So, it's that time of year-Christmas time. I really want this time of year to be special for our children. Growing up in Utah, we had the snow to mark the season; it was so magical. Here in California, we don't have that. I remember bundling up and going to the Christmas tree lot that had trash cans with fires burning in them. We would then go home and decorate the tree together. I loved the "T'was the Night Before Christmas" pop-up book that we would read. I remember most years we would have an advent calendar to count down the days to Christmas. Every year we would write a letter to Santa and mail it to him. We would go to the mall to sit on his lap. We also got to see Santa again when he came to the ward Christmas party every year. I remember getting together with the cousins and Grandparents every Christmas Eve and acting out the story of Christ's birth. We would all dress up and read the story from the Bible. It was so magical going to bed and dreaming of Santa visiting our house and bringing the desired toys. We would leave cookies out for him and I would check in the morning to see if Santa had eaten them. One year I set out all of my dolls and stuffed animals on the couch so they could witness Santa's visit for me. We were not allowed to wake up Mom and Dad before 7 am. So, Brandon, Tami and I would sneak into the living room where the stockings were and ransack them at 5 am. At 7:00, we would wake up Mom and Dad so they could take us into the family room where all the presents were. Dad would go in to make sure there were presents and then we would go in and see our gifts. We were only allowed to open one gift at a time starting with the youngest to oldest. (we still do that now). Christmas day we would gather again and show off our toys and have a delicious meal. I loved Christmas as a child and have many wonderful memories.
So, does anyone have any special traditions that they love? I would like to start some with our family. We do go see the lights around town. We have made Christmas cookies to take to people. We made tamales last year for Christmas Eve and they were so good, I think we'll do it again. Those are just a few things we like to do. I would love some more suggestions.
Happy Christmas!
3 comments:
Leading up to Christmas we make a gingerbread house, complete with candy windows and lights inside. Christmas eve we always read the nativity story, the girls act parts. We also make home made pizza. One gift can be opened that night - usually jammies. In the morning Franz likes to make candied bacon - just roll in brown sugar and bake in the oven till crispy. Yum. That day we do a more formal dinner, roast game hens or such. In England on Christmas eve we would go to the cathedral for the carol mass. It was lovely. I miss that.
As I was reading your list, I realized that we have done all of our traditions already this year. (How traditional I am) We even went out and bought the Night Before Christmas and read it every night. Christmas is magical with little kids. I would like to figure out something service-oriented this year to do with the kids. We'll see you Friday! YEAH!
Here's some that we do...we usually make gingerbread houses the weekend after Thanksgiving with my family. We also read the nativity story and the kids act it out on Christmas Eve and we sing Christmas carols in-between...My mother-in-law put together a great program and I added some scriptures from the Book of Mormon that my family is going to use this year. I can email it to you if you want...send me your email. Also, we open one gift on Christmas Eve...when I was little we could choose any one we wanted, but I like the idea of opening pjs and wearing new ones for Christmas morning, so I've done that with my kids (makes for fun pictures too!). My Mom always had a wooden bed/cradle that we would get to fill with straw...when someone did something kind for us, we'd put in a piece of straw...we started after Thanksgiving and we had to make sure that we were able to get a lot of straw so Christ would have a nice bed for his birthday. A few times we also had a FHE in December and we would talk about what gifts we could give to Christ this year and we'd write them on pieces of paper and put them in a package to open on Christmas and we would share what we had written and let our family know how we had done as fas as accomplishing our gift. Also, we would always go see the lights at temple square, christmas street and christmas story street (but, those are in Utah). We also have a yummy breakfast casserole on Christmas morning...it's nice because you make it the day before and just stick it in the oven in the morning. Not sure if those are any new ideas really, but they are some fun ones!!! Sorry so long!
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