Starting A Christmastime Tradition
People celebrate Christmas for many different reasons.
In some households, the celebration of Christmas revolves around religion and the celebration of the birth of Jesus. However Christmas doesn’t have to only be a religious holiday; many families choose to celebrate it because of something we like to call tradition. Traditions are the glue that holds the holidays together. Reflect on your previous holiday celebrations, I am sure you can pick out certain trends and traditions that your family holds on to each and every year. I am a big fan of traditions because I like going home to something that I am familiar with. Starting new traditions can be especially exciting if you are starting a family or have a young family. To give you an idea of some Christmas traditions to take on, here are a few of my favorite ones:
Getting a Christmas Tree
One of the most quintessential Christmastime decorations is the Christmas tree. If you haven’t already, start the tradition of taking your family to a pine nursery to pick out the perfect tree. For families that prefer artificial trees, you can make a tradition of decorating the tree (read below).
Trimming Tree with Ornaments
Once you’ve gotten a Christmas tree, you can start another tradition of decorating the tree. A great way to build upon the tradition is to spend time with the family by making your own decorations.
Sending Out Christmas Cards
Making a tradition of sending out Christmas cards is sure to make your loved ones feel loved. You can personalize the tradition even more by having your whole family make their own cards. Grandparents and other family members love receiving cards made by children!
Baking Sweets and Cookies
Each year, my family dedicates two whole days for baking. Each of us picks out 2 or 3 recipes that we would like to try out. We have a tradition of baking lots and lots of cookies and other sweets to help out with our tradition of giving out Christmas cookies.
Caroling
If you’re a fan of Christmas music and love to sing, consider taking you and your family caroling each year. There are many local groups, both religious and non-religious that go around neighborhoods, nursing homes, and hospitals to spread a little holiday cheer. Not only will this be a great new tradition for your family, but it will also teach your children the importance of giving to the community.
Taking Christmas Photos
As much as I dreaded taking holiday photos, I can’t deny that I always end up enjoying myself afterwards. Our family tradition is to take themed pre-Christmas photos so we can send out Christmas photo cards. But we also enjoy taking Christmas day and Christmas eve photos for memory keepsake.
Opening gifts Christmas morning
This is possibly every kid’s favorite tradition. In my household, instead of opening gifts first thing in the morning, we like to open them after breakfast. Our family enjoys photographing all holiday memories so it has become a tradition to try to capture the best and worst expressions come Christmas day.
Lighting up house with Christmas lights
Each year, there are a few houses that deck their houses out with as much lights, light up reindeers, and inflatable snowmen their yard can support. Our household has not picked this up as a tradition, but I imagine it would make a great tradition to take part in a friendly neighborhood competition.
Christmas movie/Disney movie marathon
Watching Christmas movies is a great way to get your family into the holiday spirits. Pick out a couple classics, a couple recent movies, and really any movies. Invite your friends, children’s friends, neighbors, whoever you wish.
Christmas Eve potluck
Hosting a Christmas Eve potluck has been a long tradition in our family. Food has the magical power of bringing people together. Instead of worrying about cooking up a stressful Christmas meal, our family cooks a few main dishes and has our guests bring the rest! It’s a great chance for families to bring their finest dish and for everyone to taste something different each year.
Author:
Emilie is currently living in Atlanta. In her free time she loves to blog on just about anything; she also loves fashion, photography, and fitness! Emilie’s favorite Christmas tradition is preparing Christmas cookies, fudge, and chocolate buckeyes with her friends and family. She hopes that everyone has a delightful Christmas of 2011, and a happy New Year!
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This year we started a new tradition of going to our local tree farm and cutting down our own tree. Definitely worth the experience. We got to take the dog and make a day of it.