GTKY: Traditions

swanbrooner · December 2018

What family holiday traditions have you or
do you plan on continuing with your own family? Are there any new ones you plan to
start?

lindseyb918 · December 2018

Since DH and I got married and started having babies, we haven't established any transitions for just our immediate family. Looking for cute ideas!

meggyme · December 2018

Nothing out of the ordinary, we always decorate the tree together and get a Christmas Eve present and have a big Christmas dinner. The last couple years for Christmas Eve we make latkes and mushroom soup.

lelkcot · December 2018

Since having DS we’ve made a point of waking up at home Christmas morning for Santa and family presents and breakfast. Homemade cinnamon rolls have become our Christmas morning breakfast tradition. And lots of Christmas music!

laur84ns · December 2018

Since DD is only 2.5, we haven’t really established our Christmas traditions as a nuclear family yet. Our christmases still revolve around our own (mine and DH’s) families. We are in the awkward phase of growing up and having kids where it’s almost time to “give up” on / adjust our own personal family traditions in place of traditions for our little family alone. Since we live just a few mins from DH’s fam, and across the country from mine, we’ve spent the last few christmases with my family (which means a 12 hour travel day each way and 10-14 days away from home with a house full of my whole family - parents, siblings, bil, nephews). It’s fun but tiring and I hate that the only time I get with my family has to be so forced, ie we are all jammed into a house with not enough rooms and too many kids running around for days on end, and tempers inevitably flare / patience wears thin. It’d be nice to get to see my family like we see DH’s - pop in for dinner / hang out time then back home to our own beds. Anyway, this turned into a rant without me meaning it to! All that to say, we don’t really have our own traditions yet but after yet another (fun but) tiring Christmas holiday with my family I’m thinking that after baby #2 arrives we won’t be doing all this traveling over the holidays anymore. Hopefully we can carve out our own space and some new traditions while staying home (without DH’s family just totally taking over/involving themselves 24/7 like they tend to). If anyone has suggestions for how to let parents and single siblings with no spouses and nowhere to be on Christmas, know gently that we want a bit of nuclear family time or new traditions, without major hurt feelings, please let me know!

meggyme · December 2018

@laur84ns the first 2 Christmases with DD1 we stayed home and had family come to us. The first time we had just moved and didn’t want to fly back across the country. I can commiserate because I have 3 sisters who have jobs, but not really “careers” so affording the $500-700 to fly across country is too much to ask them. We make the trip once or twice a year.

I’d suggest you tell them very early that you won’t be traveling for the holidays and let them figure for themselves if they want to visit you or not.

zionsmama85 · December 2018

My family does the family exchange Christmas gifts at midnight on Christmas Eve. In a way it has made me love Christmas Eve more than Christmas itself because we all get to be laid back and relax and have fun with each other. Its always good seeing the kids running around getting more and more excited the closer it comes to midnight and i remember that myself, since it has been going on since before i was born. it always gets a little hectic, and theres wrapping paper flying everywhere LOL, but it's nice to share and see what everyone has and just be able to spend time together. we normally all leave by 130-2 pm to get our kids home and in bed and then i put my Santa gifts out for my son once he falls asleep (and he passed OUT this year as soon as we got home LOL)...then we sleep until someone wakes up and the kid goes to check out his gifts. My DS is not me, bc when i was little i was up by 6-7 to check out my goodies, but i normally have to wake him up or he would sleep until noon. we have family dinner around 3 pm at someones house, it changes every year. and then i normally go to my dads house around 7 to see him and my step mom and step family and spend the rest of the night with him.
the new tradition is going to be interesting bc as you see i have a busy day, but now having a baby, i am going to have to find time to fit in to go to SO's family house too because they have dinner as well. so looking forward to that madhouse next year LOL .

ashley14598 · December 2018

Leading up to Christmas DH and I always take DS to our hometown Christmas light display and he meets Santa in the cabin there. We invite our parents and siblings who come if they can.

DH and I both grew up in families where Christmas is celebrated very similar (opening gifts one at a time in the morning). The biggest difference is DHs family has gone to see everyone (both sets of grandparents, extended family, etc.) on Christmas Day where my family did all visiting on Christmas Eve and other days around Christmas. My mom is a 3rd shift RN and has always worked holidays so my family is used to celebrating holidays on days that aren’t necessarily the actual day where DH family isn’t.

Like @laur84ns said we are at a turning point in our family where next year will be our first year doing Christmas as a family of 4 on Christmas morning and not doing it on Christmas Eve (and spending all day Christmas with DH family). I think they are somewhat expecting it but I know it’ll be hard on his parents and sisters (both unmarried without kids). I want our family to spend the day together at home relaxing and enjoying each other’s company and have our family stop by but I know DHs family will have a very hard time with this idea. As I said they are dead set on doing Christmas together only on Christmas Day but I think it’s important for our family to have those memories with our boys too. We are looking to buy our first home next year and We think it’s the perfect year to start our own new traditions (we will also be moving further away from both families about 45-60 mins as opposed to 10-20 mins).

mihaelams1 · December 2018

It's a very interesting topic in families of mixed cultures, like ours. To start, since I'm from eastern europe and we were under the soviet regime for quite a while, they were trying to exclude religion from people's lives and so we didn't even celebrate Christmas like in the western world. Yes, we had carolers and specially braided bread on the 24th, especially in the villages, but the presents were brought by Santa for New Year, not for Christmas! The same for the tree, it was lit on New Year's Eve, and there was no shame if you didn't have it up until then! Which is even more paradoxical because Santa's name is translated as "Old Man Christmas" and the Christmas tree was also called this way. I have no idea how I could grow up and not get very-very confused in the process.
And one more thing: we had 2 Christmases and 2 New Years

One by the regular calendar, and one by the old orthodox calendar. So the second Christmas was on the 7th of January, and most people in the villages actually preferred to celebrate it together with the "new" New Year (yes, very confusing). And the "old" New Year was on the 14th of January. For this reason, the school vacation was 3 weeks long and often lasted until after the "old" New Year. We also kept the tree up until then! Fun times

Now, DH's german, so they had Advent calendars, and St. Nicholas putting candy in the shoes on the 6th of December, and they opened the presents as a family on the 24th during dinner, without any Santa involved. So now we are trying to come up with something that works for our family, and I had to convince DH to leave the presents until morning. Which I think was a great idea, because DS totally bought into the Santa story and was so excited when he found them under the tree!

mayoduck · December 2018

My family Christmases were always pretty low key (very small family). We open all gifts Christmas morning (we have a family birthday on the 24th so we make a clear separation between birthday celebrations on the 24th and Christmas celebrations on the 25th.) After presents, we usually go to the theater to see a movie and have a special home cooked dinner in the evening.

My favorite family tradition actually comes from DH's Greek family. His parents make New Year's bread for each family household, which contains a coin baked inside each. After midnight, we cut the bread into slices for the church, the house, and each member of the household. Whomever has the coin in their slice of bread is said to have good luck for the year. I'm so excited to cut a slice for LO this New Year!

GTKY: Traditions

Re: GTKY: Traditions

Choose Another Board

Search Boards