Holiday Traditions

stoneycakes

Tell me about your favorite traditions.  Do you have a family recipe you make every year?  Do you watch the same movies or listen to the same songs every year?What traditions will you be passing down to your LO?

stoneycakes

We watch It's a Wonderful Life every year.  We both love it and it doesn't feel like Christmas until we've watched it.  When I was a kid, my parents used to let me pick one present to open on Christmas Eve.  I could pick any present I wanted and it was almost better than Christmas morning because of the anticipation!  I want to do that for DS.

TJ1979

My family doesn't put names on the gift tags. We put hints. And jokes. Then we play a game of guessing who the gift is to and from based on the hint or joke on the tag. Opening gifts takes half the day this way, and makes it more about spending time together than what we actually receive.

stoneycakes

TJ1979 said:

My family doesn't put names on the gift tags. We put hints. And jokes. Then we play a game of guessing who the gift is to and from based on the hint or joke on the tag. Opening gifts takes half the day this way, and makes it more about spending time together than what we actually receive.

I love that!

sarenu1

We try to watch White Christmas each year.

And my dad dresses up as Santa for the little kids. He always grows his beard out each year just for that day. It's so much better than mall Santa's.

I think I might try to make cinnamon rolls for breakfast.

We are also going to make and decorate sugar cookies with my daughter next week. As well as try to make it to our holiday light show. I think she'll really like it this year.

LaLiLu

I make sugar and gingerbread with the kids every year, which we take to my mom's on Christmas Eve for everyone. On Christmas Day I'll make them snowman pancakes and we'll watch Elf

Into+the+Kitty

We open Christmas PJs on Christmas Eve. And we drive around as a family of three drinking hot cocoa and checking out all the Christmas lights. I'm really excited this year because A has been totally into the Christmas lights everywhere. Last year she passed out after less than ten minutes if being out driving.

A really loves Doctor Suess books, so I'm excited to get her the Grinch Who Stole Christmas book and we can watch the movie, too. I'm not sure whether it not that will become a tradition for us.

And we're baking Christmas cookies this weekend!

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Mandmeesh

Hm, this makes me think! I don't know of any "traditions". God! My family is so dysfunctional! Lol. We love the Grinch movie and opening one gift on Christmas Eve...but M doesn't care about opening anything this year and MH and I don't have gifts for each other. Wow, awesome family!

PipSqueak0313

Normally, we do Midnight Mass and then open presents afterwards and then we'd go to bed whenever we're ready.

This year we've all agreed to attend Mass on Christmas Eve afternoon/evening.  Not sure when we'll open presents.  Instead of doing the traditional ham/turkey -- we decided we're having T-bone steaks this year.

This is the first Christmas without my oldest (she's 1/2 way across the country with her fiance's family) and the first Christmas with my youngest.

I guess you could say for ds2's first Christmas we're having a non-traditional Christmas.

unaveragejane

Last year my two SIL's and all our kids got together and made Christmas cookies. We wanted to make it a tradition, but morning sickness has kicked my butt this year. Hopefully we'll revive it next year!

I feel really bad, but I have really dropped the ball on everything this year. We don't have stockings or new pj's, and I haven't even thought about making us a nice meal for Christmas. We are going to my SIL's tomorrow, so I am taking green bean casserole, DH's cheesy garlic mashed potatoes, and brownies. I hope we have lots of leftovers b/c I did not meal plan for this week at all!

CLLDLL

My family also always opened one gift on Christmas Eve, and we've continued that with the boys.

My Aunt gave my sisters and I an ornament every year. When we moved out we got to take our 18-23 ornaments with for our first tree! I've been doing the same for D and G except that they get to pick the ornaments. It's really fun to pull them out every year and reminis about the year D was into Hot Wheels or Grover!

DHs family always gets together in early Dec. to make and decorate sugar cookies that we freeze and use throughout the month.

We also try to spend one night near Christmas driving around looking at lights.