Calling for Christmas Traditions

Well, I need some ideas for some new christmas traditions. Since my Mom passed away from cancer a year and a half ago, our extended family stuff has sizzled. My husband is from Peru, and his christmas traditions revolve around it being summer, and he doesn't like to do much here. So, I am looking for some new ideas, espcially now that we have twins on the way and DD is soon to turn four years old. We always do Santa of course, but what are some other ideas? They can be before christmas, on christmas eve, christmas day, whatever. Thanks for your input! I look forward to your great ideas.

Carrie

how about baking cookies? growing up that was a huge tradition every year...make a variety!

My younger kids (almost 5 and almost 2) both love countdown calendars. They start on December 1st and you open a box or window every day until Christmas. We do them for vacations too and the kids wake up and get really excited to open a window. I just bought one from the school book fair with the Olive the other reindeer theme and it has a pop up section.

My FIL died 18 months ago too and it is hard to feel happy at Christmas anymore. This is only our second one but having to deal with certain things has been hard. I hope you are able to enjoy the holidays this year.

We do ugly Christmas  PJ exchange on Christmas Eve.  We open the boxes right before mass so we have something to wear that night and wake up wearing our fug horrid pajamas. 

The kids are too little for the PJ's to be ugly so for them we do cute Christmas themed ones instead. 

Thanks guys! The cookies are a good idea, so ae the calanders. I love the ugly PJ's too!!

We play games like dirty santa, exchange gag gifts, skits, sing christmas carols. My grandmother always made Christmas really fun with these activities. She passed away this pass July and we are going to do our best to make Christmas just they way she would have wanted.

This is what I plan on doing when I have kids, and do mostly now even though I don't have kids yet!:
Get a hot chocolate one night and drive around looking at houses with Christmas lights up, while listening to Christmas music! I have scoped out the "good neighborhoods" and we go there several times per year! My family used to do that when I was a kid and I always LOVED it and looked forward to it every year! We also had a couple drive-through light places that were really cool!

I plan on using some type of advent calendar with my kids.... you can buy the kinds with a candy that you open each day, or ones with a trinket toy, or I even saw a nice wood one with little drawers, that you could put your own treasures in!

I plan on having a small 3 ft. tree in my kids' room every Christmas! I plan on giving them one ornament each year that is special, so they will have a collection to put on their tree every year! Then when they leave home, they will have a nice collection of ornaments to put on their family tree! I still have yearly ornaments that my grandmother made for me when growing up! She always put the year on the bottom of them. They are so special to me!

Lastly, I plan on taking a family photo in front of the tree every year, and putting a wallet size copy in our Christmas cards! This will be my husband's and my first Christmas as a married couple, so we are starting the picture tradition this year! We are also starting our own yearly ornament tradition this year too, for us!

I love Christmas time! Its the traditions that I remember the most from my childhood! Have fun with it!

My Mom has always gotten me new PJ's on Christmas Eve. WE have also always made cookies together. She has done the Advent calendar in the past too.

I think anything that gets the entire family involved and reminded that family, friends and love are the reason for the holiday (instead of presents) is a great thing!

Have fun with it!

Liz

We do the PJ's, make lasagna on Christmas Eve night, and have sleepovers with my sister and her husband...so that family gets to be together. We plan on doing this even when we have kids....

My parents divorced when I was 5 so we don't have many traditions.  One traditon my mom held onto as we were growing up and kind of fell away when my brother's kids were born is read the Christmas story before we open our gifts.  We also would drive around neighborhoods and look at Christmas lights. 
Now we get together and eat a meal, then open gifts.  One tradition I have started is making peanut butter cups before Christmas.  Before I got married, my mom and I would make peanut butter cups and different candy to eat.  We would take it to her family Christmas for everyone to snack on.