I admit it…My tree is still up, my Christmas lights are still on outside and I’m not ready to accept the fact that Christmas is over for another year. I just love Christmas and I love making Christmas memories with my boys! I probably should have shared this a week ago but we’ve been having too much fun playing at grandma’s house in the snow.
Christmas Traditions
We don’t go overboard but we have a few fun things we do to get us in the Christmas spirit.
We start December by counting the days until Christmas with our magnetic Nativity advent calendar. I love that it helps my boys remember the reason for the season everyday of the month and the boys make paper countdown chains that they use to decorate their room. For some ideas on how I help my kids keep Christ in Christmas visit: 8 Simple Ways to Keep Christ in Christmas.
My boys are also insistent on decorating a gingerbread house. One day I’ll get up the courage to make them from scratch (Oh, who am I kidding. That’s never going to happen. 😉 ) but for now the Gingerbread house kits will have to work. This year we found a Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer Gingerbread House Kit
with gummy critters that we got a chuckle out of because they were a little pretty ridiculous.
We always go on a Christmas light hunt to find as many Christmas lights as we can and of course we blast the Christmas tunes as we go.
And if we get lucky we might just run into Santa. (No sure if he was trying to be “scary Santa” or what but I think I’d be a little worried to sit on his lap. hehe)
Who the heck are you??
When I was young on Christmas Eve my mom would make soup and we would gather together for a little family program and as kids we would act out the Nativity. It’s kind of hard to act out the Nativity in a family of all boys. We did get together with some cousins this year and I have one niece who could play Mary and my little munchkin was the Baby Jesus, except he kept crawling away. 🙂
The main tradition I remember from growing up was my parents would always give us Christmas pajamas on Christmas Eve and then we would all gather around the recliner and my grandpa would read us Twas the Night Before Christmas. Every time I read that story I think of my Grandpa and miss him.
We used to travel to my parent’s home on Christmas Eve every year but as my kids have gotten older it became to hard to travel with all of their presents. I wanted my boys to continue the tradition of hearing their Grandpa rea to them so last year my parents gave us a recordable version of The Night Before Christmas with my dad reading the story and my boys love it. When I pulled it out this year my 4-year-old was listening to it and suddenly said, “Hey, that guy sounds like Grandpa!” So fun for them!
Then of course we set out Santa’s cookies and my boys like to leave him a little something for the road. This year it was a box of Whoppers. 😉
Then it’s off to dreamland for them so Santa can come as soon as the sugar plums are dancing in their heads.
For Christmas morning we always have Christmas tree French Toast as soon as we can pull the boys away from their new toys.
To learn how to make this fun Christmas Breakfast visit: Christmas Tree French Toast.
And then we normally spend a relaxing day playing with toys but this year, due to all of the storms in the forecast, we loaded up the van and headed to Grandma’s on Christmas day so we could play in the SNOW!! (and not have to drive in it!)
Just looking at that makes me COLD!
BRRR…..This desert rat enjoyed our trip and was ready to head home to warmer weather but the boys had a blast and they have the greatest grandpa in the world who spent hours outside with them while I sat inside bundled by the fireplace.
We are now four days into the new year so…maybe it’s time for the Christmas decor to come down. sigh…
What are your favorite Christmas traditions?
For more fun Christmas ideas you might like:
Aw, I love the idea you’ve got of recording the Night Before Christmas, what a wonderful way to capture a memory!
They’ll be able to listen to their Grandad when they’re old and reminisce their childhood 🙂