Here are some of our family traditions that have to do with our extended family:
-Making gingerbread housed each year with the Roach/Hansen gang.
(I'll add a couple more pictures later.)-Getting new pajamas on Christmas Eve (a tradition passed down from both of our families).
-My family has Hoot-Nanny Pancakes (aka German Pancakes) on Christmas morning! This is one I always loved. My mom would bring them straight from the oven to the table and as soon as they were set down we would all yell, "Hoooot-Naaanny!!!" Since we've been married our Christmas morning tradition has been to have breakfast with Nic's parents. So we'll have to move our Hoot-Nanny Pancakes to Christmas Eve morning!
-With my mom's family (the Bairds) we have a Christmas party each year in conjunction with that we do a service project of some kind. This year my Aunt Christine headed it up. We did a tree for the Festival of Trees. The theme was "Home for the Holidays" with birds and birdhouses. Each family was in charge of doing something (like making little stick stars or the tree skirt, etc). All the married grandchildren were asked to donate a birdhouse. My sister Ashley wrote a beautiful write up about it all on her blog.
-I KNOW there are more things we do... but I can't think of them now. So I'll add more later.
Here's a couple things we do:
-We try to always to something for another family.
-I buy one nice Christmas book each year that we read as a family. That a tradition we started.
-We also 'stole' a tradition from my sister Ashley, (because it seemed so fun!) to give an ornament to each other each year.
A couple things I would like to start doing is acting out the nativity with the kids. Also I'd like to give a "gift" to Christ. I want us to think of something we could do for Him throughout the year, write it down or color a picture of it, and put it in a present under the tree. Each year we can read what we wrote the previous year and how we did.
Again, its such a great time of year to have family traditions and to create lasting memories. So, what do you do?!
4 comments:
No, I don't mind that you linked my post.
I've been thinking about traditions lately too. I want to do more traditions with my little family. We also get a new book every Christmas; I thought we made this up ourselves, but maybe we really go the idea from you. So we both took ideas from each other. :) I have always wanted to do the ornament tradition before I ever knew about Chad's mom doing it. Chad said, "I never really knew it was a tradition, we just got an ornament every Christmas. We were like, 'oh yay another ornament.'" :-)
Ours are pretty much the same as yours. I'll be checking your blog comments for some ideas and maybe do a post of my own later on.
Okay, you missed my lesson on Sunday because I did a lesson on putting Christ back in Christmas. I will tell you the things that we do for our family. Most of these came from Mark's family. My family did more the Santa and what not. I don't remember too much about putting Christ into it. Here they go:
-We read a book called the 24 days of Christmas. It has a scripture, song and story for each day. (You are more than welcome to take it and make a copy if you wanted.) It has been fun to read the stories and talk about how we can be better people.
-We open an envelope with a magnet piece of the nativity and each day for the 12 days before Christmas we get to focus on 1 part of the nativity scene. We got this last year and it has been fun to really think about the significance that every part played in the Birth of our Savior. (I again have the scriptures and a copy if you wanted to do that.) The kids love that we get to make the nativity on the fridge every day.
-On Christmas morning we kneel for family prayer and then Mark reads from the scriptures the story of the birth of Christ. It gives a moment before the present time to really reflect on the reason we are celebrating.
-We also do an ornament for each kid. The hope is that when they leave they can leave with the # of ornaments as they lived at home. We will also get one that I can put a family picture in to remember that year.
-We ar starting this year doing secret elves and leaving notes that we did a secret thing for another family member.
-Mark's family collects money from each 12 families and we "Christmas" a family in need. I have so enjoyed that.
I am sure there are more but I have taken up more of your blog than necessary. I do have those books or things if you are interested.
We make a home made ornament every year. I plan on keeping these on my own tree so when the kids come home for Christmas it will be their home made tree.
We have "Christmas Tree Bread" for breakfast. (Basically a giant cinnamon roll shaped like a Christmas tree.) And hot chocolate with candy canes.
The first of December, we make a paper chain for each of the kids with numbers on it counting down to Christmas.
This year I've been thinking more about service and I'm trying to come up with a way to involve the kids in the giving part of Christmas. We'll see what happens!
I am not sure if this would be considered a tradition but I love it. Our kids only get three presents. The reasoning in Christ got three (gold, frankensense, mere I know I spelled these wrong) so why would we need more. Also in doing this it helps us be able to afford doing some sub for santa. It also helps grandparents not go to wild.
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