A word that is often thrown around with Christmas is "tradition." As excited as I am for Christmases "with kids," I didn't push too much this year. I do love the idea of traditions, however, I don't see the point until Penny can at least somewhat remember and participate - hopefully next year. I have been reading about some great Christmas tradition ideas on Pinterest and whathaveyou, so I'd like to post them here for future use. I can't imagine we'll do ALL of these, but I'm game for just seeing what fits into our lives when it's time.
- Get hot cocoa and drive around looking at Christmas lights.
- Watch "Elf" - the best Christmas move ever. Maybe add some sort of traditional snack.
- 12 days before Christmas - start singing the song and add a verse each night.
- Wrap up Christmas-themed books (even used... unwrapping is fun no matter what) - open one each night and read it before bed. Could do 25 like an advent calendar or 12 and do it with the 12 days of Christmas song thing
- Matching PJ's Christmas morning. If I ever get good with my sewing machine, I could make them myself.
- Read the story of Jesus's birth from the bible before dinner. My dad always did this, and I am honored to carry on this tradition with his bible.
- I'd also like to do other things to make sure my kids know the true Reason for the Season - but a lot of that may have to do with how involved we are with a church at the time.
- If I could ever convince Andrew to get a real Christmas tree again, I'd love to do the whole Christmas Tree Farm thing. I also have a feeling that I'm going to be one of those people that have multiple trees in various rooms...
- Open stocking gifts on Christmas Eve. We did this as kids and it helped tide us over until opening actual gifts on Christmas Day.
- Baking. Maybe bake goodies for the neighbors and deliver them? I just have this vision of a whole day (weekend?) having the house smell like cookies and cakes, with everyone pitching in and tasting along the way. Holidays are not for diets.
- Game nights. Invite lots of friends (ours and the kids), family and play Christmas Bingo, Christmas charades, and whatever other Christmas-themed games we can come up with. It would also be fun to have dollar-store mystery prizes wrapped up for winners.
- Some sort of volunteer work. I want to teach my children to give as well as to receive graciously.
- Christmas cards. We actually did send them this year. I'd love to get creative with the picture/design.
- I don't know about the Elf on a Shelf, perhaps mostly because I don't know about Santa Clause. Bah humbug, right? My thoughts are right now that I'd love to practice the Santa Clause thing, but with the children having the knowledge that he's not real (and seriously, don't tell the other kids). I really just don't want my kids to be greedy, and I don't think the Santa thing helps that. I also don't like the "you have to be good to get presents/naughty or nice" thing - kids should behave because that's the right thing to do, and they get presents because it's a holiday. I've never met anyone who has done it this way - but I would love to find one and ask how it is going. In my mind, naive as it may be, I feel like my kids won't be missing out knowing Santa is a fictional character.
Oh, and Merry Christmas from Andrew, Penny, and me!
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