Southern Living - Red Wine Sippin' - Wife - Mom of 3 - Jesus Follower- Mompreneur
Christmas Traditions
I love Christmastime. I think one of my favorite things about Christmas is all the many traditions it brings with it. Below are 8 of my favorite Christmas traditions:
1. Christmas Cards
There is something so very sweet about getting old fashion mail. I love sending and receiving Christmas cards. I actually have a fun tradition where I hang ribbons up on all my kitchen cabinets and hang each card that I get in the mail on the ribbon with clothes pins. They stay that way until after Christmas so I can look at all of them everyday and then I take them down, punch a hole in the top of them, and make a book out of a ring binder for them. We spend the next year praying for one family from our binder book each night. It’s such a fun way to remember to pray for our friends and family.
These year our Christmas Cards came from Tiny Prints. Tiny Prints has such an amazing assortment of Christmas and holiday cards to choose from…it took me a long time time to decide on which one I liked best but I ended up with the below and could not be happier with how it turned out.
2. Christmas Light Hayride
Every year we start the Christmas season off with a hayride on a trailer behind my dad’s truck on Thanksgiving night through a drive thru light display at a house near my grandmother’s. It’s such a fun tradition.
3. Santa
We love our Santa tradition. Our neighborhood has the best Santa that our HOA brings in every year to our clubhouse. This Saturday is the day Santa is coming and we couldn’t be more excited. You simply show up at the clubhouse and put your name on the list and then sit down and make Christmas crafts and have snacks and they call your name when it’s your turn. Perfect for little ones sense there is no waiting in line.
4. Elf on the Shelf
We have a love/hate relationship with this guy. And by we I mean my husband and I. He returns to our house the day after Thanksgiving and it is a daily victory for my hubby and I to remember to move him. The way it works in our house is the first day he comes he brings a small present (this year he brought the Little People Nativity) and then every day after that he simply moves. I try to do 5 or so days a little more creative but usually we are doing well to just move the guy. However, it is so magical to see the Elf on the Shelf through my little guy’s eyes. We watched the movie last night which I highly recommend by the way!
5. Decorating our Christmas Tree
My husband is the Clark Griswold of Christmas tree decorating. We always go and pick out our perfect tree and then my hubby comes back and makes it his mission to up his record as far as how many Christmas tree lights he can get on a tree from last year. This year he managed to get 2400 lights on our tree. It’s crazy. Then we decorate our tree as a family. We collect ornaments from all the vacations we go on and from milestones throughout our lives so we have a pretty fun collection to put up. We also every year get an ornament that is a photo frame with the year with a pic of our family to put on the tree so it’s fun to see how we have changed throughout the years. My husband’s grandmother started a tradition with her grand kids were every year since they were a baby she has given them one ornament a year and she gives them their collection once they get married so we have all of those to add as well.
6. Nativity
I have awesome memories growing up from my childhood of playing with the nativity we kept on our hearth so I spent the last two years in search of the perfect nativity that would allow my kids to do the same. I finally found it. It sits on our hearth and our little guy loves to play with it. My father-in-law made the stable for my birthday gift this year and the figures I found at a local antique shop.
7. Local Christmas Story Drive-Thru
Every year a local church puts on a drive thru nativity. We love to all get bundled up in our Christmas jammies and bring hot chocolate and go drive thru the nativity. We usually follow it up with driving through local neighborhoods looking at Christmas lights.
8. Christmas Eve
There is nothing quite like Christmas Eve candle light service to me. I just love it. When my husband and I first got married my mother-in-law came up with the genius plan to do Christmas on Christmas Eve so we don’t have to run from house to house. It works out so great. We get two Christmas mornings! We spend the entire day from early in the morning until late in the afternoon with my husband’s family and then go to candle light Christmas Eve service at church. We always do dinner with some close family friends and then go back to my parents house to spend the night.
What are some of your favorite Christmas traditions?
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