmas Eve - (The WHOLE family gramps, aunts, kids, etc.) Wearing our PJs drive out to see Christmas lights, have hot cocoa and cookies, snuggle up to watch movie, fall asleep slumber party style. Something so fun about being out in PJs!

Christmas morning - Eat breakfast together, then everyone goes home (we all live in the same town). We open our immediate family presents alone. Then we hang out, nap, play outside, whatever.

Christmas afternoon - We get together again for Christmas dinner and open everyone else's gifts. After opening gifts we have a gift wrapping paper fight. Picture balls of wrapping paper flying all through the house. Huge mess, but lots of fun! Then my dad breaks out the guitar and we sing carols.

New Years (started two years ago and added child)- We usually attend a party but leave at 11:15pm to come home and be by ourselves. We share one accomplishment from the previous year and one aspiration for the next year. Its a great way for families to connect and learn about each other. At 11:50 we all snuggle up in our bed wearing PJs and watch the ball drop. We all sleep together. (we plan on continuing this tradition even with 4 kids!)

I too am a sucker for traditions.

Thanks!
Debra

Thanks for sharing everyone! I love reading the different traditions...

Cheryl-We do Chinese Christmas too! Only we call it a "White Elephant Exchange". It really is a lot of fun! And it pares down on expenses considering that my Nana's side of the family is pretty big now since the grandkids are now marrying and having children. We always do our Christmas gathering with this side of the family a few weeks before Christmas in order to make sure that everyone can be there and we all look forward to it each year! My cousin has become the host for the event in recent years. My Nana and Pop-pop live further away from everyone and it's harder for her to get around these days and clean a house to host an event.

Now that we're married we spend every other Christmas in Ohio with my husband's side of the family. One year we'll do Christmas here, and the next year we go out for Thanksgiving. Unfortunately, this really isn't much fun for us, and we really hate spending Christmas so far away from our home. We decorate and put up a tree, and then we leave it all a few days before Christmas to go someplace else where everyone else plans what we will do on Christmas and if we vary from their plans because we have our own needs (like a child who is exhausted and needs to go to bed), it turns into a big fight and then everyone is miserable. We're thinking about spending Christmas here and the day after Christmas leaving to go visit that side of the family--so that may become a new tradition. When we do spend Christmases here, we always like to start Christmas morning with the Bible story of Jesus' birth. This is something that my parents always did before we opened presents and we really like to keep the focus of the holiday on Jesus. I loved this tradition while growing-up and my husband enjoys leading it now. Another thing we do is open one gift (pajamas) on Christmas Eve. Then we sleep in those pajamas and have nice new p.j's for all of the pictures on Christmas morning Grin.

Last year we baked cookies and delivered them to friends and neighbors. That was a lot of fun, driving around and surprising people with baked goods! Then we got pulled over by a cop for speeding on the way home Undecided. Thankfully he was in the Christmas mood, and when he found out why we'd been out, he gave us a warning and let us go Grin.

Decorating the tree is another one that my brothers and I used to always do with my mom. So now Aiden is starting to get in on the action. Our tree last year had ornaments concentrated at the bottom and front of the tree, but I wouldn't let anyone move them around because I wanted it to show that Aiden had taken part in our tradition. My husband has even started to get into decorating it. When he was a child his mom had her own way of doing things and didn't allow the kids to help because they would mess it up. So when we got married he didn't even have an interest in decorating the tree at all for the first few years, but now it's something we all love doing together.

~Elsie

Thank you guys so much for sharing!! These are great stories and I love hearing about other families' traditions.

Cheryl

Wow. Yep, I must say that the birthday cakes are a blast. But my favorite tradition would have to be the one between me and my best friend, Jessica. It is sort of like the way you and your family give a gift to each other on Sundays, Cheryl. See Jessica and I have been best friends for the longest time and we started up this thing where we give each other a gift every month. And we call it what ever the month may be. For example, I have her October gift waiting in my room right at the moment and next month I will be giving her, her November gift, and so on. We started this up so long ago that I can't even remember but it really is the most fun. See we can either buy something or make something.. It doesn't matter. Just the fact that we are giving each other something brings plenty of laughs and really makes us even better friends than before.

I think it's the little things like these sort of traditions that builds relationships.. that really shows how much you care and gives you something to look forward too and look back on to remember. I think traditions are amazing.. without them life would be so ... well not cool. Grin

Of course when me and Jessica first started this we never planned on it becoming an every month thing.. but it just did. I made her something one month and said Happy "something" gift and we laughed a whole lot about it. But then she came back with a gift for me just a few days later and repeated the same title. And since then it just has always been this way. So traditions don't have to be planned out or something that is really huge. Sometimes the little and unexpected things leave the best memories and open the door for the greatest times to come. Right?? Cheesy Have any of you had something similar to that happen?

Family traditions!  Those are my favorite.  We don't have a Christmas tradition but we definitely have a birthday tradition.  When my oldest was 2 years old we thought it would be fun to let her help decorate her cake and capture it in pictures.  We were making memories and mom and grandma were thrilled.  At the time we hadn't thought beyond those immediate photos but Danielle had another plan.  The next year on her third birthday I was baking her cake and set it on the rack to cool.  20 minutes later my 3 year old pulled a chair up to the counter and had icing everywhere, and a little on the cake 

This begin the tradition of the birthday kid baking the cake!  Each year the week before the birthday the birthday boy or girl heads over to the store and selects the cake, icing, decorations and the like.  On the day of their birthday they get busy and bake the cake.  As the kids get older they do more of the work of course, Danielle bakes hers from beginning to end while ordering everybody out of the kitchen until it is done.

Two years ago, Jessica my 13 yr old ventured into the task of baking Sponge Bob, my son Aaron 10 took on the challenge of a dragon cake.  They are really so exciting to see come out and we don't miss a year.  My youngest Morgan made her first cake and it didn't turn out perfect (she was only 2) but it upset her so much that she refuses to bake a cake and doesn't want us too either.  Her cakes are ordered and purchases and me and the other kids really miss that traditional baking on her birthday  . 

One year Aaron thought he would try ordering a cake and we were so glad that he missed the cake baking tradition too and hasn't done it since! This family tradition will continue for a long time.  The older girls have already talked about all the stuff they are going to get for their kids to bake their own cakes.  I think it is great and we all have so much fun.  If you want to start a family tradition but don't know where to look, consider birthday cakes.  It's a blast.

Mikki Hogan Publisher of UniqueParenting.com