What are your family holiday traditions??
Please share your family holiday traditions...I'd love to hear them!
Tags: family, holidays, traditions
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Cindy O'Farrell on -
What an excellent idea about the story book...thank you for sharing Tammy!
Tammy Dantzler said:We love renting a chalet on Ski Mountain, Gatlinburg, TN over Christmas and New Years to visit family there. Another tradition if we are in town that I cook Christmas breakfast and the family comes over then to change gifts. At our big family Christmas party each family writes a summary of their year and we create a family book for each year and share stories from last years book.
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Permalink Reply by Lisa on -
We eat homemade ravioli on Christmas Eve....we make the ravioli the day after Thanksgiving. Been going on for years and years!
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Permalink Reply by Cindy O'Farrell on
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Unique tradition Lisa! Thank you for sharing it with us:)
Lisa said:We eat homemade ravioli on Christmas Eve....we make the ravioli the day after Thanksgiving. Been going on for years and years!
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Permalink Reply by Helen on -
I love the days leading up to Christmas - second only to my love of Halloween!
2-3 days before Christams, I go on a baking frenzy 8-10 hours a day up until Christmas Eve morning. It's something I watched my Nona do from the time I was little enough to stand on a chair next to her at the counter. On Christmas Eve we get together at my parents' house and celebrate with the traditional Feast of the Seven fish. Our interpretation of those seven fish has morphed into - calamari, shrimp, scallops, smelts (ewwww!), haddock, clams on the half shell, and lobster. After dinner, the trays and trays of Italian cookies & pastries are set out (they usually stay untouched until close to midnight!) and everyone settles in to listen to my father read "Twas the Night Before Christmas" to the little ones.
The tradition of reading the story began when my younger brothers were about 4-5 years old (they're now in their 30's). My Dad reads the story and at the very end of the story, thanks to a helpful neighbor, sleigh bells jingled around the house outside. The first year we did this with my brothers, their expressions were priceless! They were excited and horrified at the same time - they quickly said goodnight to everyone and tried to rush the guests out the door because they knew Santa wouldn't come if they were still awake! Worked like a charm to get them to go to bed. As the years have gone on and our extended family continues to grow, we haven't run out of the little believers and everyone looks forward to the story after dinner.
Us, "big kids" now jockey for position to be the ones running down the side of the house with the bells at just the right moment to get the "perfect" reaction and we've got loads of stories about mishaps along the way - slipping and falling on the snow/ice, running head first into the garage door in the dark. There isn't one generation in our family that doesn't have fond memories of being on the giving or receiving end of this holiday tradition.
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Permalink Reply by Cindy O'Farrell on
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Beautiful family tradition Helen. Thank you for sharing it with us:)
Helen said:I love the days leading up to Christmas - second only to my love of Halloween!
2-3 days before Christams, I go on a baking frenzy 8-10 hours a day up until Christmas Eve morning. It's something I watched my Nona do from the time I was little enough to stand on a chair next to her at the counter. On Christmas Eve we get together at my parents' house and celebrate with the traditional Feast of the Seven fish. Our interpretation of those seven fish has morphed into - calamari, shrimp, scallops, smelts (ewwww!), haddock, clams on the half shell, and lobster. After dinner, the trays and trays of Italian cookies & pastries are set out (they usually stay untouched until close to midnight!) and everyone settles in to listen to my father read "Twas the Night Before Christmas" to the little ones.
The tradition of reading the story began when my younger brothers were about 4-5 years old (they're now in their 30's). My Dad reads the story and at the very end of the story, thanks to a helpful neighbor, sleigh bells jingled around the house outside. The first year we did this with my brothers, their expressions were priceless! They were excited and horrified at the same time - they quickly said goodnight to everyone and tried to rush the guests out the door because they knew Santa wouldn't come if they were still awake! Worked like a charm to get them to go to bed. As the years have gone on and our extended family continues to grow, we haven't run out of the little believers and everyone looks forward to the story after dinner.
Us, "big kids" now jockey for position to be the ones running down the side of the house with the bells at just the right moment to get the "perfect" reaction and we've got loads of stories about mishaps along the way - slipping and falling on the snow/ice, running head first into the garage door in the dark. There isn't one generation in our family that doesn't have fond memories of being on the giving or receiving end of this holiday tradition.
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Permalink Reply by Kelly Dyer on -
Every Christmas that I can remember has been spent at my Grandparent's house. This is the first year that Grandma has asked that the torch be passed. My mother will host it this year.
My favorite part of the holidays is getting to see all of my family in once place. We round up the kids who entertain us for hours. We eat an ENORMOUS buffet and finish it off with about 9 zillion pies and cakes.
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Permalink Reply by Cindy O'Farrell on
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Thank you MrsClaus! I'm enjoying reading about all the different traditions:)
MrsClaus said:What a GREAT topic Cindy!
It's so nice to read all the traditions. :-) (And see some videos too).
Our Tradition is every year to wake Santa up Christmas morning, gather the elves and reindeer and sit around the table. I make a HUGE breakfast for everyone, as Santa tells us all about his flight on Christmas Eve.
It's my favorite time because you can just hear all the children laughing Christmas morning.
Mrs. Claus
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Permalink Reply by Cindy O'Farrell on
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Seeing family during the Holidays is always beautiful. Thank you for sharing Kelly!
Kelly Dyer said:Every Christmas that I can remember has been spent at my Grandparent's house. This is the first year that Grandma has asked that the torch be passed. My mother will host it this year.
My favorite part of the holidays is getting to see all of my family in once place. We round up the kids who entertain us for hours. We eat an ENORMOUS buffet and finish it off with about 9 zillion pies and cakes.
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Permalink Reply by Aimee Plesa on -
I lost my parents fairly early in life, so I have followed the traditions of the guy's family I am currently involved with. But not this year-this year I am starting my own traditions for my kids and myself. I am very big into community support and helping others, so this years marks the first annual "Shake Your Bon Bons' Holiday Sweet Shoppe". (Shake Your Bon Bons is my home based sweets business). I also plan on making a new ornament for my kids each year so when they are old enough to strike out on their own, they will have a nice start to their own collections. And no more artificial trees! I grew up with a live tree every year and I am bringing that back LOL
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Permalink Reply by Cindy O'Farrell on
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Sorry to hear about your parents however I think you're doing great by starting your own traditions. Thank you for sharing Aimee.
Aimee Plesa said:I lost my parents fairly early in life, so I have followed the traditions of the guy's family I am currently involved with. But not this year-this year I am starting my own traditions for my kids and myself. I am very big into community support and helping others, so this years marks the first annual "Shake Your Bon Bons' Holiday Sweet Shoppe". (Shake Your Bon Bons is my home based sweets business). I also plan on making a new ornament for my kids each year so when they are old enough to strike out on their own, they will have a nice start to their own collections. And no more artificial trees! I grew up with a live tree every year and I am bringing that back LOL
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Permalink Reply by Carole-Hippos Toes on -
We always spend Christmas at home, just my husband, son and I. Sometimes my sister-in-law comes down over Christmas, but we decided when we first started dating that we were always going to have our own traditions for Christmas. But for Thanksgiving we visit my in-laws in PA. They live about 6 hrs from us (8hrs if traffic is bad :(). So the whole family, he has 4 siblings, gets together at his mom and dad's house. My folk's have both passed away so I don't have an immediate family an longer, so we always travel to my in-laws for turkey day. It's always a lot of fun. It's really the only time that we can all get together during the year.
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Permalink Reply by Cindy O'Farrell on
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Families are the best!! Thank you for sharing Carole!
Carole-Hippos Toes said:We always spend Christmas at home, just my husband, son and I. Sometimes my sister-in-law comes down over Christmas, but we decided when we first started dating that we were always going to have our own traditions for Christmas. But for Thanksgiving we visit my in-laws in PA. They live about 6 hrs from us (8hrs if traffic is bad :(). So the whole family, he has 4 siblings, gets together at his mom and dad's house. My folk's have both passed away so I don't have an immediate family an longer, so we always travel to my in-laws for turkey day. It's always a lot of fun. It's really the only time that we can all get together during the year.
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