Our home seems to play a big part in our lives during the holiday season. We're decking the halls, tracking down Christmas trees, baking cookies, and spending warm nights by the fire (if you're so lucky). There's something comforting about having a few traditions to look forward to each year. I'll tell you mine if you tell me yours!
Growing up my home was laced with tradition, many of which were handed down from my parents' upbringing. Now, my husband and I are in the process of creating our own. This will be the first year we've spent in the same place twice. We didn't really have many concrete traditions prior (aside from food and baked good making) because our environment wasn't really the same.
This year we've been enjoying ending our evenings with a hot cup of tea, snuggled in bed with the dogs piled on top. Christmas carols have been blasting as we've taken on chores and we're looking to figure out a tree or stockings. Last year we made our own trees (which were later dismantled to be used in other wood working projects), so this year we're looking for something new.
It's this weird state we seem to be in where we can have any tradition we want! We can decorate as much or as little as we feel inclined to do and we can make our own rules. No matter where we've lived, we always spend time creating gifts for each other while taking turns choosing the playlist of the moment. What are your holiday traditions? Have any I should be picking up on? Let me know in the comments below.
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I'm still single, so I visit my parents for Christmas. We have a very strict tradition - coffee and stockings, Swedish pancakes with lingonberries, then presents. I also try to go the midnight service at my grandparents' church.
My favourite. My family gathers on Christmas eve, we watch "It's a Wonderful Life" (I fall in love a little more every year with George Bailey) and we eat dinner while listening to the late Alan Maitland read "The Shepherd" on CBC radio. It's magic.
My family always watches Christmas Vacation at least once during the holidays. We used to go to my grandma's house every Christmas Eve, but now that she's gone we need a new tradition.
We have still been trying to figure out the whole Christmas traditions thing. We are pretty laid back so traditions are hard to keep for us, we do have an advent calender that's about it and reading a different Christmas book every night.
My favorite Christmas tradition started when my kids were little. Every year, we go to a local Christmas store and everyone picks out a new ornament ($20 limit). We make a day of it, with hot cocoa and looking at lights, shopping, the whole shebang. They are teens now but they still LOVE the ornament shopping trip, selecting just the right one, and hanging all their special ornaments on the tree. And when they're ready to go out on their own, they'll have a box of ornaments to take with them to decorate their own tree.
As many nights as possible during the holidays, we have a fire in the fireplace, and watch a Christmas movie w/ popcorn. I also *love* Christmas music (a little more than the rest of my family...) and when my kids were little Christmas books were a VERY big deal! I have very fond memories of those stories :)
we always decorate the tree on Dec. 6 (st. Nicholas Day). The night before, everyone leaves out their shoes to find them filled with candy and a gift the next morning.
Christmas Eve includes a church service and a trip to drive around looking at lights.
"It's a Wonderful Life," at least one version of "A Christmas Carol" and "christmas Vacation" are must-sees during the season.
Then, Jan 6 the tree comes down without fail. It's Epiphany, so the night before, the kids lay out their shoes again for the wise Men to put in a small gift and some candy. It's the last hurrah for the season and takes the sting out of un-decorating the tree.
My most beloved tradition is that every Christmas morning when we were kids my parents would play Rita Ford's "A Music Box Christmas" when we came down the stairs and opened our presents...I bought my own CD of it so I can keep the tradition going in my own house. The music is SO magical, you should look into it!
my girls are growing up and things are changing...parents aging too...looking to change things up a bit:)
Oh I meant to add that we always watch National Lampoon...and Elf and A christmas story...lol...and make peppermint patties...find and decorate an alternative "tree" which is a big branch that needs cutting...the kids make us coffee in the morning before getting us up..
The one tradition that has stuck with me, from childhood onward, is making roll-out and cut-out honey cookies. I've made them every year since grammar school. And just made this year's batch over the weekend.
Having a kid anchored our routine. Before her, cooking a fancy dinner on the 24th and singing songs in both our languages was our thing, and we always had a tree of some kind. Now we still keep with that, and bake cookie-cutter cookies and watch a local boat parade and drive around hunting for light-covered houses. Always. Kids make Christmas permanently nice!
It seems that since my parents separated all our good traditions have gone and we're just left with the festive b*tching about having to cook every year by my mother and aunt, my grandmother addressing me with 'Hopper may be the only grandchild that didnt finish university but at least she can ______'. And my cousins turning up, eating, talking about how brilliant they are and leaving to meet friends at the pub as quickly as possible.
I really like my family a little less at Christmas time.
Fudge for breakfast on Christmas Morning! That is the inviolable rule.
I'm with you hopper - we have a family meal with all my cousins and each person has to stand up and say what they did that year. Well, I am married, have two kids. We plug away at our bills. How exciting compared to those finishing university, traveling the world, and so on. I hate feeling like my whole year gets summed up in one minute and then it feels like it was wasted.
I have two young boys and I'm torn as to how to celebrate. We HAVE to travel every year at xmas so we're not even home for it. I don't know WHAT to do about traditions for us when we won't be home for it - and when my husband and I are halloween people instead of xmas people, it makes life harder!
I feel bad sometimes because I don't like xmas. I hate shopping, don't like the singing, can't/don't cook/bake, and we spend all our time at (or going to) someone's place due to not living near any of our family. I feel bad that I'm somehow 'robbing' my kids of xmas but at the same time, I just can't fake it for a whole month every year.
What do other non-traditional people do for their kids during this time and how do you explain that other people are REALLY into it but you're not? My 3 year old doesn't get why we don't have a giant tree - and next year I"m sure I'll have to start explaining why.
I want them to be excited and enjoy what they are given/have - but I don't know how. I end up just feeling like I'm not doing a 'good job' because I can't fake xmas.
We get our tree on December 11 every year, my brother's birthday. We have friends over on Christmas Eve, and there's a lot of whiskey and Bailey's. After our friends leave we all open one gift. Christmas we sit on the floor and open gifts, then stockings. My dog and cat know it's Christmas - my dog walks through the wrapping paper piles (he likes crunchy things) and the cat watches from under the tree (she loves the tree). Then it's bacon and eggs for breakfast! The bacon usually gets burned. Then it's off to my aunt's for dinner.
This year will be a little different. Our friends that come over lost their dad two years ago and last year wasn't the same without him. My mother moved out of state and my brother and I will be spending the holiday with her, but our friends don't want to come up for Christmas Eve, unfortunately. It will be different but it will still be wonderful. :)
We make ornaments every year. My daughter get's 1/2 of them when she leaves home so she can have meaningful ornaments to put on her tree. We also do a gingerbread house. Over our 2 week break (DH and I are teachers) we watch Gone with the Wind and the Dune mini-series. I also make homemade marshmallow coated in chocolate and pecans, fudge, and peppermint bark.
My personal tradition is to watch It's a Wonderful Life (alone, because I start bawling at "George Bailey, I'll love you 'til the day I die" and descend gradually into an ugly cry until the movie is over).
@seventy7seconds. If you don't like Christmas and you have kids, I think you have to suck it up for their sake. Find some things to do that you don't hate. If you don't cook or bake, make no-bake cookies. It's not hard, and the little one can help. If you hate decorating the tree, keep it simple - bulbs of one color and bows, for instance. Shopping sucks, I agree, so order all your gifts online. Or make stuff. Or give experience gifts like lessons or tickets or passes to a museum. I think declaring yourself a Grinch and sitting out the season is a cop out, and your kids deserve to be able to enjoy it without feeling guilty for "inflicting" it on you. My 2 cents, since you asked.
PS - don't be afraid to incorporate some non-traditional traditions into your holiday, ala the fudge for breakfast above! It doesn't have to be Christmasy, it just has to be fun!
Leading up to Christmas: Making grandma's chocolate no-bake cookies, singing in public (to the embarrassment of my husband), and doing all the Christmas decorating the weekend after Thanksgiving in order to enjoy them for the longest amount of time. And on the Saturday before our trip up north, we try to sleep in a bit and I'll make cinnamon rolls, pigs-in-a-blanket or some other junky breakfast food for indulging.
Christmas is spent with my husband's family in St. Louis. It could basically be a Christmas movie in and of itself: Grandpa gets too drunk, weird uncles, everything is snowy or sleety and miserable, and all the relatives clamor over each other to speak at all times. It is exhausting and not at all a vacation, but it's great for him to get to see everyone all at once.
Don't think Christmas ("Holiday") Traditions are necessary. They are CUSTOMARY but not necessary. If you aren't into it and you have kids, try to raise them as independent spirits who appreciate the "we are different" aspects of ignoring the customs.
OR...
...give them some customs you are comfortable with. Go out as a family to a new movie opening on the holiday. Always have "pizza with everything" or some family favorite meal that maybe does not have "traditional holiday" ramifications. I'm not christian, but I still like to give some presents ("Solstice"? "Yuletide"?) and eat good food and enjoy my days off from work... And I find glitzy decorations fun, regardless of what other people insist is the "reason for the season". Phooey. Christians usurped pre-existing pagan holidays and made their own rules. So I can (and do) usurp the parts I enjoy and ignore the ones I don't believe in.
I do think for kids, especially little kids, making some effort to have special family activities might make it easier for them to interact with other kids, so that's something to consider. Small kids expect everybody to have similar experiences, so at least giving them AN experience helps make them not feel outcast. (It's my theory, but as a non-parent, worth only as much as you agree!!)
My partner's family isn't big on tradition but mine is and he's really gotten into it. Day after Thanksgiving we put up the tree (Everything Xmas fits in one trunk that perfectly fits a storage nook so I don't go overboard). Xmas eve we have a big dinner and family presents with the extended family at my grandmother's. Xmas morning with the immediate family witha slow grazing coffee and breakfast of required pumpkin muffins and venison sausage. Then Santa presents, playing with my nephews and an afternoon at the movies.
But the best is Xmas eve after we leave my grandmother's- the boy and I watch Xmas-themed horror movies until we fall asleep.
I think it's silly to say that if you have kids, you have to "suck it up" for their sake and pretend to like Christmas. Why? Each family has their own traditions. You have to find what works for you.
My husband and I didn't have kids, and the nieces and nephews are grown without kids of their own yet, so our traditions are loose and our decorations minimal. We often used to plan a change of scenery for a few days during the holidays. Travel's more complicated now that we have dogs, and I don't like to leave them unnecessarily, so we stay in town more, which makes the holidays even more peaceful. I enjoy several traditional Christmas dishes, taking in a matinee and, most of all, his workplace being closed for winter break. We often tackle a hefty DIY home improvement project for the fun of the challenge and the satisfaction of accomplishment.
Christmas Eve my cousins and I still have a "kids" table and watch the Muppet Christmas Carol...we now range in age from 28 to 20! I don't think we'll ever join the adults.
As a child growing up we traveled hours on Christmas Eve and celebrated with grandparents. As an adult my husband's mother expected us at her house no later than noon on Christmas day. She lived very close, however, I resented having to rush around to get everyone ready. Now I have a grandson and we will be going to his house to see him Christmas day. Because I hated to always be gone on Christmas I want him to have the time to really enjoy his toys, stay in pj's and eat when he wants.
If I had kids and didn't myself enjoy Xmas, I would find a way to have Xmas as OURS and not worry about the ways other people celebrate. I would certainly not skip Santa because that is a tough one for young kids, but otherwise, what about a family vacation at that time? Skiing, or an island, or a faraway city, with a few small gifts in a stocking at the end of the hotel room bed, and maybe one larger gift everyone can enjoy when you get home. That would take the pressure off the usual seasonal stuff and give the children something to remember. In fact now I wish I HAD kids so I could do this at Christmas!!!!