We buy a new ornament every yr. w/ the date on it.So, me & my husband have a ornament from 1996 (our 1st Christmas) till now.It`s pretty cool.
Can`t wait to hear everyone`s traditions.





Debbie

That's cute!

My family and I always eat ham for dinner even though no one likes it. We wake up and unload our stockings before opening presents. I sit on the floor and my parents sit on the sofa and I hand them their presents from under the tree.

On Christmas Eve it's my birthday and so there is always Pepperidge Farm cake. We listen to Christmas music in the evening and just hang out.

We also complain about the inevitable weight gain every year, but that's not a very memorable or fun tradition!

Every Christmas Eve we watch The Christmas Story on tv (I think it's TBS that does a 24 hour marathon?) and drink homemade hot chocolate.

I wish we'd done something sweet like the ornaments but we're about eight years to late for that now.

We make a huge feast on christmas eve - exactly what each person in the house wants. If I want shrimp, hubby wants steak and grandma wants spaghetti with meatballs - everyone gets it! Then we put all of our gifts under the tree and go to bed.

In the morning, we open all the gifts and go over to my aunt's house for the day!

I love, love, love Christmas so we have a LOT of Christmas traditions.

First, every time the hubs and I go on vacation we buy an ornament (except we missed buying one on our honeymoon cruise - big bummer there). So when we decorate the tree we have fun remembering what we've done together over the years.

We decorate the tree every year the weekend before Thanksgiving (the weekend of my birthday) while we watch National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, Elf, A Christmas Story and all kinds of other Christmas movies and specials. Once it's all decorated we go outside in the cold to admire our decorations from the street. Then we go back inside for hot cocoa and more Christmas movies.

On Christmas Eve we go to the in-laws for their annual Christmas Eve open house. It's lots of food (that one is going to be a bit tricky this year), fun and family. Since my father in law passed a few years ago, the hubs has taken over as the "host" - which basically means he makes the traditional Christmas screwdrivers (9/10 vodka w/ a splash of orange juice). He always gets a bit (or a lot) tipsy and I'm always the designated driver. LOL.

Christmas morning we get up, turn on the Christmas tree lights and exchange gifts while either listening to Christmas music or watching the marathon of A Christmas Story. We spend an hour or so just enjoying Christmas together before we head over to my family's celebration where the house is filled with siblings (I'm one of five kids), neices and nephews (I have 6). It's a crazy, loud, laughing celebration.

Since each of my boys was born, I have gotten them at least one ornament each Christmas. They both now have a nice collection....so many that I don't have room for most of MY ornaments..... When they marry someday they will take them with them.

My favorite new tradition is attending the Trans Siberian Orchestra concert here each December. This will be our fourth year in a row. It never gets old....it's just magical.

Ooooh Christmas time is HUUUUGE in our house. HUGE. We homeschool and take the whole month of December off just for Christmas stuff.

We do a Christmas related "study" every year. Oftentimes I have a craft 2-3 days a week that goes with it. Last year we were doign a study on the different names of Jesus. (Lamb of God, Alpha and Omega, etc). I would find a craft that we could make into an ornament. So now we have a small tabletop white "Jesus tree" with our homemade names of Jesus ornaments. I'm thinking this year we'll continue that study and add more ornaments.

We do a TON of baking. With a good portion of the candy, we do a "Ding Dong Ditch". We make platters with all the candy and baked goods, with a little special ornament, and a helium balloon. Then the kids will put the platter on someone's porch, ring the bell, and run as hard as possible. The kids LOOOVE this. Its one of their favorite traditions.

The kids get one gift on Christmas Eve. For a long time it was pjs. Now it's a game for the family. If we don't have Christmas Eve plans, the we have a game night.

We always go to a walk through Bethlehem. It's such a wonderful place to go visit, and I wouldn't miss it for the world. It's 1.5 hour drive, but totally worth it.

We always do a Count down prayer chain. The kids make links out of construction paper, and we write things that need prayed about (the kids always come up with this part). Then each day they remove a link, and we pray over it as a family. The last day is always on Christmas, and it's a prayer that everyone will accept Jesus' coming into their hearts.

The kids always write and perform a Christmas play.

They also pick a way of GIVING throughout the season. ONe year they made dozens of beaded angel ornaments, then we printed out a poem about Christmas angels to attach to it. They passed them out to strangers they came across during the month. People in Walmart, the fridge repairman (who came back a year later adn said it was the ONLY ornament his wife refused to put away!), just whoever strikes them. They haven't decided for sure what they want to do this year.

I try to do the ornament a year thing, but honestly I'm not great at keeping it up.

Up until last year, we always went to my parents house with my brother, sister, and their families on Christmas Eve. There are about 17 of us all together, if everyone shows up (some of the kids are at their other parent's house, sometimes). It usually lots of finger foods and we exchange gifts. Then on Christmas morning we do our thing here, singing happy birthday to Jesus, reading about his birth, and each kids recieve 3 gifts, plus a "Jesus gift" (which is always religious in nature).

Then we always went to my dad's family Christmas get together. He comes from a family of 9 kids. There are over 100 of us if we are all there. Some years we'd have a bunch of games, etc for everyone to do, and my kids would perform their play for everyone. My grandfather passed away last year, and it kind of fell apart. So I'm not sure if we'll do that this year or not.

I'm sure there is more, but that's all I can think of right now. LOL

i always set up the tree and decorations on thanksgiving (i usually have it off, but my hubby works so i make us a dinner and decorate while he's working and we have a quiet thanksgiving just the two of us).

hubbys family is so large that we do a white elephant game for gift exchanges every year which is fun- and of course any of the little kids get presents.

a good tradition from when i was a kid was my grandmother would get these magazines all year "the good old days" and another one i don't remember and she'd find some good stories from them usually the holiday themed ones and read them to us. that was nice, i miss her. <3

1. Have always decorated Thanksgiving weekend, 2. We have done our Christmas Dinner on Christmas Eve for over 20 years, 3. I too have bought a new decoration for the tree every year, sometime more than one. It has turned into the Mary's Angel collection from Hallmark now, I get the newest one every year. And Christmas is not complete without Christmas Vacation, Charlie Browns Christmas and A Christmas Story!

Too many to mention, but my favorite tradition is watching White Christmas on Christmas Eve. I sort of created this one out of thin air and had to spend several years wearing my father down before he would finally admit that it is, in fact, a tradition.

on our first x-mas together my SO invited me to his place for it. Christmas eve he had 'planned' to take me out to supper (such a bachelor) but being in a fairly small town nothing was open! We ended up getting hotdogs from a gas station and eating those in his tiny apartment! Now every year we have hotdogs for x-mas eve supper.

We do that also.. My daughter opens 1 gift christmas eve.It use to be pj`s.Now we let her open something we can all do together.Like a game or video game.And I also put our tree up the day after thanksgiving.I`m really enjoying reading everyone`s traditions!!



Debbie

i thought of two more. every year my hubby and i try to go to a show during the christmas season- a play or something, usually christmas themed. it's nice.

also i always watch Mixed Nuts every year. my favorite christmas movie.

Since getting married, my hubs & I have been making our own traditions each year. We watch Christmas movies throughout December. Exchange gifts 4 days before Christmas (because we're 5 and way too excited to wait, lol). Make gingerbread cookies & Christmas cake. And always mess up the turkey dinner (although, that last one is annoying, so we're just going to make a pizza this year, LOL!!).

Midnight Mass, the church has a really nice choir and a huge pipe organ. It draws a good crowd from the neighborhood, then walking home looking at all the Xmas decorations, is very nice. (I do remember one year -- it's a bit of a walk there from our apartment, and it just POURED the entire way there and after the mass back again, ha.)

I love going to watch the ice skaters (esp the little kids), and the craft fairs are fun too.

I'll be doing cookie baking for gifts (love that).

this year I'm at a different job, with a new boss and her family. very nice people. should add a new dimension to our holiday.