By Megan
Recently, Jennie shared some of our readers' favorite holiday traditions, and I thought it would be fun to hear from our writers too.
Emily said: My favorite is a fondue/movie date with my husband by the tree. We put the kids to bed early, have cheese fondue (we dip bread, summer sausage, apples and broccoli) on a blanket we spread on the floor, and we watch Love Actually and if we are still awake, we follow it up with another (sometimes Elf, sometimes Christmas Vacation).
Janet has two fun traditions that she's shared here on Style Lush. First, she and her husband have a holiday tradition of exchanging snowglobes and nutcrackers. Second, Santa delivers a bag of matching Christmas pajamas to her entire family on Christmas Eve after they leave out delicious, glittery reindeer food.
Hillary said: We BBQ cheeseburgers every Christmas Eve. Usually we're BBQing in the rain but a few years ago it was in the snow.
Jen shared that she's started a tradition of doing an Advent activity each day for the month of December leading up to Christmas.
Lawyerish said: Christmas, for me, is full of traditions from my own childhood that I am going to carry on with my family. On Christmas Eve, we go to an early evening church service (the kid-friendly one), then return home for dinner, followed by a reading of the nativity story from the Bible and of The Night Before Christmas as we sit by the Christmas tree. When my daughter is older, we will have her write her letter to Santa and leave it out with her stocking (on, um, our bookshelf, since we have no fireplace) alongside the cookies and milk for Mr. Claus (and carrots for his reindeer, of course). Then she will help bring out all the wrapped gifts (which will have been hiding in my closet) to arrange prettily under the tree. Christmas morning, all of the gifts from Santa will be in the stockings and larger items will be displayed around the room. We'll look at and play with all the Santa loot, then we'll pause for a bit of breakfast (probably sour cream cake doughnuts and some eggs and bacon). Then we will start the wrapped gift rotation -- each person takes one gift from under the tree (all the gifts from family and friends are wrapped) and we go around and open them one at a time, so it takes a nice long time and we can all admire each others' new stuff and see the reactions to what we bought for everyone else (in other words, we don't do the free-for-all Christmas; the mere thought of it makes me uncomfortable). Once the gifts are opened and the wrapping paper cleaned up, the rest of the day involves playing with new toys and trying on new clothes and, for me, crashing about in the kitchen to prepare the big celebratory evening meal. And then there is wine. The end!
Tara said: My sisters and I (currently sitting at ages 31, 26, and 17) started getting our picture taken together with Santa Claus about five years ago, as a joke/surprise for my mom. I live in Georgia, while the rest of my family is in Indiana, so pictures of the three of us together don't happen too often, and we knew she'd love it. She loved it so much, though, that she expects it every year now, so we do it on Christmas Eve when I'm home for Christmas and the Saturday after Thanksgiving, if that's the holiday I make it home for. Last year, we added my two-year old to the mix, as well, and I thought her head might explode from the excitement. Luckily, I'm from a pretty small town in Indiana, so there's not really much of a line when it comes to Santa at the mall, even on Christmas Eve.
Blythe said: My son and I make star-shaped sugar cookies the morning of Christmas Eve. It's a yummy project we love to make (and eat!), and it's a fun thing to do on a day that is sooooo long for a kid who can't wait for the festivities to begin, and for Santa to finally arrive.
Lauren said: My in-laws are both music teachers, and my husband and his brother are both excellent singers. Some good friends of ours, who join us for Christmas dinner, recently requested that we start doing a little carol sing-along after our Christmas feast. I've always wanted to do something like this, but am nowhere near as persuasive as our friend . . . so I'm so glad she asked to start this tradition. It's a new favorite for me!
Sara said: I have a goal of finishing my Christmas shopping my December 15th (a goal I have had for FIVE years and have not ONCE accomplished. I can always hope, though!) We get our tree and decorations up the firest weekend of December, while enjoying hot chocolate with LOTS of marshmallows and Christmas music playing. We have a cooking decorating party with friends in mid-december. Each year we get a new ornament for each child representing something special from that year. This year we picked a soccer ball for Noah and a Baby's First Christmas for Chloe. We also have an Elf on the Shelf (although he's been a lazy sucker this year.) The kids get holiday themed pajamas to wear on Christmas Eve, and Christmas morning breakfast is always homemade cinnamon rolls.
Christina said: We like to drag Christmas morning out as long as we can. We don't wrap Santa's gifts so they kids see those right away and we each open what is in our stockings. Then I cook breakfast while the kids play and after we eat we start with what's under the tree. The boys are 4 and 18 months so we let them play with each thing before moving on, that's when my husband and I will open our gifts. We know the days of everything being ripped into are just a few years away so for now we just want to sit back and take it all in while we can.
Elizabeth said: Our holiday tradition isn't very old, we just started it last year, but we loved it so much that we plan on doing it every year from here on out. We wake up and have Santa presents on Christmas morning and then we all head out to dim sum for breakfast. We have a great dim sum restaurant near by, so it's a five minute drive, and it's so nice to do something a little different than traditional Christmas food after a month of Christmas food. And plus, there's dumplings. You can't go wrong with dumplings.
As for me, Christmas Eve and Christmas day are such a whirlwind for us, because our families are all local, so we manage to see everyone. My husband and I have started to exchange gifts with each other on December 26th after the kids go to bed. I like that it extends the holiday a little bit longer, and that we have an at-home date night on a night we might otherwise just collapse into bed.
Thank you to all of our writers for taking the time to share your traditions!
{Photo credits: amazon.com}
