Holiday Traditions

iJenny

iJenny

New member
Talking about my christmas tree ornaments got me thinking about different holiday traditions. What are your families traditions around the holidays?
For example...
Every year growing up, my mom bought my sister and I a special ornament. Now I do the same for my boys and I make sure to pick an ornament that represents the past year. Like the year my son was obsessed with Spiderman, I got him a spiderman ornament.
Also, we get an ornament on every vacation we go on as a family. Its a nice way to chronicle our trips together.
And finally, we always bake a batch of cookies on x-mas eve to leave out for Santa as well as some reindeer snack mix (granola, raisins, nuts, etc) and sprinkle it on our lawn for Rudolph and his buddies. :) My boys get a real kick out of it.
So, share!!
________
Web shows
 
Last edited:
Jenny, we do the ornament thing EVERY year, ever since Benjamin was born. The kids get an ornament from us each year, I always write on it what year it was. I love that tradition, I will do it every Christmas for them.

On Christmas Night, I make a glazed ham and scalloped potatoes. We always save a plate for Santa, and I leave him some hot chocolate too. The kids get a real charge out of seeing the food all gone LOL. One year Benjamin wanted to leave him a peanut butter sandwich, so we did, and Santa ate it all, but left the crust behind. Benjamin was so excited that Santa didn't like the crust either LOL
 
jamie that is so cute about the PB&J....

we leave cookies too (last year I caught hayden, then 2, licking each and every one of them - ewww)...
 
LOL, thats funny about the crust. When I was a kid, my mom was a health nut and she made us leave out carrot sticks for Santa. I was so bummed cuz I knew deep down in my heart that Santa didn't like carrots! :)
________
WEB SHOWS
 
Last edited:
aww jamie too cute about the PBnJ hehe

We buy a year ornament every year..picked up our 2007 today @ Target (sometimes I order a nice one..found a nice silver one @ Target today)
and the kids get new jammies (picked those up @ Target too hehe)
 
Leslie - my son licked all the cookies last year too and took a bite out of one before I could get them away from him. I guess even at 1 he thought Santa needed to cut back.

Our newest tradition is that we always get a family picture taken in Nov/Dec and give it as gifts. It started the year my nephew was born in 2002 and now it includes my mom and dad, sister/BIL/2 nephews and then Jay/me/L.J.

It's gotten a little tougher as the kids have all gone through toddlerhood!
 
It just wouldn't seem like the Holidays if we didn't honor these traditions. We like to bake cookies together, watch 'Elf' video and go see Christmas lights! Also I love the day after Thanksgiving day shopping to kick it all into gear.
 
Hey girls! Laurie here. I usually just peek in and see what you all are chatting about but I am so bad at posting......I'm gonna try to be more active here because you all are just so darn fun and cute! :)

Anyway, we do the ornament thing, actually my Mom does and she always has them personalized - I even get one! We also sing Happy Birthday to Jesus (complete with a cake and candles and a round of "for he's a jolly good fellow") at my aunts on Christmas Eve. My husband started the tradition of Elf Day on Christmas Eve where one of Santa's Elves sneaks out and comes to our house and leaves one of their presents outside. The kids LOVE this....they go crazy trying to find his tracks in the snow, etc. And of course Christmas morning I've had the same menu for breakfast for the past 10 years : the egg casserole that my mom used to make when I was a kid, fruit salad and Monkey Bread - which is definitely a once a year thing b/c I could eat the whole pan of it. :)
 
We have two sets of traditions, because my SO is British and I'm Norwegian. When we are in England we usually go to his mums house on Christmas eve, and before the kids go to bed we put out whisky and cookies for Rudolf and Santa. When the kids are in bed, we go to the pub (his mum babysits), and then the rest of his family comes around on christmas day and we open presents and have turkey lunch.

When we are in Norway we go to my parents house, and we decorate the tree on the 23rd, and put porridge out for santa. We also put our christmas stockings up. Then in the morning we watch the disney christmas cartoons while we eat the sweets from the stockings, and we have rice porridge for lunch with an almond hidden it. The one that gets the almond in their porridge gets a prize (marzipan pig). Just before 5 the rest of the family comes around, and we listen to a boys-choir sing christmas in at 5pm. Then we have dinner ("pinnekjøtt" - smoked lamb ribs I think), and after dinner we have christmas cookies and open all the presents. We open them one by one and everyone has to see what the last person got before we take a new present - so we are usually not finished until about 2am. Santa (usually my brother) comes round as well with some extra presents.
 
My favorite tradition is watching the 24 hr A Christmas Story marathon. It usually starts at 7pm Christmas Eve. So, we watch it all the way through once as a family.

My ILs spend the night on Christmas Eve, so we all tuck the kiddo in after the movie. Then DH and I watch it again in bed. Then the next morning we open presents from Santa and watch again (do you see a trend here?) while Kendra plays with new toys.

My step-son comes over at noon, and we then do our big gift exchange. After spending the day playing with new toys and eating lots of goodies, we settle in to watch it one last time to catch all of our favorite parts before it's gone for the year.

Then we go to bed and get up the next morning and take down all of our Christmas decorations. :)
 
Great thread, Jenny! Reading this made me realize how many holiday traditions we have. :) We go to Disney World every other year at Christmas time. We all have so much fun with the Christmas decorations out and the Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party at the Magic Kingdom. During the party we always stop at the Christmas Store at Liberty Square and let every member of the family buy a new Disney ornament for the tree. We have quite the collection! Pretty much the entire tree is Disney themed.

We also make a gingerbread house every year. Last year it ended up being a train because DH bought the mold from Williams-Sonoma. It turned out pretty cute and the girls loved something a little different.

On Christmas Eve we attend the Childrens mass at 5:00 where the kids in the parish all participate in the Christmas Pageant. Last year my older DD was Mary. We leave cookies for Santa on Christmas Eve as well, and on Christmas morning we bake kuchens (german coffee cake) from a recipe that was my great-grandmother's. When she immigrated to New York from Germany she used to make them and ride around on her bike in the morning and sell them. I have a scanned copy of the recipe in her actual handwriting.
 
Oh, and I forgot to say that we don't do a traditional Christmas dinner either. We usually try to make something that Logan (our son who passed away 7 1/2 years ago) would have loved. Sometimes it's homemade pizza, sometimes spaghetti, sometimes hamballs. And we always have cinnamon rolls for breakfast and rice krispie treats to snack on throughout the day.
 
Now that we have kids we are starting to "branch out" from the traditions we did with our parents, but there is one that we are holding onto. In the morning my father in law reads the story of Jesus birth from the bible while we eat breakfast before we open gifts. This year all the family is coming over to our house in the morning because we have the little ones.

I am also making a birthday cake for Jesus for the kids to blow the candles out on and sing happy birthday to Him :).

LOL about he carrot sticks. My mom was a health nut too, but she let me leave peanut M&M's for Santa (so he got his protein) and we would leave carrots for his deer.
 
You know, I really wanna have a "traditional" recipe that I make on special days like Thanksgiving morning, x-mas morning, etc. Something like monkey bread or coffee cake or something sweet like that that is EASY (emphasis on easy) to make. Anyone wanna share their recipe?
________
Act4sex cam
 
Last edited:
what a fun thread!! and soo many super cute traditions!!

we have a few too...

nicky and i (and of course morgan when he gets bigger too lol!) make lotsa different cookies a few days b4 xmas.

i always have xmas dinner at my house, so i make the super yummy food that was always a tradition in my family. (turkey, visiousi (sp) soup, mashed carrotts and pototoes, creamy cucs, butter beans and bacon, homemade stuffing and gravy, potatoe salad, cheese cake and pumpkin chiffon pie) i so loved those meals when i was a kid so its great to keep it going.

we all get new jammies that we wear on xmas eve, and we sit around the tree while dh reads the night b4 xmas to the family (wearing his santa hat too!!) and then we each get to open 1 gift.

its so much fun! and im with you Jenny! I love that idea too.... anyone got any fun recipes to share! ;)
 
I always make lasagna on Christmas Eve..last year we had it on Christmas instead! I was so sick of turkey last year it was the last thing I wanted

Libby that's a great way to honor your son
 
Here is a super easy Coffee Cake Recipe..........I always have to make 18 of these things every Christmas! This year I am using Laura's recipe cards and am including the recipe along with each cake.....hoping that at least half the peole will say .."oh, I can do this myself next year" hehehe

DH Butter Yellow Cake Mix
2 instant Vanilla Pudding
1 cup water
1/2 cup oil
3/4 TBSP Cinnamon
1/2 Sugar
1/2 C chopped Pecans
1 tsp Vanilla
4 Eggs

Preheat Oven to 325 degrees

mix cake mix, pudding, oil, water, eggs, vanilla (for about 3 to 4 min)
it will be thick

pour 1/2 into 13x9 (lightly greased on the bottom)

mix pecans, sugar, cinnamon
sprinkle and swirl 1/2 of this on top cake batter, swirl with knife

pour rest of batter,
then the rest of the sugar/cinnamon/pecan mixture, swirl w/knife again

Bake for 60 to 65 min.
Take directly out and cover with foil.
Let it sit covered over night.
Pure Yummy the next morning!!

(I always use the throw away pans since I have so many to make, so u may have to adjust cooking times if using a glass pan.)
 
I love reading about everyone else's traditions! We always have Christmas Eve at my parent's house and my mom usually makes Chicken Tortilla Soup and we open presents with them. When we get home we let DS open 1 present - jammies - we then sit down and read the Story of Jesus and then pack him off to bed so we can play Santa. On Christmas Day we get up early, have coffee and muffins, turn on the Christmas music and sit by the fire while we wait for DS to wake up. Of course, as soon as he wakes up we have to open presents. Then we either have both families here for dinner or we go to DH's Aunt's house to spend the rest of the day with them. This year we are going to his Aunt's house.
 
It's so fun to read about everyone's traditions!

On the week leading up to Christmas we drive around and see how many decorated houses we can spot (there aren't many houses that decorate around here). Santa gets a cookie or two and a glass of milk, and sometimes he leaves a note to say Thank You! DH works most Christmas Days -unless it falls on a weekend, so the kiddies are allowed to look in their stockings but have to wait until he gets home before they can open presents. We usually have a swim and then join up with the rest of the family for a Barbeque and salads. No inside cooking here but the prawns on the barbie are just the best!! It's often an incredibly hot day, and we've filled up a paddling pool with bags of ice and water for the little ones to cool off in. I did try making a Gingerbread house one year, but the icing melted and the whole thing collapsed LOL My dream is to have a white christmas one year...
 
Love that PB&J Story! Too fun!

We always put up our lights and house decorations the day after Thanksgiving. Then the first weekend in December we go and cut down a tree and decorate it. The boys always get to open one present on Xmas Eve and those are always Christmas PJ's! The Xmas eve present was something I always got to do as a kid too!
 
It's funny how many of us do the xmas pj thing. We didn't do that on my side of the family growing up, but my inlaws do that. I remember the first Christmas I spent with them when DH and I were dating and I received my "official" first pair of xmas pjs.

You know...that might be a LO begging to be scrapped now that I think about it! LOL!
 
tmcquaid said:
It's funny how many of us do the xmas pj thing. We didn't do that on my side of the family growing up, but my inlaws do that. I remember the first Christmas I spent with them when DH and I were dating and I received my "official" first pair of xmas pjs.

You know...that might be a LO begging to be scrapped now that I think about it! LOL!
Click to expand...

Oh yeah! Great idea for a page. We do the PJ thing for Easter.
________
Washington Dispensaries
 
Last edited:
Libby Weifenbach said:
Oh, and I forgot to say that we don't do a traditional Christmas dinner either. We usually try to make something that Logan (our son who passed away 7 1/2 years ago) would have loved. Sometimes it's homemade pizza, sometimes spaghetti, sometimes hamballs. And we always have cinnamon rolls for breakfast and rice krispie treats to snack on throughout the day.
Click to expand...

That is such a lovely tradition Libby :)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Community platform by XenForo® © 2010-2026 XenForo Ltd.
Back
Top