Now that I have a child it’s so easy to think back to the traditions that my own parents had for each of us come the holiday season. I have such a horrible memory when it comes to my childhood, I don’t know why maybe my long term memory just stinks but a lot of my memories do consist of the holidays. My daughter is a bit too young to start the Santa tradition seeing as I Christmas shopped with her for her own gifts and wrap them in front of her LOL!! But next year will be different, and I see my friends that have older kids having a blast. I can’t wait to bake cookies for santa with her, decorate the tree, make gifts together. That’s just some of them but I remember last year I was listening to the radio and the question was what was a tradition you started for your children when they were young, so I thought I’d share some that I found that seemed worth mentioning to you all. This first one touched my heart the most, I started this tradition last year when my daughter was barley 2 mths old. I think my favorite memory of my own Christmas was my father standing at the bottom of the stairs yelling “HO HO HO!!! HO HO HO!!!” or my sister coming into my room at the crack of down to open up the presents that were left in our stockings. (yes she is older but she always woke up before me!!) Then after we lost my father, the holidays got tough for my sister, my mom and myself, well really my whole family. It was hard enough to smile never mind do anything else so I started a tradition with my mom, aunt, and grandmother and every year we went down to this cute little store that sold hand made things and antique stuff. Every year the hospice team that we used towards the end with my dad would have ornaments that you could buy, write a message to your loved one and hang it on their tree, then a few days before Christmas we’d go pick it up and hang it on our own tree. I’m looking at one right now that I wrote in 2005. Then we’d all go out to lunch. We did it for a good 4 or 5 years, I’m not sure why we ever stopped…….
1.) Every year (I starated last year) I’m going to buy my daughter a different ornament, maybe even as she gets older she can pick out one she really likes, I’ll go back to that store and buy that ornament, wrap it, write the date on the tag and put it away. When she gets married or moves out I’m going to give her all the individual wrapped boxes and not only will she have a bunch of memories, and a peice of home with her, but she’ll also have all the ornaments she’ll need for her first tree. (That one made me cry last year, though now that I think of it I can’t seem to remember where I put last years ornament!!!!)
2.) “Santa Mouse would leave a Christmas book on my bed every day leading up to Christmas, and Mom and I would read them. Then Santa Claus would take them back when he visited so Santa Mouse could bring them to me the next year. I still have all those old books, and Santa Mouse will visit my daughter too.” — Anonymous (I’m thinking of doing this one for my daughter too.)
3.) “Instead of leaving milk with the cookies for Santa, we always left Santa a beer. Yeah, I know it’s weird…! I would even leave Santa notes saying to wait until he got back to the North Pole to drink it so he wouldn’t ‘drink and fly.’ ” —Ambsies (I like this idea and I think my hubby will too!!!)
4.) “Santa will leave magic dust (aka glitter) everywhere he walks in the living room. I always thought it was neat to see where Santa was in our house when I was younger. I hope my daughter feels the same way!” —DrinknDerive
5.) “My mom would go all out on Christmas morning and make a big breakfast — ham-and-cheese quiche and sausage crescent wraps and bacon. It made the whole house smell so delicious. Forget gingerbread and pine, to me Christmas smells like quiche and sausage!” —sasky (We always had Christmas breakfast at my grandmothers house and I will never forget that smell of her homemade sausage!!)
WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE FAMILY TRADITION??? SHARE!!
