Christmas Traditions
Traditions are important. I never realized how important they were until my older children neared their teen years, and they began making sure all of our traditions were carried out even when I might have been too tired or overwhelmed to make them happen myself!
I remember one year thinking that maybe we didn’t really need to do our annual gingerbread houses. It seemed like a lot of work (even though we make them the easy way with graham crackers!), a lot of mess, and a lot of sugar. I casually mentioned the possibility of skipping them that year to my older daughters and they insisted that we couldn’t let the tradition die!
They assured me they would do as much as they could to help me. They set out the candy and helped make the frosting and helped with their little brother’s house when it was falling down! So now we’ve been making these since my older daughters were little girls, and they still look forward to it each year.
And then there are the Christmas cookies. We use the same recipe every year, and now my older girls mix up the dough and make the cookies and then help the younger children decorate them.
There were years when our cookies weren’t the most beautiful, when everyone was younger…but now they always look and taste delicious, thanks to the older girls.
In addition to the cookies, we also make chocolate-dipped pretzel sticks every year. These are so simple to make and our whole family loves them.
Every year we also make handmade ornaments to go on the tree. We also have some purchased ornaments, but the handmade ones are my favorite.
(This “Jesus” recycled quilt ornament wasn’t made by us, but I still love it!)
We also go out to look at Christmas lights every year, and then we come home to hot chocolate. Special Christmas books and a handful of Christmas movies are other favorite traditions, along with our advent celebration.
We always have breakfast casserole and homemade cinnamon rolls for breakfast on Christmas morning. Everyone looks forward to this meal every year! I love that both of these can be made ahead of time.
Traditions we make today help form the happy memories of tomorrow. In the past few years I’ve really seen how true this is. The things I did year after year, back when my children were all little and everything seemed hard—well, now I know it was all worth it. The flour-covered table, the sticky floors and doorknobs…all of that was leading up to children who now look back and happily remember all those messy craft and cooking projects!
What are some of your family’s favorite Christmas traditions?
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Dear Joy , my family's Crhristmas traditions are the Nativity set , a joyful Christmas tree and … we like homebaked cookies for the Christmas breakfast 🙂 !
I wish you and your family joy , peace and goodwill for the festive season.
A big hug ,
Franca
Thanks for sharing your traditions, Franca! My children would love the idea of cookies for breakfast! ♥
What a lovely blog I stumbled upon. Very inspiring! Christmas traditions here in Europe aren't all the same as where you live, like we don't really make gingerbread houses or put socks near the fireplace. We do celebrate 'Sinterklaas' on Decemember 6th, a saint that gives treat to good behaving children. We put our shoe near the fireplace, put in a carrot for Sinterklaas' horse and Sinterklaas gives some treats in return, to find the next morning, so I guess it's all the same in the end 🙂 I love your cookies, thank you for sharing!
So glad you came to visit today, and thank you for sharing your Christmas traditions! ♥