[dspakowsky]

I bought a book called Creating Family Traditions. It has some neat ideas about making everyday a special day in your family.

One idea is to take a picture of your child on their birthday in a special outfit - your wedding dress, daddy's uniform, etc. Then each year you can see your child grow and grow.

Someone on another thread today mentioned their mother always got them new pajamas to wear for Christmas morning - I think that's a great tradition I can start.

In my family growing up, we opened presents Christmas eve, but that changed when I got married and my husband was horrifed by that. Ha! Now we open one Christmas eve and the rest Christmas morning.

What does your family always do that reminds you of the holidays?

In my family everyone drank too much and partied too hard. LOL I'm looking to go another direction...

[Mindybeth6]

Well you kind of already said it but here goes. Growing up I got to open up one gift on Christmas Eve and it was always a new pair of PJ's. ALWAYS. Now, when I got a hair older, like JR high, it became a new outfit to wear Christmas day.

We started this with Alec and of course now this year Mikayla. He opens up a gift on Christmas Eve and it's always his PJ's and they are always Christmas Themed...can't wait to get matching ones for my kids this Christmas...I have already been on the hunt for the "perfect ones." Alec and I always have a tradition of baking Christmas cookies as well. Of course I make more but him and I make cookies together, put them in tins, and they go to family members "from Alec" each year. He loves to do this and is always very proud of it. Last year we had him paint ornaments for family since he was 4 (had just turned) and now this year we will be continuing that. I plan on having him do ornaments each year now for his grandparnents and US and I will date them and each year of course hang them on the tree!

[IHOP]

for me growing up in a big italian family where - at my grandparents house on christmas eve for all the fish dinner

we opened one present on christmas eve

we attended midnight mass

we left out cookies and milk for santa

I plan on keeping up with Mass for the holidays, one present on christmas eve, cookies and milk for santa, all of us wearing matching pj's on christmas and taking a picture together in the morning, and having a nice breakfast after together.

I can't wait until my son is home and we have our holidays as a family - right now it's just me and my husband - pretty boring We need a baby to liven things up a bit and plus I want the house filled with toys!!!

[hesabanana]

As silly as this sounds, we always have pizza on Christmas Eve. When we were kids, we used to go to a particular pizza parlor that was open Christmas Eve. Once we moved, we kept up the tradition. My mother cooked a huge meal on Christmas day, and didn't want to cook Christmas Eve. We have kept it up, and my sister and her kids join us.

[LISAKAYE]

We made cookies every year, (ate too much raw dough and had a stomach ache). We also opened up one gift Christmas Eve, went to church at 11:00 pm and left Santa cookies and milk.

My DH and I always get a real tree, so we will continue to do that, make cookies and leave them for Santa, but I believe Santa is requesting a BEER with his cookies from now on.hehehe

Lisa

[CandaceT]

When my brother and I were little, we would write (or get help writing when we were too young to do it all by ourselves) a letter to Santa on Christmas Eve and leave it with cookies and milk. One year we left carrots for the reindeer. My Mom still tells the story about my Dad sitting there at midnight On Christmas Eve trying to eat all the carrots. She told him he could put them back in the fridge, but he insisted. Then Santa would always write us a funny note back. Sometimes his boot would still be in the fireplace. It was one of the best parts of Christmas morning, coming down to see the empty glass and cookie crumbs and read Santa's letter.

In more recent years, we always make homemade apple fritters for breakfast, and have lobster for Christmas dinner. (This is getting spendier the more kids we have and the larger our family grows, so it may not last forever.)

We also always read the Christmas story (basically Luke 2) out of the Bible before opening our presents. The kids get kind of antsy during this part (and, OK, some of the adults like myself too - LOL), but Nana insists. And she has a point.

[MNStarr]

Olivia gets new PJ's and opens them on Christmas Eve, then in the morning I take a picture of her sitting in front of the tree. I'm also saving the Pj's and ambitiously thinking of making her a quilt from the fabric when she is 18 and going to college.

We always go to the same place and pick out our Charlie Brown Christmas tree. The first year we were married I just chose a nice tree without looking at the price (oops), now we shop in the lot outside.

We buy a new ornament each year that represents something from that year.

Baking Christmas cookies.

Going ice skating on Christmas Day at my parents house.

[Mariais5]

As a kid, we always opened our gifts Christmas Eve too.. I don't like that, and we open our gifts now on Christmas morning.. Some of the things we do with our kids ~

Christmas Eve at Grandma's house with all of the cousins.. Then, we are starting our own tradition of going to Disney's Grand Floridian after that..

Cookies and milk for Santa. We leave oats on the front walk for the reindeer.. We put glitter in it so the reindeer will see it. after the kids are in bed, I sweep the front walk off.

Christmas morning ~ The kids empty their stockings first. Then, each child opens one gift at a time. We go oldest to youngest and then youngest to oldest.. With only 3 gifts each, this makes it last longer..

We usually have Christmas dinner at my SIL's or MIL's house..

When my Dad was living, he and my Mom would come to each of our houses on Christmas Day to see the kids and see what Santa had brought them.. I REALLY miss that.. :-(

[neenasee]

Christmas Eve we go go to 4:00 mass and then to my in-laws to celebrate with Grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins. We sing christmas carols as family members play their instruments. My husband comes from a very musical family and they all play something. Last year my daughter played the trumpet with them for the very first time. Me and my mother-in-law had tears in our eyes as the tradition passed on to the next generation. The rest of us play the bells, triangle, and sing.

We go home and put oats with glitter on the front walk so the reindeer can find their way, and leave cookies and milk out for Santa. In the morning we open our gifts clean up fast and get ready for a big Christmas dinner at our house with my side of the family. I love to entertain so this is the exciting part for me even though I am so exhausted by then (it doesn't help that the kids wake up extra early to see what santa brought).

[NeeNee]

On Christmas Eve day I always make two different kinds of soups, one being Manhatten Clam Chowder that cooks in the crockpot all day. It's a quick meal since we leave for Church right after dinner. I think the kids have come to look forward to that smell on Christmas Eve.

We hang stockings and eat dinner, soups and rolls, and then it's off to the Christmas Eve Pagent where the children of the church are featured in the Story of Mary and Joseph. On our way home from Church we always take our time and drive out of our way a bit to look at all the Christmas lights in the area. Once home it's pjs, one present each, cookies for Santa, Christmas story and GOOD NIGHT!
In the morning the older kids come home, one with his wife, and then we open presents, we aim for one child at a time but with seven kids it's seems to take forever to get them open! We have a nice breakfast afterwards.

It's a wonderful time at our house!

[Dmitry'smom]

We have a few traditions, some we get to every year some we don't, we are kind of laid back. We have my neice and nephew over and we all play and make and decorate cookies about a week before Christmas. We have Christmas Eve at my moms and Christmas Day alone just our little family.

Every year we buy a real tree and then one the night we decorate it, i fix a nice meal and we wait until midnight before we start decorating the tree. It has been hard with young children but still done every single year since my husband and i got married. The funny thing was that we WANTED so badly to have our own tradition and then this one fell on us because our first year married we got in a silly fight and didn't decorate the tree until late that night...Oh, and we always use the same Angel on our main tree, she is 14 years old and I bought her for a few dollars because someone dropped her and broke her head, We were so poor that i bought her and i glued it together we smile every time we see her, it reminds us how fair we have come and how sweet the hard times were.

hbf

[Michelle Smiles]

My family always has spaghetti on Christmas Eve (started when my mom was a kid) either before or after Christmas Eve services (preferably with a hand bell choir and candlelight service).

But my most favorite tradition has to be reborn in a new form this year. Every year in my memory, my father has read me 'Twas the Night Before Christmas before bed. My parent divorced when I was young and if I wasn't with him on Christmas Eve, he would read it to me over the phone. During my teen years I suppose I mostly kept it going for his sake in my head. As an adult, it again came to mean more to me than he probably ever knew. I remember calling him from semi-wild Christmas parties (I would borrow the phone and find a quiet spot) because I couldn't miss the tradition. My father died 2 weeks before Christmas last year. I had several people, including my mom, offer to pinch hit. I politely declined. I decided it was time for me to become the grown up/parent since my dad was gone. Since my daughter wasn't home for me to read it to her, I read it to my husband. This year I will read it to my daughter and hopefully begin the same tradition with us that I shared with my dad.

[Mom2princess]

We also buy a real tree. We also buy ornaments that mean something to each other through out the year. We have some from the places we have lived, the things that mean something to us. Ever since our dd joined our family we buy her two ornaments one from each of us. Last year we bought her a barney one and a friend hand painted a tricyle with her name on it and the date. She was into barney and learned how to ride a tricyle. This year she loves the color pink and I want to give her one that says"I'm a big sister". This way when she moves out and has her own tree she will have her ornaments

[Larue]

We chopped down and decorated our tree a few weeks before Christmas. It was a family outing to the same tree farm in the country. And we had dinner at the same restaurant the evening. We always baked cookies to leave out for Santa on Christmas Eve day. We also had the PJ tradition, which was the gift we opened on Christmas Eve and wore to bed. One of our gifts from Santa was always a board game for the whole family, which we played while in our Christmas PJs. We also always watched "It's A Wonderful Life". My siblings and I and have the dialog memorized. I love Christmas!

[dac_cincy]

Christmas eve, we go out to dinner at 3 pm as a family. Then in the evening, we go over to my aunt's house and Santa comes for the younger kids (Aidan will be one of the kids this year!!!!!). Santa hands out one present that the parent(s) have provided. Then my grandfather hands out gifts Then we all give our gifts to him.

I used to stay at my parents house on Christmas eve since my mom never wanted me or my brother to wake up alone on Christmas morning (we're both single), we would open presents with them, then pile presents in to my car to go over to my sister's house for Christmas with her family- the only grandkids in town. Then we head home to my parents for naps and a lazy Christmas day of watching the new DVDs or videos we got.

This year though, they are all coming here. Aidan and I will wake up and have breakfast and I will give him our special family present. Then, hopefully, the rest of the famaily will arrive before he destorys the tree and mayhem will ensue with the gift giving to Aidan (even though I have told them all "he does not need anything"). I want to put the Christmas tree up one day when he is at daycare so he comes home and sees it- but I am not sure I can swing it.

Love to you,