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Tuesday, December 20, 2011

Christmas Traditions

I'm linking up with Becky From Mrs. to Mama for Christmas Traditions
Past, Present & Future


I love the idea of being able to share past traditions with my girls.  I love that we'll make our own new traditions as a family and making a list of some new traditions to start when the girls get bigger.

Past Traditions:
* Setting up and decorating the Christmas tree as a family.  As a kid this was my favorite part, I always loved looking at the ornaments we had, the ones that my brothers and I made when we were in grade school.  My mom is acutally sending me my ornaments from when I was little to show the girls and to put on our tree.

* Making cookies as a family to leave out for Santa on Christmas Eve.

* We load up in the car and drive around looking at Christmas lights

* On Christmas Eve we go to Jason's moms house and when we are done earing dinner, his mom passes out little envelopes with little prizes in them (scratchers, gifts cards & money).  She reads Twas the Night Before Christmas and every time she says "twas" we pass the envelopes around until the book is done and we get to keep the little prize.

* Take a picture with Santa each year


New Traditions for this year:
* Kaylee & Keira each made a handprint snow ornament

* We made salt dough ornaments with their hand and foot print

* 24 book advant calander.  This was a really fun new tradition we started this year with the girls.  You collect 24 Christmas books and wrap them.  Opening up one book a night till Christmas Eve.  My girls love this, it's like opening a present everyday.  We all sit down on the couch as a family to read the books. (I have a picture like this for every book we've read)

* Spending Christmas Eve in our jammies all day.  This year we only have one stop on Christmas Eve so the girls will be wearing their matching Christmas jammies to Grandma's house for breakfast and presents.

* Lots of Chrismas crafts.  Thank you to pinterest for all the fun ideas for Christmas crafts for kids.  Kaylee has made so many and I love all of them.


Future Traditions:
* Elf on the shelf.  I actually had never heard about Elf on a shelf until this year and we thought that we would start it next year when the girls were bigger and understood it a little better.  We will be getting our elf after Christmas and keeping him or her kept tucked away until next year.

* Getting a family ornament each year

* Getting a smaller tree for the girls room and having them pick out an ornament each year to put on their tree.  So the tree will be decorated in ornaments they like.


I'm sure I will be adding to this list as the years go on but I love keeping old traditions and making new traditions with my family that hopefully they will carry on with their family.

* When the girls get older we're going to start buying a gift for someone to donate

5 comments:

  1. Love all of your traditions! Your salt dough ornaments came out cute...ours was a failure. Must have been the dough maker(me!) ha!

    Hope you guys have a Merry Christmas!!

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  2. I love the idea of them having their own little tree and picking an ornament each year---I think I might have to do that too! :-)

    Shawna www.nopaparazziplease.blogspot.com

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  3. Loved reading your traditions. I come from a home with many too! We stayed in our jammies on Christmas day last year and it was the most relaxing Christmas yet!
    I also love the snowman fingerprint ornaments- great idea!

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  4. I love all of these, especially those sweet homemade ornaments!

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  5. I love all of your traditions!!! We do the tree together, bakes cookies for santa together, go to this house with crazy lights and a show every year as well as driving around looking at lights. We by each other christmas pjs wrap them up and open them on Christmas eve and immediately wear them:) We ALWAYS do Christmas eve here up big and open up our gift exchange presents and with the family so that Christmas morning is dedicated to just our family and santa. We go out for breakfast every Christmas morning and leave the waitress $100 tip...thats actually my favorite...I love the look on their faces...they deserve it for having to work on Christmas!!! We also did the 25 days of book and elf on a shelf this year for the first time and LOOOOVE it! Alivia loved her books everyday and loved waking up and looking for the elf! We also have always done ornaments every year...Alivia loves looking through at her previous ornaments from her Christmases past!!! I love the donate thing!!! We pick an angel from the tree but one year when they are older I want to sponsor a whole family in need and instead of getting big gifts for us make their Christmas special. I'll have to wait until they are older so that they understand better and will get as much enjoyment out of it as we as adults would:) Your salt dough ornaments are SOOO adorable!!! Love all your ideas:) and I LOVE Christmas and everything about it:)

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