Christmas Traditions

It’s the best time of the year and my team and I thought it would be fun to share some of our Christmas traditions.  Whether you’re looking to start a new one or add to your list of festive fun, take a peak into what our holiday’s look like every year.

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Phi

• Every year, I buy my Christmas cards on Black Friday.  And then add them to a photo album so I can look back to all of our cards from year’s past.
• Christmas pyramid – my parents had one of these beauties when we were kids and then gifted it to Nick and I when we had kids.  It is such a fun thing to take out every Christmas season as a table center piece. You can buy them on Amazon (here)
• My in-laws introduced me to Hallmark ornaments, there are ornaments in series called Keepsake Ornaments – read about them here – now it’s always special for me to see all the ornaments during the holidays. The kids love hanging the ornaments and talking about the different ones.
• For Christmas Even dinner, we always enjoy a prime rib dinner, like this.

  

• And the next morning, we’re always eating ham for Christmas brunch.
• I use a different wrapping paper for each kid – that way it is easy to find their gifts under the tree and make sure we’ve gotten each kid a fair amount of gifts.  My absolute favorite wrapping paper is Hallmark double sided wrapping paper.
• Christmas cookie box – this is such a fun thing that we do!  Every year, each family member (if they’re old enough) picks their own cookie to be part of our cookie tin that we give as gifts.  For the younger kids, Nick and I will pick the cookies out.  Typically, Freddie has a ginger cookie because of his red hair, Frankie will have sweet potato chocolate chip – we swap in sweet potato puree instead of pumpkin because sweet potato was one of her first favorite foods.  Ben loves to do s’mores cookies because he loves graham crackers.  Nick is choosing fudge this year and I always choose a 5 ingredient cookie (like these or these) because I’m all about easy recipes these days!  You can read more about this particular tradition here.

And if you’re looking to add a New Year’s Tradition to the mix, check this out

• 13 new years traditions we started doing #2 with these. 

Bridget

• One of my favorite Christmas traditions, for as long as I can remember, is the garland at the top of the staircase.  Every Christmas morning, we would wake up to a piece of garland tied at the top of the stairs and we couldn’t cross it until our parents said something like “oh my gosh, Santa came!  Come on down.”  I now do the same thing with my kids!  Turns out the garland allowed for a key things:
  • It allowed my parents to do any last minute Santa tasks
  • Get the video camera ready
  • Build some anticipation!
• Advent calendars – these have certainly gotten more elaborate over the years.  When I was a kid, we just enjoyed crappy chocolate after opening a door each day.  This year, I was gifted a wine advent calendar, my husband was given a Star Wars Lego one like this and my kids each have one that opens up to a little mini toy each day, that eventually fills a whole scene by Christmas morning.
• On Christmas Eve, every year since I was a kid, we read ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas.  When we were younger, we even used to act it out (so embarrassing!).  We read it with our kids every, but no more acting it out, ha!
• The first year my husband and I owned our condo on the East Side in Milwaukee, we started a tradition of a fun, more formal Christmas Eve party.  This has shifted a bit since having a kids and moving, but the idea is that everyone gets dressed up, we listen to the record player, have drinks like martinis and just enjoy a slightly more nostalgic Christmas evening.

Alyssa

• Every year we go with my family to pick out a real Christmas tree! Now that my sister and I have our own houses we still go as a family and each pick out a tree that will be perfect for our houses. We always go to the same farm too!
• For as long as I can remember, my sister and I bake Christmas cookies with our grandma every year. There are a few we always make like Spritz cookies and peanut butter kiss cookies but we also pick a few new cookies to make every year!
• I grew up with my parents having all Santa ornaments on the tree and most of the decorations were Santa too. Now that I have my own house, my tree always has a Santa theme! The past few years now I get a new Santa ornament from my parents to add to the tree!

Christmas traditions are such a fun way to share memories with family and friends, so hopefully we’ve shared a few new fun ideas.  If you have any traditions you’d like to share, leave them in the comments below.  I’d love to hear from you!