Many of our holiday traditions happen at Christmas. Most of them have been around since I was a little girl and before and some we’ve started with my family. Because I love them so much, I’d like to share them with you.
Christmas light looking. Several times during the season, we take car trips long and short to check out the local neighborhood’s Christmas lights. Sometimes we take a friend along and sometimes we take homemade cookies to eat. There are some houses that we can get out and walk around. These are our favorites! But we really enjoy just driving around listening to Christmas music and seeing the different decorations and lights.
Funny Presents. This one dates back to my mother’s side and my grandmother use to do these when my mother was a little girl. After Christmas dinner, we all get a “funny present”. It can be anything, something you buy or have around the house, but it has to come with a little note. Some years it’s tough to come up with them and some are not as funny as others. One year my youngest stepson Adam always wanted to play with Hunter’s baby toys, just to annoy him, so I bought him a baby toy. Another year I bought Hunter a ‘Girl” toy. (he did not get it, but we did) I’ve bought T-Shirts, fake teeth, books, bouncy balls. I look for these gifts year round. It’s not so much the “gift” as the funny note that goes with it. Everyone loves to open their funny presents and we all look forward to it.
A newer tradition is feeding the reindeer on Christmas Eve. I got this one from a friend at work. You take oatmeal and glitter and mix it up. After we put out the milk and cookies for Santa (another tradition, one year I left him a beer) – we take our reindeer food and sprinkle it out side in the lawn. The reindeer eat the oatmeal and the glitter helps the reindeer see the food. In the morning the oatmeal will be gone and the kids think the reindeer ate the food. It’s a cute tradition that the kids like to do. Just another piece of magic.
What our your family traditions?
I have a few more, but will share them in another post coming up soon.
Aww…how cute! This is our first Christmas season with our daughter, and I can't wait to see what traditions it brings! We'll definitely be doing a bit of holiday light seeing also!