What are your Christmas traditions?

[ChristmasShopping]

A friend of mine is a newly single dad who has just returned from 2 years of military schooling and military duty in Afghanistan. He will have his soon for most of December and is trying to come up with some traditions to start with him (he is only 6).

 

It got me to thinking about different traditions... so what are yours?

[berry1014]

Things we do every year with our kids

 

1. Make ornaments (foam ornament kits, bead ornament kits)

2. Make a ginger bread house (from kit)

3. Bake and decorate cookies

4. Go driving around looking at lights (bring along blanket, freshly baked christmas cookies, hot cocoa)

5. Movie night in (select a couple christmas movies, make popcorn, get comfy and relax)

6. Take the kids to get picture taken with Santa

 

Have him check his area to see if there are any free events coming up like parades, concerts, tours, etc that they can enjoy together.

[Elmck]

Things I try to do every year

1. Drive through neighborhoods to see the lights

2. Christmas movies (all the old cartoon ones)

3. Order pizza the night we decorate the tree

4. One gift gets set out on Christmas Eve so she has something to play with Christmas morning along with her stocking.

5. Make Candy and cookies

6. Make gifts or shop for grandparents

7. Buy or make an ornament

[otonoh]

My family is a bit twisted,:holiday08 every year we try to get gag gifts. My sister hates precious moments and snow babies, so every year she gets the fake ones from good will. There is a lamp that has been regifted since the early 80's, it disappears for a few years then someone receives it. My sons are teenagers now, in the past they have gotten hello Kitty toothbrushes, strawberry short cake back packs. This year I am planning on giving them pillow pets. Usually the gag gifts end up at good will or the Salvation army, unless it is truly hideous and then it makes the rounds throughout my family.

[sweetdiggity]

My family is a bit twisted,:holiday08 every year we try to get gag gifts. My sister hates precious moments and snow babies, so every year she gets the fake ones from good will. There is a lamp that has been regifted since the early 80's, it disappears for a few years then someone receives it. My sons are teenagers now, in the past they have gotten hello Kitty toothbrushes, strawberry short cake back packs. This year I am planning on giving them pillow pets. Usually the gag gifts end up at good will or the Salvation army, unless it is truly hideous and then it makes the rounds throughout my family.

My family is demented as well. LOL

We do gag gifts, too. Especially me and my aunt. Last year I bought her a plastic toy baby bottle (the kind with the "juice" in it) and wrote "E & J VSOP Brandy" on it, which is what she drinks. LMAO.

Two years ago I got her some nice earrings and some plastic kid high heels from the dollar store. lol

[sweetdiggity]

My other traditions are making a gingerbread house, cookies, ornaments watching the classic holiday cartoons and movies (The Grinch, Rudolph, Year Without Santa, Home Alone, etc) and opening one gift on Christmas Eve (everyone gets to, but sometimes it is more than one )

[mgmckny]

My family is a bit twisted,:holiday08 every year we try to get gag gifts. My sister hates precious moments and snow babies, so every year she gets the fake ones from good will. There is a lamp that has been regifted since the early 80's, it disappears for a few years then someone receives it. My sons are teenagers now, in the past they have gotten hello Kitty toothbrushes, strawberry short cake back packs. This year I am planning on giving them pillow pets. Usually the gag gifts end up at good will or the Salvation army, unless it is truly hideous and then it makes the rounds throughout my family.

I like the way your family thinks!!! Last year I gave my teens farting banks. Suspect I might get one of them back...

[leefamily23]

We always do the tree as a family either the weekend before or right after Thanksgiving. Just last year my husband and I spent a whole weekend baking cookies together and plan to continue that tradition this year.

 

Pretty much any evening we run an errand during the season we usually plan extra time to look pick a neighborhood and look at the lights there.

 

Most of our traditions though revolve around our family gatherings. We have a small immediate family get together the weekend before Christmas before everything starts to get hectic.

[Turtle Mommy]

Ours are:

 

-We decorate the tree as a family

-bake and decorate Christmas cookies

-Drive around and see Christmas lights

-Each year the boys get to open one gift to open on Christmas Eve. They play along(16 and 9) because it is the same gift every year..new Christmas jammies.

[tokanm]

Ever since the boys were born I read 'the night before christmas" to them and even though they groan now when I do it, I know they still look forward to it. they also open 1 gift b4 bed on Christmas Eve.

[coleman4905]

Our traditions are:

 

we go to the festival of lights one night and then go around town looking at the holiday lights

we watch all the x-mas shows while having nothing lite but the tree while eating popcorn and having pop (i dont give the kids pop often so its a treat)

black friday I shop, come home to decorate tree, then the kids are always in the town christmas parade then home to relax and watch tv shows.

x-mas eve we open 2 gifts,..the one in the a.m. (a toy for them to play with) and one in p.m. (p.j.'s)

[redspider61]

my daughter's 23 but she still insists when she comes home for christmas for her pjs..mrs santa started leavin them on christmas eve when she was 2 because she had been extra good that year..when she was 21 i finally told her it was so shed look cute in the christmas mornin pics haha..left to her own there'd have been 6 years of little mermaid pjs in the pics..she'll be home this year and mrs santa will leave new pjs for her and her boyfriend its a small thing but im secretly glad she doesnt want to give it up..looking forward to the day i start buyin grandkids christmas pjs

[Princess7915]

We always had Christmas Eve dinner with our close family friends and did our gift exchange with them that night. Every year we had chili for dinner. I always looked forward to that every year - no so much the chili when I was young :) but having Christmas Eve with our family friends. I really missed that the first year or so when I was an adult and we didn't have that anymore.

 

Now I always decorate the tree to the same c.d. music - it just makes it feel Christmas -y to me :) something small and silly but it's a simple tradition.

My dad and I always watched a few of the same cartoon Christmas specials when they came on.

We, too, drove around the big neighborhoods that decorated when I was a kid. But we now live in an area that does special lights for the city and DH and I go see those most years.

A special shopping trip to buy gifts for certain people would be a fun tradition to start. A small kid always feels good about presenting someone with a gift they "bought" themselves.

[fingerlakesmom]

hmmmm it may change this year we just lost my mom two weeks ago

 

christans eve at my parents same dinner eahc year :) grandkids my 3 boys and niece and nephew get to open one gift then we head home

 

christasm moring at our own homes I wake boys and they all coem inopt living room togterh dpending on were we are living it has menat they all camp out in one bedroom L)

 

thenwe heade dbakc to Gramma and Gramap's about 11:30 grandkids open gifts lunch same thigne each year :) then adults open and my x gets my kids at three

 

oh boys alway get new pjs and are allwoed to warr them all day hristmas da (Well not sure if dad makes them dress)

[laniebean]

we do the christmas jammies every year on christmas eve... and the night we decorate the tree we all get to open 1 gift a new ornament.. for a few years now we have done our version of the 12 days of chirstmas... the first night is when they get their ornaments and after that they get a small gift each night till chirstmas.. mostly usefull stuff.. new tooth brushes, gloves, funny socks.. a BIG candy bar. dollar tree is great for these things.. one year we got them each a bar of soap.. nothing fancy just soap... they looked at us so funny but then fought over who got to take the first bath...

[ohitsunshine]

We also do the Christmas Eve PJ's and funny, we started them because we wanted cute pictures in the morning also! Christmas eve evening- the kids open up this years movie. We started buying a new Christmas movie each year to build our collection AND to prevent fighting over which one was THE movie! So they open that and then they open their pj's. They usually get either slippers or a stuffed animal too. We eat snacks that we made earlier like chocolate covered popcorn trail mix, etc. We are the only ones that live within 1200 miles so we just spend the time together the 5 of us.

 

Of course we do all the light seeing, cooking, etc.

 

My one tradition too, I always, always drop my Christmas cards in the mailbox Black Friday morning. That is my kickoff!

[llist]

my mom always did the christmas eve pj's for us and i've continued that tradition with my kids. The first friday in december me, my mom and my grandma get together for a marathon cookie making day :) That same weekend we usually put the tree up. Once I get the lights on the kids usually do almost all of the decorating while I take pictures. A few days before Christmas (we try to make it Christmas Eve but it doesn't always work out) we invite my dad, grandma and my brother and his kids over to do our Christmas exchange with them. Another night we do the same thing at my mom's. Christmas morning I try to make it so that we take turns opening stuff up one at a time so that we can all see what everyone has gotten... that lasts about 2 presents for the kids and then its a free for all lol. Once the mayhem has settled we usually have to get ready to make the rounds :)

[Stowasser]

-We follow abit of my husbands German family traditions, on the night of the 5th, the kids leave their christmas list in their boots by the fireplace and in the morning the list is gone and candy is left in their boot

-Always do the advent calendar, when they were younger it was lego/playmobil/polly pockets or one that I made for them, now its the chocolate ones (their grandma use to send these but just stopped when they were younger)

-use to do gingerbread houses for local contest but it got to be to many in the house and they lost interest

-two local Christmas strolls (these are up in the air this year)

-our anniversary is the 23rd so we go Mexican

-Christmas eve is a Sauerbraten but parents won't be here so may change this

-Christmas morning open presents etc (my husband was raised with midnight opening after Santa rang a bell?)

[SuggaD]

Every year since DD was 4, we've gone to see the Nutcracker and lunch or dinner (we make it a date), ice-skating, make a gingerbread house, bake and decorate sugar cookies (and leave some out for Santa of course), go to a Christmas lights in the park event, watch lots of Christmas movies.

[pogiporkchop]

Making peppercookies from a recipe taught to me by my grandma. It's the only time of the year I'll make them because they're so labor intensive (but very much worth it ). This year I'll try teaching my kids but I think they're more interested in quality control