holiday traditions

[kim]

everyone has holiday traditions in their family. the ones in my family are fairly lame so i've been scouting new things to start with tony.

while in disney last month i bought a 'christmas pickle' in the germany pavillion. the idea is to hide the pickle ornament on the tree xmas eve, and whoever finds it gets a special 'gift'. this won't really work properly until we have another child, but hey.


tell me about your holiday rituals! (so i can shamelessly steal them for my family :lol: )

[Nichole]

Um, I thought "hide the pickle" was something else... :lol:

I'm trolling for some traditions, too. I think I want to start doing the Christmas pjs one, where everyone gets new pjs on Christmas eve and wears them that night. Not exciting, but hey, who doesn't need pjs? :D

[TtownAnne]

We do the Christmas Pickle too! I had never heard of it until someone gave us the ornament for Christmas. :)

I like the idea of new PJs for Christmas, but I want to find Christmas-themed ones!

This year we did a gingerbread house that Caroline really enjoyed, so decorating one might become our new yearly thing. And we always drive around one night during the week of Christmas to look at Christmas lights, take along hot chocolate and cookies and everything.

~Anne

[benwood]

We are starting a new one this year! We are making all of our holiday cards as a family. It was pretty fun (but messy!) and I like the whole back-to-basics feeling.

My husband's family has too many traditions. Some of them are fun, though, so I'll list the best of the bunch for you. :)

Craft Brunch - all the women get together at an aunt's house to make crafty stuff, eat, and gab.

Making Tamales - Everybody gathers at the grandparent's house to roll tamales and then eat them. This is sort of fun but not well planned. We end up STARVING and not eating until 9pm or so. Perhaps this would be better executed in a different family.

Making Cookies - Women again.

[Karri]

We have a christmas pickle, too, and are just waiting to start the tradition till the kids are older. And we are starting the Christmas PJ thing. Last year after Christmas, I picked up christmas PJs on sale at Kohls. Only we got ours in our St. Nick stockings (on the 5th)...so i had time to wash them for Xmas Eve.

We talked about starting the lights tradition like Anne does, but that will have to wait a year, since we cant do it this year.

I also thought about letting Aidan take care of the Christmas present packaging this year. I saw a cute one in one of the magazines where the kids decorated the wrapped pkg with pom pons or cotton balls for snow. I think he'd enjoy that.

[Jeni]

We do the pjs, and the lights

I've never heard of a Christmas pickle. Is it just a pickle???

[Mamey]

With my side of the family, we all sing The Twelve Days of Christmas, with a couple people singing each part. It gets to be really funny.

With Dan's side, we have a scavenger hunt just about every holiday. His mom makes up clues, and we go hunting for baskets/stockings/buckets/etc. Gets to be really competitive but lots of fun

My sister in law and I make a Gingerbread house the week before Christmas.

Get together with my Gramma and one of my cousins to make Peanut Butter Kisses (our fav cookies). We also try to remember to get together and make Thanksgiving treats, but it usually doesn't happen! :)

Went and saw A Christmas Carol this weekend and the ghost from Christmas Present sprinkled glitter on people, saying it was Christmas Spirit, in concentrated form. I'm thinking about putting glitter in our Christmas cards, and a note about how we're sending Christmas cheer in concentrated form...

Amy

[Stacy]

This is fun reading all the traditions.
We haven't started any yet but I want too.
Perhaps we will go out tonight and buy some Christmas jammies.

[Nocona]

Neither of our families had any. So far the only one we have started is to get him an ornament every year that he'll take when he moves out.

I was thinking about doing the jammies, but I'm not sure about that. I would want to do Christmas jammies I would feel weird about him wearing them at Valentine's Day, but I'm weird, as you know.

We are definitely starting the driving around to see the lights this year :)

[LoriS]

Now that we have a second daughter ,i decided to start a new tradition this year. We got pizza for dinner the Saturday after Thanksgiving, and decorated the Christmas tree and had Hot Cocoa and Christmas cookies. I want to girls to have matching pjs for Christmas Eve night too.

I never heard of the pickle. Too bad I didn't know to look for it while I was at Epcot last weekend. Oh well, I work at Disney World and can go and get one any time.

[kim]

oh that's right! i remember you saying that in the DVC thread on ouh! i will have to come look you up when i'm at the boardwalk in june!

[Dawn]

We will be starting the pajama tradition. My mother did it by leaving the pajamas outside all wrapped in a box at the front door on Xmas eve. We would go outside and we were told Santa left them for us. Pajamas were worn that night. :)

Growing up, my parents would leave footprints (suppose to be Santa's footprints) in the Living Room carpeting heading away from the fireplace. They would do this by dipping the bottom of a boot in baby powder & pressing down....it looked like soot from the fireplace and showed Santa's trail of where he walked! When me and my 3 sisters saw that on Xmas morning...we were totally in awe & amazed!

When Lexie is a couple yrs. older we will start the tradition that we did as children....water for the reindeer and cookies for Santa! :)

[buzzjen]

We always left cookies out for Santa and carrots for the reindeer - my mom would actually cut the carrots off and throw the tops out in the snow to look like the reindeer left them :lol: I have a whole collection of ornaments that were gotten for me. My mom is starting collecting for Ben this year.

Nathan's family always lit the Advent wreath in the evening during Advent and sang Christmas carols and said a prayer. It's so nice to take some time out of the busy season and remember what it's all about. We tried to do this even before Ben but have been pretty good about remembering this year - Ben's not too impressed with sitting still in the light of the Christmas tree, though! :lol:

[Barb]

My MIL bought me a pickle ornament when I was pregnant. I also think that will be better once I have another child and they are both older. Other than that, we don't really have any traditions. I'd also like to start a tradition of making Christmas cookies with my kids someday.

[Emily]

Every year we spend Christmas Eve with my family and Christmas day with DH's. One Christmas eve we get there, have drinks (egg nog, etc) and have a huge dinner of prime rib and the fixin's. Then we clean up and sit around the tree and my Grandfather or stepfather hand out the presents one by one. It takes hours to open the gifts, and we love it!
When I lived at home we would get up and have stockings to open, and my mom makes quiche and mimosas and usually cinabons.
DH's family is chaos, which drives me batty but what can you do? :shrug: They make egg muffins in the morning and some food for dinner, and play cards and drink. Usually there are at least 4 kids running around screaming!

Other traditions are: my mom always got each of us a "twinkle", a shiny gold ornament with our name engraved on it. I now have 30! We would also get the avent calendar with the chocolates every year, and I still buy them for myself.

[LoriS]

I konw another one we are going to start this year. I live in Florida and have no fireplace. So, I have been worried about how to tell Cassidy Santa gets in. My friend told me about a Santa Key so I got one. It is a pewter skeleton key and has Santa on the top of it. You are supposed to leave it outside your door on Christmas Eve for Santa to use to get in.

[AmyP]

Well, we don't have kids yet, so nothing much for us to speak of. The only thing I remember was that we had a rule on Christmas morning: no waking up Mom and Dad before 7 am!!!! Also, we would all sleep upstairs on Christmas Eve. The older two of us had the upstairs rooms, but my younger brothers (when they were old enough) would usually sleep upstairs with us that night. It was fun to all wake up together on Christmas morning. We'd usually sit upstairs and talk and giggle until it was 7 on the dot and we'd wake up my parents!

[Tamara]

Lets see, On the Friday before Christmas we go Caroling, on the 23rd afternoon we make cookies and fudge, the 24th we open presents from mom and dad, then get hot choclate and drive and look at lights.
Christmas morning opn presents from Santa and the other kids, make a big breakfast together (Scrambled eggs, sausage, biscuts and gravy,potatos)

Each member of the family gets a special ordiment, we wear matching PJs to bed on Christmas Eve.

Thats All I can think of right now.

[olcott]

We haven't started any traditions yet...

I really like the christmas pjs idea, although I know DH will scoff at it :lol: I may have to do some looking around for some for all three of us :)

[Lette]

I like the idea of new PJs for Christmas, but I want to find Christmas-themed ones!
~Anne
Anne... Old Navy had some really cute ones. I was surprised hubby picked them out. :lol

[Lette]

We do the pjs, and the lights

I've never heard of a Christmas pickle. Is it just a pickle???I didn't know either, so I did a search and here's what I found...
The Christmas Pickle


http://www.byastro.com/tutorials/pickle/DBA_pickleheader.jpg

In Old World Germany, the last decoration placed on the Christmas Tree was
always a pickle. It was carefully hidden deep in the boughs of the tree.
Legend has it that the observant child who found it on Christmas Day
was blessed with a year of good fortune and a special gift. This tutorial was written December 8, 2002.


OH, and they have tons of them for sale on Ebay!

[sheila]

I like the PJs tradition... we might have to start that. But I am sort of like Nocona... maybe something festive or wintery looking that isn't necessarily Christmassy so I wouldn't feel weird having the girls wear them in Feb.

Cookies & Carrots for Santa & the reindeer are also a must. I just recently heard about the magic footprints, and I think we might try that as well.

And probably cocoa and 'Twas the night Before Christmas, too

[Honeydew14]

Every year we have Christmas brunch at my parents' house. That has been going on for the last 17 years or so.

[Tracy]

We do the pj's on Christmas Eve :) and have a big gathering at our house..I order a big sampler from swiss colony and we have shrimp and whatever goodies people bring..and we pass out gifts..

Xmas day we get up open gifts and have breakfast then we go to my parents..

Other traditions we have are every year we go pick a name off the wish tree and buy gifts and we also host a christmas family every year..we get them gifts and the makings for a Christmas dinner, (this is the kid's favorite thing to do every year) Then there is the ornament making, and we have a tree every year with all home made ornaments, and then of course the cookie making :)

[TtownAnne]

Nocona and Sheila, I just saw PJ's with snowflakes on them at Children's Place yesterday! Not ridiculously expensive IMO, either. That way it's not full-out Christmas-themed, but still holiday enough. :) I might go that route! I've also seen that Hanna Anderson has some.

~Anne

I like the PJs tradition... we might have to start that. But I am sort of like Nocona... maybe something festive or wintery looking that isn't necessarily Christmassy so I wouldn't feel weird having the girls wear them in Feb.

[Kelli]

I'm just looking for ideas! This is Chloe's first Christmas so this year won't mean much to her. I really do want to start some traditions for the future. I like the Christmas pickle and buying gifts for a needy family.

In my family we always put out milk and cookies for Santa. We also had toast and cocoa on Christmas Eve. I never knew why toast and cocoa, but it was a tradition from my dad's family. When I finally asked my grandma about it she said, "With 6 kids, toast and cocoa were the easiest things to make." :lol: It seems weird but toast is actually really good with cocoa! :)