intro and unique Christmas traditions discussion

emmojess

Hey ladies! I'm a sahm to a precious 2 month old boy, my first. I live in new england and lean on the 'alternative' side of mommyhood/parenting- out of hospital birth, primal diet, co-sleeping, homeschooling, etc. I wanted to say a quick hello and see if anyone had some unique Christmas traditions. I'd like to make the holidays more than the standard Christmas morning with a ton of gifts. Obviously I've got some time to sort this out. I like this gifting tradition- something you want, something you need, something to wear, something to read. And I was thinking of doing Christmas around the world to focus on a new country each year. A lot of countries celebrate all month long, which i love.
Do you do something fun and different to help your kids enjoy the holidays ands not just the gifts? Looking forward to being active on this board!

Snuggles&Snuggles

We shop for a food drive together, pick up toy donations together, and also get something through world vision. This year we bought a cow for a family in another country. My H and I disagree a lot on how many toys the kids need and have a hard time controlling the toy population. Thankfully they needed a new bunk bed this year, so that took up a large part of the budget and we won't be buying them a ton of toys this year. yay!

DaisyZH

We buy Christmas presents for a child in need through a charity that helps recent immigrants. We also bake a birthday cake for Jesus on Christmas Eve.

vettymama

We do the Angel tree, donate to the National Diaper Bank, and bring pet food, toys, etc to our local humane society.

Keeptruckin

Hi! We struggle with the consumerism of Christmas. I love this time of year but we do try to focus on family time. We adopted a senior from a rehabilitation center my husband's grandma is in. Lots of nursing homes have seniors who have no family around. You can go visit, bring goodies and even take them out if that's an option health wise. I like it because it's not a one shot thing, you meet a person and hopefully develope a real relationship. We are meeting a lady who lost her husband a few months ago. She has no family, we meet her on Wednesday. I'm looking forward to it!

Disneygeek77

Well, this tradition does have to do with gifts but it is a German tradition. Anyway, we have a pickle ornament and hide it somewhere in the tree.  Whoever finds the ornament gets a special treat.  

We also have the kids pick out one or two gifts and donate them to Toys for Tots.  

PrimRoseMama

We pick an Angel from our Angel Tree. Each kid selects a gift from the requests on the Angel-gram. Often we get everything on the list. They then help me wrap the gifts & drop them off.

They each get three big gifts, but the rest of the day is games, videos & playing outside.

We talk a lot about the Spirit of the season & what Jesus would do to help other people. We try to practice random acts of kindness at least once a day during December. We try the other months, but don't always get to do it everyday.

mrsgeiser

This pickle ornament tradition sounds like a good time!

This year we are forgoing gifts for the '12 days of Christmas' and doing something fun and festive each day, but typically we always bake and decorate sugar cookies, go to a holiday theater show, pick a boy and a girl 'ornament' off the gift tree at our local grocery, and for adults on Christmas we make Glog, a special Swedish drink made of Aquavit and wine and yummy spices etc that we cook and then light on fire and drink! I will be missing the Glog this year...

Disneygeek77

DH has a Danish heritage, so on Christmas morning we make these things called ebelskivers or danish pancakes.  He had them growing up and I finally learned how to make them myself.  DH, myself and DS like them, but DD is just starting to warm up to them.