.jpg)
only 4 people responded to the blog giveaway - so i 'm gonna mention it one more time to give people a second chance to enter. When i get back from Pennsylvania (on thurs. or fri.), i will pick the winner!
so the contest was about posting your favorite holiday tradition (either a current one, or one you did as a child).
I'll mention a few of our traditions to start off. Every year i buy all of us new PJ's to wear on Christmas morning. (and another viewer mentioned the same thing!). I like to get them from Old Navy so that i can get matching bottoms for all of us and then we wear the same colored top.
Our other tradition is our stockings. Jeff fills my stocking, I fill Jeff, Dillon and Tucker's stocking. When Dillon wakes up in the morning, he gathers all of our stockings and brings them upstairs to my room. we make our coffee and then open up our stockings. Dillon's stocking is huge - about 2 1/2 feet long! i found it one year at thrift store in California when we were visiting my family. i find dillon a basket to put all his goodies in after he's unwrapped his stocking. When he was younger, i use to hide his stocking. he would wake up to find a clue next to his pillow. that clue would send him to another clue and so on and so on until he eventually found his stocking. throughout the years he found his stocking in the dishwasher, dryer, shower, basement, my closet, dillon's own closet, under the beds in various rooms. Santa even hid his stocking when we were in California for Christmas one year. That was the year that Furby was so hot and i put one in his stocking. Well, if you remember, some of the furbbies would start talking on their own. and i could hear the furbie talking in the dishwasher. it was so funny, although, it freaked dillon out a little bit!
one last thing we use to do (and you should try this if you still have young ones.....) is we would take a pair of boots and some baking powder. We slightly wet the boots and then dipped them into the powder and then "walked" them coming out of the fireplace around various rooms. so, in effect, it looked like "snow" and that Santa had been walking around the house.
so tell me your traditions, i loved to hear them!
Saturday, November 24, 2007
update on blog giveaway!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
slide show!
Posts
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
One of our Christmas traditions is that we spend Christmas eve over at my mom's. She fixes everyone's favorite foods and then we go and have a buffet...one grandson likes pepperoni pizza, one likes chicken nuggets, one likes boiled shrimp, she literally fixes each person one of their fav foods...so it is a weird assortment. And as we eat, we listen to the Christmas music on the radio and wait for the Santa report. We did that when I was a little girl and I would just panic that we would not make it home from my Grandmother's before Santa came. One of the radio stations gives a city by city report as to where Santa is. Even the big kids love to hear that . Then we all open our gifts from my side of the family. We make a circle and open them going from the youngest to the oldest and then back around again and again until they are all opened. My mom even does stockings for each of us to have at her house.-Sandra
ReplyDeletesorry for the mia! we just got back from a week long road trip!
ReplyDeletewe put our stockings at the end of our beds and I fill then first with a great big orange, a apple and chocolates. then I add individually wrapped little gifts.
we also read night before christmas almost every night and play christmas music ALL december!
I love decoration cookies with my family and going to see elaborate decorated xmas trees nearby.
last but not least, this drives my husband crazy that I love,love,love to cruise brightly decorated homes at night! I ooh and ahh like it's the 4th of july!
WE ALL GET TOGETHER FOR A HOLIDAY - THANKSGIVING OR CHANUKAH AND FILL IN A PAPER THAT ASKS YOU TO WRITE WHAT YOU ARE THANKFUL FOR. WE WRITE WHAT WE ARE THANKFUL FOR, AND EACH PERSON WILL THEN READ THEIR LIST ALOUD. ALSO, IF THERE IS AN OLDER GRANDPARENT PRESENT, WE EACH WRITE WONDERFUL THINGS THAT WE LOVE ABOUT THE PERSON AND PUT IT IN A BOX. THE PERSON WILL THEN PULL EACH ONE OUT AND READ THEM ALOUD AND FEEL LIKE HE WON THE LOTTERY!!!
ReplyDeleteI AM ANONYMOUS - CLICKED BY MISTAKE
ReplyDeleteWhat a great tradition!
ReplyDeletelove the Santa Boot idea.
ReplyDeleteOn Christmas Eve we have snow balls to eat (vanilla ice cream rolled in coconut with a candle and fake holly on top. My Grandma used to serve them. Now I do it and we sing Happy Birthday to Jesus when they're lit.
also my Christmas decorations go up the day after Thanksgiving. That's right, they're up now!
my favorite personal tradition is at minutes before christmas eve turns into christmas day, i look into the sky at the stars and the moon and how magical that moment seems to be just for those brief moments, i have been doing this sicne my daughter has been a toddler......it is especially magical when the ground is covered in snow...
ReplyDeletexox
Okey, dokey, not remembering if I've done this yet, I'll do it now.....
ReplyDeleteChristmas Eve is always church followed by chili and tamales at our house with a few friends.
Christmas Eve we STILL put out the special cookie plate with cookies for Santa (and in the morning there's still always just crumbs...) and a glass of milk - it, too, is empty in the morning....
We always open one present on Christmas eve and when the boys were little it was always NEW P.J.'S - another likeness, jja!
Okay, now you can count this as one entry or if you've got that Christmas spirit, four since I listed four separate traditions....
Have fun with Jean!!!
Tell her I said "hi" and that I am looking forward to seeing her in Virginia!
Email me when you get a minute during this weekend/week's hectic schedule!! Jan
OMG, I forgot the most important one!!! Augh!!
ReplyDeleteOn Christmas morning I make our family birthday cake for baby Jesus. That i our only dessert with our Christmas dinner.
We've done this since Craig was 2 or so and we always light candles and sing Happy Birthday to Jesus - still do and the boys are 22, 20 and 17.
Too cool.
I'm not sure what traditions will remain in place this year since my mom died. I want to start a new tradition and I think I'm going to pinch your PJ idea!
ReplyDeleteOkay, all you family people - I'm really not a Scrooge, but ....I never had children, my parents are long gone, I'm divorced, and my holidays are pretty much like any other day. I stopped decorating after the divorce - the end of the marriage was at the end of the year, and he moved out on New Year's Eve....there just never seems to be much point to decorating just for me.
ReplyDeleteSomething good, something good, there must be something good somewhere....well, it's a day off work - that's good!
Every so often I get it in my head to do a "theme" Christmas. A few years back we had a Feliz Navidad- a pinata instead of stockings- tin ornaments and tissue paper flowers on the tree and Mexican food for dinner. Since then every year I've made the dessert from that night because we all loved it so much. Dessert after Christmas dinner is always fried ice cream!
ReplyDeleteOur favorite family tradition is the day we bundle up and trek up to the mountains, into the snowy wilderness to find the perfect Christmas tree. My three sons look forward to this every year. I bake hersey kiss cookies sprinkled with powdered sugar and bring a steaming thermos of hot chocolate, a can of whip cream and away we go. We never know what adventure might await as we take a different route each year. Last year we saw the most gorgeous deer. I love just being together and away from the world for that day!
ReplyDeleteTake Care
Lani
One of my favorite family tradtions is that no matter where we've lived....we make hot cinnamon rolls Christmas morning and deliver them to our nieghbors on each side of us. We simply cover them in a new Christmas towel and ring the doorbell...leaving them on the doorstep with a Christmas note. (* That way they don't have to be fixed up to answer our early delivery:)
ReplyDeleteThis is a wonderful thing my daughter and I do together ( she loves to bake) after we open our stockings...and it starts the 'spirit' of Christmas Day off doing something for somene else:) It's always is a GREAT present to ourselves that day, when we give a piece of ourselves away before we receive our gifts:) Debra
Ours is "green eggs and ham". It started when my son commented while I read him green eggs and ham that "it would be a great Christmas food!". So for Christmas eve we asked all of our friends invited to our traditional brunch to bring their stuffed animals. Yes, the adult ones since there are not many children around here anymore.
ReplyDeleteSo they arrive the 23rd and I decorate the dining room with the animals having a party, including martini glasses, champagne glasses, hanging from the chandelier, there are balloons and confetti, stringers and noisemakers attached to the paws, hands, sticks, you name it of each one.
When the owners come to rescue them there is the brunch awaiting: green eggs and ham. Stirred eggs with spinach and green food coloring, ham cooked in Marsala wine with pomegranate glaze, croissants, Mimosas, pastries and fresh fruit and we get the newspapers from all over the country at Richard's which specializes in magazines and newspapers here in Portland.
People sit all over the place, by the fire, by the stairs, lattes or drink nearby everyone who is either reading the papers, visiting, walking the calories outside, you name it. No one seem to want to leave until midafternoon at the earliest.
The general consensus is that it takes all that "buy" anxiety away, and everyone always has written to us saying that while here, with all the Christmas trees and the good food, relaxing and enjoying each other's company, they find themselves when they look at their stuffed animals, just a bit like a child again.
We didn't do it one year, and everyone complained so much that we suspect this is going to be a tradition that is never going to stop.
Allegra
PS: Laurel dear, you can always make a trip to Portland and join us. I mean that if you are up to it. We would love to have you. And although John and Gabrielle are taking over the guest bedroom you can stay with us still.
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteNow this is what i'm talking about! love all the various traditions. It's great! thanks for playing along! so, when i get home i will be picking (2) winners!
ReplyDeleteOh wow, I love the hiding the stocking idea - my son is 22 months so I'm looking for "new traditions" to start...
ReplyDeleteWhat I remember from childhood - my mom had lots of those "Elf on a Shelf" guys...they're little felt red and green elves. Well, they were the first to go up every year for our Christmas decorations, me and my siblings would wait in our rooms and my mom would hide them around the house in all different places ...i think she had about 15 of them....we would come out and find them, it was kinda like finding Easter eggs, it was fun! And that started the whole..."Santa's Elves are Watching!! Be good!" thing...it probably sounds silly, but it was fun!
It's funny you should mention the pj's - we would always get new pj's on Christmas eve to wear for Christmas :)
I remember a few times my Dad got up on the roof right when I went to bed (i was the oldest) on Christmas eve with bells, ringing them and saying "ho ho ho!" I'd be so overwhelmed with excitement, I'd have to run out and look...and then it was my Dad...goofing on me hehehe...I think they just liked to see me excited! It didn't help me sleep much though!
We get PJs, too! They're one of our Christmas gifts, but we get to open them on Christmas Eve, which is a tradition my mom started. Now I buy my hubby PJs for Christmas.
ReplyDeleteAND, every year I read The Greatest Christmas Pageant Ever out loud to whoever will listen (have I mentioned that I have a very patient husband?!)
Also, a tradition which makes my life SO MUCH easier - my MIL always hosts Christmas Eve, and my aunt Christmas - so we ALWAYS know where we're going to be on both days - so much easier than trying to figure it out every year!
xox
Kat
I've been mulling this over since your initial post, trying to come up with a tradition in our house. I couldn't really think of anything until I was back home with my Mom this past weekend. Then it hit me - like a ton of bricks.
ReplyDeleteOne of our traditions is baking - in particular, Christmas cookies. It's gone on as long as I can remember. What started at my grandmother's house so many years ago, has now been passed down two generations, possibly three if my cousin and her daughter are doing it. (I'd have to call and ask!)
Sometime between Thankgiving and CHristmas we designate a day for cookie making. It usually starts in the morning - mixing the dough then we begin rolling it out and cutting out the cookies. My Mom's got her mother's cutters now - some which date back to the 1930s. We will strategically place each cutter on the dough so that we have minimum waste/recycling of dough.
Some of the cutters are the standard Santa, reindeer, ornaments, candy canes, etc. But we have a few 'special' ones for our family - the moose, the quatrefoil, the star of david and dreidl (we've branched out into Hanukkah cookies now!) as well as the seal. Yea, that's right a seal. More on him later.
Once the cookies are baked and cooled, then comes the fun part of frosting and sugaring. I don't know when it started, but our cookies have to have three colors of sugar on them -- and you have to do it nicely or else you have to eat the ugly ones. (Gee, is it any wonder we purposely mess up a few cookies now and then?)
When all's said and done, each batch of cookies if packed up nice with a seal cookie on top - the seal of approval. (Groan - I know! Mom started it, I just kept that part of the tradition alive.)
Some cookies will remain for our consumption, some will go to friends/neighbors and others will go to the office.
We didn't make cookies while was back in Ohio over the weekend - just a little too busy with other stuff. But, I think I'll have to pull out my mixer and make some cookies myself. It's not the same doing it alone, but the end result is so worth it.
The Christmas tradition in my household is to open the gifts on Christmas Eve Night instead of the morning. This opening of gifts is usually after a long day of eating. And I do mean ALOT of eating.
ReplyDeleteWe go to my brother's house, he lives about 45 minutes away in a nice house, and we start eating and talking and drinking at like 2pm and we don't stop until around 8pm. It's quite fun.
Usually we drink tea or coffee while opening up the gifts at night.
Quite nice actually not not have to wait until morning.. at least, I always thought so when I was a little kid.
Over the years lots of traditions have come and gone, i.e., reading of "Twas the Night Before Christmas," going out to dinner with friends on Christmas eve, eating hot wings while watching the "Yule Log" on TV. One of the traditions that we do is the Christmas stockings get hung on the mantel. And if anyone is staying with us over Christmas...THEY get Christmas stockings too! One year when my Mom was visiting, I made up a Christmas stocking for her and she said it was the first stocking she'd ever received! That was magic. :-)
ReplyDeleteMy favorite tradition is the trip I take with my fiance down to Florida to visit my immediate family who have all up and moved there! It's about the only tradition we have left until I come up with new ones (this is a whole new Christmas experience for me the past 2 years). I get so hyped about driving down, stopping in Savannah on the way to break up the trip and get some last minute shopping done there if I need to. It's just great to be able to see them all at least once a year for sure.
ReplyDelete