Our Top Ten Traditions
I love the feelings and memories that come with traditions. There have been a few that I realize weren’t the smartest to start. What seemed like ‘just a little work’ for one son magnified with three. Unfortunately, those are the ones my boys seem to love the most! Homemade decorated cookies-on-a-stick for Valentine’s Day? A scavenger hunt complete with five rhyming clues (multiply that times three) to find Easter baskets? Those weren’t very well thought out!
Here’s a list of our family’s top ten Christmas traditions that we all enjoy:
1. Wrap 25 Christmas picture-story books. Open one and read each night before Christmas.
2 Advent readings each night.
3. Real tree bought at Lowes on the first Sunday evening in December. Supper afterwards at favorite restaurant.
4. Each boy picks out his own wrapping paper for his gifts to be wrapped in.
5. Christmas Eve brunch with Meisinger family.
6. Christmas Eve service at church, complete with treat bags filled with peanuts, one orange and some candy.
7. New PJ’s for each boy opened after getting home from church on Christmas Eve
8. Box of sugar cereal with each boy’s stocking for him to enjoy during Christmas break.
9. Christmas Day at my parents home with my brothers and their families.
10. Taking the tree down before Dec. 28th birthdays.
Each year the 365 days go by quicker and the traditions become more precious as the boys grow older. It’s always my hope that at least one of these traditions will be continued in their own homes someday.
I hope you’ve had a wonderful Christmas and I wish for you blessings in the coming year.
Sara
Wow, Sara, you must be exhausted by the end so the year!
December 29th always looks pretty sweet!! The tree is down, the birthdays are over and it’s time to do NOTHING!! Happy New Year, Vera!
Wow! I love some of your traditions…wish I’d thought of them when my kids were small!! I love the idea of wrapping 25 of your Christmas books to read……no fighting about who gets to choose!! And letting them each choose their own wrapping paper….what fun! I used to wrap them all the same and then not put names on them until very close to Christmas. I’d have to hide an initial on the package somewhere to remind myself who it was for. The box of sugared cereal is very unique!!!!
I know I’d forget where I hid the initial if they were all wrapped in the same paper!! It’s fun watching them decide on their paper–who would think they’d get a kick out of that? We’ve had to change a few books over the years, but for the most part it’s the same ones. I think we’ve all got our favorite one and we look forward to finding that one in the pile! Happy New Year, Jeanie!
Very fun! I love the sugar cereal idea.
This year they all got Cookie Crisp. What respectable mother would buy 3 boxes of that stuff?? But, they each wrote their name all over the box so NO ONE can eat from the other boxes! I was gone over lunch today and when I asked if they had lunch Isaac said, “Yeah, cereal.” Cookie Crisp for breakfast and lunch…wonderful!
What fun, Sara! I don’t know how you have the energy….but then…you’re younger than I am. =)
It really doesn’t take a lot of time–we reuse the same books every year and the rest are just part of Christmas. The cereal means I don’t have to worry about breakfast all week and maybe not even lunch!! The tree coming down by the 28th insures that it’s not still up in February!
I don’t take my tree down until after New Year’s. It’s so pretty and makes the house so cozy, I hate to do it. I’d leave it up until February, if I could.