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GTKY: Traditions

kgg2241kgg2241 member
in March 2022 Moms
What family tradition are you most excited about sharing with your little one(s)?  Can be an existing tradition or one you're planning to start.
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Re: GTKY: Traditions

  • kgg2241kgg2241 member
    I'm excited to make candy for Christmas and deliver it to family and neighbors. We don't have many other Christmas traditions, so I'm looking forward to seeing what you all do. For Thanksgiving I want to do some type of volunteer work or community service with my kids. 

    We do game night with my husband's family on Halloween and I love that. 
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  • jennifer_m21jennifer_m21 member
    Thanksgiving - we do the Thankful Turkey craft (https://www.toolstogrowot.com/blog/2016/11/09/thanksgiving-handwriting-craft) There are other templates like this one, but this gives you an idea!

    Christmas -
    • We all decorate the tree together with hot chocolate and blast Christmas music! We're actually starting this weekend! He also has a small 3ft tree for his room that he will decorate.
    • For gifts, we follow the "Something you need, something to wear, something you want, and something to read" so that DS isn't too overwhelmed with gifts. I try to work with my parents and in-laws on gift ideas so there aren't any duplicate or anything outrageous that we don't have the space for.
    • We are going to do Elf on the Shelf! DS is almost 4, so we're excited to do this tradition! I bought a 12-day kit from Etsy so I don't have to think of what to do each day!
    • We are also planning on finding books/toys that we can donate
    • Also saw that USPS is doing Operation Santa where you can "adopt" a letter(s) on your own or as a team (coworkers/family) and send the child their specific wish!

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  • goldfishcrakergoldfishcraker member
    I LOVE traditions!

    Outdoor Christmas decorations get turned on Dec 1.

    We decorate our tree early December, when we have a day off.
    We each collect a Christmas ornament every year, and it's so cool pulling them all out and going through those memories. DS has 2 so far. We will see if he can choose his own this year.

    Usually mid/late November, we would get together with my grandparents to make our special family Christmas cookies. Now they have passed, but my sister, parents and I have continued the tradition. Last year we zoomed with the parents while baking(and our household had to modify the recipe for no eggs).

    Close to Christmas, we pile in the car and drive around listening to Christmas music and looking at lights.

    I've started the (corny) tradition of matching family PJs 😅

    We have 24 Christmas books, and DS picks one each night in December to unwrap (from reusable cloth bag) and read. A book advent calendar.

    When I met DH we started doing advent calendars, and taking silly photos with the chocolates and exchanging them with my sister. We are making DS a non-food advent calendar so he can participate this year too.

    We have a family Christmas day each with DH's fam and mine. Mine has always been PJs all day, gifts and games and yummy food. I have managed to instigate the PJ rule with DHs family as well muahaha.

    Actual Christmas day traditions were changed last year, and will be this year because of COVID. 
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  • jennifer_m21jennifer_m21 member
    @goldfishcraker What fun traditions! We also try to get at least one new ornament every year and do matching PJs! 
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  • PanaceiaPanaceia member
    edited November 2021
    X-mas:
    We put the tree up right after Halloween. Decorate while listening to Xmas music. St. Nicholas comes early December and leaves food the kids don't normally get (fruits and snacks from different parts of the world) and usually one gift and one craft. He leaves the bag of food/gifts beside their beds for them to find wgen they wake up. Start of December we do advent calendars (not edible...usually things to make like Lego). We decorate gingerbread houses (each person gets their own to decorate and we buy all kinds of crazy candy and sprinkles to use). We decorate the outside of the house in December too. Kids get new Xmas pj's every year. We used to have DD1 pick out a new ornament every year, but then COVID hit so that's on hold...but we will hopefully continue this with all the kids next year...We started elf on the shelf last year so we'll continue this. We also did texts with Santa last year so I might do this again this year. Xmas eve we always used to host a huge family party with over 100 people every year...but haven't done it in a while. I'd like to bring it back in a few years but just on a smaller scale. This is with my side of the family. Then Xmas day we spend with MIL. Nothing for new years, traditional dinner for Ukrainian Xmas (early jan) and we used to celebrate Ukrainian New Year's but haven't for a while. I'd like to bring that back at some point too...SO would help organize and host a big ball hockey tournament for this. Oh, and we put guessing gifts under the tree leading up to Xmas. The girls can ask yes/no questions until they guess what it is and after they guess correctly they can unwrap it.

    The only other holiday we really have a tradition fir is Easter. The bunny hides clues that are written in riddles and the girls have tobsolve each clue and at the end is a gift. We do the chocolate eggs too.

    Everything else is just the normal stuff...decorate the house, etc.
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  • nursejenn5nursejenn5 member
    following for ideas following for ideas because we didn’t have any yet! DS was 5 months last year, we had just moved into our new house and I had some severe PPD going on so we did a whole lot of nothing. 
    So I’m hoping this year to start something!! 
    We do always have multiple family dinners or Christmas breakfast with family. 
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  • morgantumorgantu member
    @Panaceia do you do pysanky for easter too? we did that one year with my ukrainian friend and it was so fun! 
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  • achanceintimeachanceintime member
    For Thanksgiving - we also started a Thankfulness Turkey for the 1st time this year, and my 3yo and I are loving it! 
    Christmas - growing up we always did decorating the weekend after Thanksgiving, but the last couple of years we’ve moved that up to mid November. We play White Christmas and drink cocoa while trimming the tree; my toddler has a felt tree with felt decoration pieces that we put on the wall that he can decorate over and over. We try to get a new family ornament every year, usually relating to something we’ve done/somewhere we’ve gone, and my son has had a new ornament for himself every year. I usually spend a weekend before Christmas baking cookies by the batch to gift, and my son “helped” last year, so I’m really looking forward to that again this year, and years to come.
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  • PanaceiaPanaceia member
    @morgantu I always did and we plan on doing it with the girls, but we have to wait until after COVID to get the proper supplies. I didn't start it before because DD1 was still a little young to be using the open flame, candle wax and dyes etc but I think next year we'll try to get it going...or I might just have DD1 do it with MIL this year so DD2 doesn't freak out!
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  • goldfishcrakergoldfishcraker member
    @Panaceia I love the different foods from other countries!!
    I'll have to remember that when (hopefully) DS is cleared of some of his allergies!!!
    And ditto with the gingerbread houses!🥰

    We also have traditionally done Ukrainian Christmas! Unfortunately Baba is no longer mentally capable. But I hosted at our house in 2019. Hopefully we can continue that once it's COVID safe!
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  • goldfishcrakergoldfishcraker member
    This thread is giving me all the warm and fuzzies!!!
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  • PanaceiaPanaceia member
    @goldfishcraker Last year one of the fruits that SO included was a strange fruit that none of us had ever heard of or tried before...and it ended up smelling and tasting like poo...so it's a lot of fun but can definitely be hit or miss 🤣
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  • goldfishcrakergoldfishcraker member
    @Panaceia hahah oh man..smelling AND tasting like poo... that's unfortunate.
    I have heard of one fruit that apparently smells horrendous...I can't recall what it's called..Durian?
    Haven't tried it. Don't really care to though haha
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  • jenis_fan_for_lifejenis_fan_for_life member
    We make traditional Swedish cookies for Christmas and I can’t wait to do that with DD1 this year and both little ones next year!
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  • friends-fanfriends-fan member
    I love hearing about everyone's Holiday traditions! DD is just 2 so we are going to start a few things this year.  Thanksgiving we travel to my in laws and just take a couple dishes to contribute.  For Christmas,  we buy a new ornament every year, we let DD choose one herself this year on our family vacation.   When I was little, my mom and I would always bake sugar cookies and decorate together and we would drive around as a family looking at Christmas lights.  Something so simple and yet so fun!  I'd like to continue both of those traditions for our family as well. I also like the idea of the 24 books leading up to Christmas! Thats a fantastic Idea! We will turn on Christmas music and put up our decorations this weekend after Thanksgiving 😊  And let's hope i don't have to entirely barricade the tree from DD 😂  I don't think she will like to leave all those pretty ornaments alone
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  • Sarah0335Sarah0335 member
    @Panaceia we do similar for Easter. We put hints/rhymes in Easter eggs that one leads to the next. At the end he finds his Easter basket. 

    We have some standard family Christmas traditions. We also started adopting a family or some kids every year and buying their Christmas lists. We are trying to include DH’s son in it more this year to have him understand how fortunate we are and that it is good to help others when you can. This year we have four kids in DCF instead of a family. My heart goes out to any child going through that type of situation. 
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  • PanaceiaPanaceia member
    @Sarah0335 We do something similar through work only the Xmas hampers we put together are for families of needy students in our school. I love doing it every year!
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