Christmas Traditions

Some of the best gifts--if not the best!-- we can ever give our kiddos are those that do not come in boxes... but sweet memories of family traditions. We asked some of our fellow mom2mom's what some of their favorite Christmas traditions are... so grateful they shared! Read on for some great ideas to perhaps implement into your own Holiday this year. We would also love to hear what you plan to do or already do as a family, leave us a comment!

Liz Garrett

Fave Christmas traditions:

Elf on a shelf

Advent activity calendar (one per day--zoo lights, pajama ride to look at lights, christmas movies---charlie brown, grinch, polar express, frosty, Rudolph, nestor the christmas donkey, etc, crafts, Polar Experience)

Railroad park

Christmas pjs 

Christmas eve service

Gift for kids in mexico

dinner @ tia rosas

Bake cookies & decorate (deliver to neighbors)

Read christmas story

Ugly christmas sweaters (we wear to open gifts on christmas morning!)

Decorate tree while playing christmas music & drinking peppermint hot chocolate

Pics with santa

Visit a living nativity

Christmas show/pageant 

Julie Hydzu

Christmas Eve:

Every year we do the 5:00 church service, then go home to a Mexican Fiesta dinner with family and open Christmas gifts from each other.  When finished my family drives around with hot chocolate looking at Christmas lights while we try to dodge Rudolf peeing on our windshield...he always gets us :)...(washer fluid)  Also, each child at midnight gets to open a gift from an out of town relative.

Christmas morning:

The children wake up to cinnamon rolls and we play a little "game" before we open gifts.  Adam and I hide an angel ornament in the tree and whoever finds it first gets to put Baby Jesus in the manager of our Nativity set. (It's funny how competitive they get trying to find the angel!) Also, Santa only brings 1 big gift for each child and Adam and I give them 3 each (representing Jesus's three gifts)  After all the gifts are open, we read the "the Candy Cane.”  For dinner we have a "typical" Thanksgiving dinner meal with friends and family and sing Happy Birthday Jesus with a cake. Also, on Christmas afternoon, we go visit our little boy, Austin, at the cemetery and take him a gift.

Shelley Kunert

I couldn't decide which tradition to share so I asked my kids what is their favorite.  They both said they like the advent calendar "countdown".  This is a new tradition we started after Nancy shared about holiday traditions at mom2mom a couple years ago!  

In our advent calendar I put slips of paper for a special holiday activity, outing or little gift for each day.  It was mainly for the kids so I made my husband his very own advent calendar.  The first year I put special messages in small gift boxes with the date printed on the outside for him to open each day.  Last year I made it more of a riddle for him to solve.  I got the biggest kick of that because it was a goofy line written on golf balls from one of our favorite Christmas movies, A Christmas Story.  

I attached a picture if you would like to see it!  I used as much code as I could to stump him but he guessed it after day 19! The message said, "Be sure to drink your Ovaltine. LY, S."

Diane Silashki

Here are a few things we have done over the years that have stood out to our kids. Some of our traditions have changed as our kids have grown, but many good memories were made. 

Gingerbread house making party: invite your children's friends and their parents over. Provide everything for them to build a gingerbread home for their family. This was a great way to meet your kids friends/parents and a special outreach for the holiday season.

Bake cookies/exchange girls lunch: each year I invited my mom, sisters and nieces for a Christmas girls lunch. Everyone baked two or three varieties of their special cookies and after lunch we exchanged. (Note: my dad, brothers and nephews dropped the girls off and went out for a "boys" day out which was typically lunch and then a visit to a air museum or car show. When they came back to pick up the girls, they enjoyed some of the cookies.)

Nutcracker Ballet Outing: When I was a little girl, I was a dancer in the Nutcracker ballet. My daughter followed in my footsteps and danced in the Nutcracker too. We still love this seasonal ballet and over the years since then, my husband and I still try to take our daughter (now 22) and our 17 year old son to see the ballet, followed by going to a restaurant for a special dessert.

Jaime Tischler

Favorite memories of traditions from childhood:

Leaving cookies and milk out for Santa...and a carrot for the reindeer

Dressing up and going to see the Nutcracker Ballet at Gammage

Gingerbread House making

Entire cul-d-sac would light paper luminaries... walking the street with mom on Christmas Eve

Our Dad would go outside of our windows late Christmas Eve and shake jingle bells and the next morning always ask if we heard Santa :-)

Buying Christmas ornaments the day after Christmas on sale for the following year :-)

Favorite traditions now implementing with Bobby, Blake & Ryker:

Making mom-in-law’s amazing homemade hot cocoa mix

Buying kiddos matching--err--coordinating Christmas PJs

Reading ‘Yes, Virginia’

Special shopping day with Blake for a Salvation Army Angel Tree gift

Leaving cookies and milk out for Santa... Bobby takes a bite of cookies and sips milk so there is ‘evidence’ of Santa having arrived

Advent calendar box...filled with Hershey Cookie & Creme kisses

Driving around with Starbucks to see Christmas lights

Opening up the stockings last on Christmas morning