It is that time of the year again. My family LOVES the Christmas season and we try so hard to pack everything into these 24 days before Christmas! Sometimes it makes me go crazy, but I know my kids look forward to it every year because there is so much time spent together as a family. The longer I have had kids and the older they get, the more I come to realize that traditions as expected and loved not only by my kids, but also by me! So here are some of the traditions we do each year. I would love to hear yours as we continue to add and change as the kids grow!!
- Gingerbread houses
- Advent Calendars
- Making Sugar Cookies with Christmas cut outs
- Cookie Exchange
- Getting our Christmas tree, either from a farm or a local lot and decorating it the weekend after Thanksgiving
- Going to the Kids Christmas concerts
- Live Nativity (we didn’t make it to this one this year, but we do love it!)
- Christmas at Northwestern with college friends
- Canadian Christmas Train (we missed this one too 🙁 )
- Elf on the Shelf (Eskimo and Snowball are always getting into trouble!)
- Christmas Eve Service with candle lighting
- Rearranging the entire house to set up Christmas decorations
- Looking at Christmas lights in our PJ’s and drinking hot chocolate
- Dinner at a family friend’s home and White Elephant gift Exchange
- Celebrating the Winter Solstice by making snowflakes for our windows.
- St. Nick Day celebrated with oranges and candies
- Buying gifts for family members
- Getting cards ready to mail
- Operation Christmas Child
- Tree lighting in the park (we missed this one too this year!)
- Christmas Program at Church and with Grandma and Grandpa
- Giving neighbors baked cookies
- Celebrating Christmas and gift exchange with my college girlfriends
- Watching all the Christmas movies we can (our favorites: Elf, White Christmas, Muppets Christmas, Charlie Brown Christmas, Rudolph, Frosty, and the Nativity)
- Of course; the kids having a sleepover in one room and then opening presents at the crack of dawn in jambes while munching on cinnamon rolls, fruit, coffee and OJ!
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