Holiday season

DungeonTrollMel

are there any specific holiday traditions that you/ your family have that you can’t wait to share with your new LO? Any new things you plan on turning into a tradition? 

curiousfool1

Music music music! My husband and I are singers, and cannot wait to share all the music of Christmas with our daughter. Since my food allergies developed, we have cut ties with our families’ food traditions. We look forward to starting new ones. We get the tree and decorate the day after Thanksgiving. 

cwalker042

My whole life we always decorated for Christmas the day after Thanksgiving. I think a lot of people do this, but it’s been a tradition with my mom which I continued with. My mom went all out for Christmas as do I. We don’t take down our decorations until the day after New Years. A tradition I started 2 years ago is our elf on the shelf leaves a present for each family member on Christmas Eve while we are out at my families house in the evening. When we return home, the elf on the shelf is sitting near the presents and leaves a letter of appreciation for behaving and not having to report any negative behavior to Santa and leaves them a present for their good behavior. It’s always the same goft though. A pair of pajamas for all to wear to bed that night, a coffee mug to drink hot chocolate out of while opening presents, and an ornament specific for each child to put on the tree. They will then take their ornaments with them when they move out of the house to put in their own tree. Unfortunately, this year we will be traveling back home to NY for Christmas so I’m not sure how that will all work.  

littlemissc17

@cwalker042 what a nice tradition! I especially love the elf leaving a Christmas Eve gift. We just started our elf this year and I think I may use that idea! 

DungeonTrollMel

I have done matching Christmas jammiesnfor DH and I the last few years we open on Christmas Eve along with a new Christmas movie we always watch before bed. We spend a lot of time Christmas Day Skyping with our families since we don’t live near any of them. I’ve alresdy got all 3 of us pajamas for this year and we can’t wait to Skype with friends and family so we will be keeping those going. We did go see Santa this past weekend. As far as new stuff, we are discussing creating something specific this year as our first family year to begin as a tradition 

dragonfly87-2

This will be the first Christmas we are at our own house in the past 10 years. Typically, we travel to my family in another state. We don't really have any traditions though...other than everyone going over to my parents house and having a big meal and do a gift exchange. We won't be doing that this year. 

Going forward, we will probably travel out to them for the holidays again. We just didn't want to travel with a newborn this year. At some point, when DD is older, I would like to start cutting down our own tree and decorating it as a family. Also, when I was younger, my family would bake and decorate cookies for Santa and put out a coca cola for him (because apparently our santa--aka my dad--liked coke better than milk lol). I am looking forward to doing that with our DD.

NYTino24

DH and took our first pic ever in front of the Rockefeller tree in NYC and I hope to get there this year too since we have for the past 5
Christmases. I buy DH an ornament and got DS one this year, too. I also got him pjs. We will do this when he's older:

MaximumEffort

Last year was our first Christmas as a family of 3 and it was tough, DH was upset that I was so set on doing Christmas a certain way. But he married into an established family of me and my daughter and her being 5, you don't just switch how Santa does things.  
  DD was all about decorating and getting a tree, we did a real one last year but decided on artificial this year. Then DD pops the question "when is my elf coming? You know to see if I'm warm and fuzzy or prickly...my friends said theirs showed up"...great. lol, I bought myself a few days and told her the elf doesn't come until December.  Some how we managed to take DD shopping with us when we boight the tree without her knowing, the elf delivered it. DH and I have been having fun with it.

We hang stockings my mom cross stitched which get filled by Want a, DD will get her big gift from Santa. Everyone gets a new ornament each year. This year we didn't get DD as much, it's need, read, want, wear.  We open gifts and later go to my parents to open more gifts and eat.  I have yet to buy DH anything, I get him so much throughout the year  that I'm stuck and we are a bit tight fine dually right now. 

cwalker042

@NYTino24 I like the idea of a picture in front of the tree at Rockefeller! We now only live 2 hours from there so it’s easy enough to do! I think I’m going to steal this idea to start a new tradition for DD! I think the tree is up well beyond the New Year since we won’t be able to travel there until after the New Year.