enough of " what did u buy for christmas" i wanna hear what traditions you share!! :)

[blazenangel5]

I see many posts talking about what people bought their kids for Christmas but I wanna hear your traditions. This year we are doing elf on the shelf and taking cookies and cards to the nursing home :)

[QueenBee107]

My kids each get to pick out a new ornament every year. they get to open their new PJ's on Christmas eve and they leave out cookies and milk for Santa on this plate that my daughter made when she was in K and a Daisy Girl Scout. she is now in 5th grade. She and now my middle child this year will eat the cookies after their brother goes to sleep as they know the truth about Santa. We usually visit someone on Christmas eve but this year will be having people over here instead. Mom and dad and now also my sister and mom tradition is the mad wrapping of gifts on Christmas eve. Its a good Christmas eve if we weren't up till 4am wrapping gifts. lol 

[faeryfrog]

We are doing Elf on a shelf this year, the kids love it!
We have 2 advent calendars, one with small trinkets, and the other has little notes with instructions (bake cookies, watch a Christmas movie etc).
We get together with the family for family gifts, chili and a cookie exchange on Christmas eve.
Christmas eve we combined traditions and we all open a gift with a new set of pajamas and we open the smallest gift hidden in the tree.

[1st_time_mom789]

 I would love to do Elf on the Shelf this year but DD is too young for it, soooooo this year we will be making cookies for our local police department and to my father's police station a half hour away. I will also be cooking Christmas dinner again this year. In my DF's culture, they always had Christmas dinner on Christmas Eve, so it was new to them to have dinner on Christmas Day (a tradition I have been doing since birth).

[Fairegirl33]

when i was a kid every Christmas was the same... same dinner, same place, same order of events... we even had our Christmas spots that we all sat in to open presents.. my mom and aunt would make all of us kids sit under the tree to take the annual picture in our dumb Christmas outfits and of course we hated it... but I look back and I have incredibly fond of these Christmas Eve nights.  I miss them terribly and look forward to when I can take my kids "home" to MA to spend it there to show them this traditional Christmas I had when I was a kid.

 At the end of every night... my uncle would tell us, no matter how old we got, "I hope Santa bring you everything you wished for"  <3

 My ex and I are divorced so the kids bounce back and forth during the holidays and to be honest it is very hard to build these kind of traditions.. this is the only downfall for me to this type of custody agreement.  I have tried and tried to build new traditions for us and just can't get it together....

 I think I am going to pick something and start it next week when they come home from their dads.

[CountryLayne]

DD and I are doing cookies, as we do each year. We have some regular stand-bys, but we also try one new one each year. This year we are doing it with my BFF and the child she took in, also my DD's age.

As a family we take a ride out of town for Mexican food, then we see Christmas light displays, and before heading home we stop for ice cream. Christmas Eve consists of pizza (leftovers are always left for Santa), church with the entire family, and beginning this year we will do new PJ's, hot cocoa and a favorite Christmas movie. This year will be "A Smoky Mountain Christmas", which is DD's favorite. DH has to work Christmas Eve, so it will just be DD and I this time.

We also spend a lot of time with the extended family- we are all very close. We have so far helped the grandparents set up their tree and decorate the house. Soon we will be getting together to make cookies and candies. December is a very special month for all of us. We are always together anyway, but we do extra things during the holidays.  :-)

[greenie63]

Ww have 2, the first is our christmas pickle, something my parents did when my siblings and I were young. The pickle is hidden deep inside the tree and whoever finds it, receives a special prize. I adjusted it to give my children turns finding the pickle and they each receive a prize once they find it. It's a tradition handed down from my German grandparents, this is what my pickle looks like: 

And "Festivus for the rest of us!" lol 

[mybabytristan]

we start with St. Nick..on december 5th we hang our stockings if you wake up and st nick has put something in your stocking it means youve been good and santa is coming. He always leaves a new ornament and usually a small toy or two. We make christmas crafts and homemade cards we also make all kinds of treats and cookies to give to people such as teachers graandparents the mailman etc

[shivasgirl]

we deliver Meals on Wheels Christmas morning. We also leave Santa a savory snack or meal instead of cookies since he gets them at every one elses house. The local newss shows Santa on the radar and shows him land at DFW airport at about 10:15 Christmas eve/...we give him about 30 minutes to reload the sled (he cant possibly carry ALL the gifts at once, he shipps them to local airports) then we go outside to look in the sky in the direction of the airport for the red ligt of Rudolph's nose. As soon as we spot it (and there is always a red light in the sky flying near the airport) we know we need to hit the bed quick because if Santa comes by the house and you are awake, he wont stop

[Mom2Boys9501]

 We buy ornaments. I know it sounds dumb but every year we all get to pick out an ornament for ourselves and I write that year and our name on it. It goes on the tree and when they are older they can see how their tastes changed. We have them all the way back to 1995 when my oldest was born.

We do gingerbread/men, bake cookies, watch all the Christmas movies, have hot chocolate (the boys do) and if there's snow on the ground I make them snow cream.

[la_bella_vita]

 We bake cookies, gingerbread house, decorating the tree, reading stories, singing certain songs, certain movies...