A Few of Our Favorite Holiday Traditions

Happy Thursday!!  The holidays are my absolute FAVORITE time of the year!  I love everything about it...the decorations, the food, the music, shopping...everything!!!!  But my favorite things are the traditions...to me those are the most important.  I hope that one day my children carry some of these on with their own families.  For 31 years we did the same thing on Christmas Eve, and it was my favorite day of the year, it even was better for me than Christmas morning!  Then, we moved away from family and it was time to start some new traditions..I absolutely love where we live, but I do miss my family terribly, especially around the holidays.

 I was so fortunate to grow up with a very close knit family, and at the forefront of our family was my amazing grandmother.  Sadly earlier this year both my grandfather and grandmother passed away, I was so so lucky to have had both my grandparents in my life for 40 years, can you say BLESSED!!!  Here is a picture of my awesome grandmother...yes this is how she would arrive on Christmas Eve!!!!!

My Granny!!!!

Every year on Christmas Eve before we would have our meal, my whole family, it was about 20-25 of us would play a fun little pass around game that my grandmother insisted we do!  Everyone had to bring a gift, it had to be wrapped, it had to be under $5.00, and the item had to be red or green, it did not have to be a holiday item, just anything red or green.  As we would all sit around in a very large circle, I would read Twas the Night Before Christmas, and everytime I would read the word "the" we would pass our gift to the person sitting next to us (this word is used ALOT in this story), then at the end we all got to open the gift in our hand, it was always so much fun to see all the funny things everyone got.  Some of my past gifts have included red twizzlers, coca cola, green tree car air freshners, just to name a few.  We still do this every year, and it is one of my kiddos very favorite things to do.

Another one of my favorites also happens on Christmas Eve, every year after dinner, we let the kids open one gift, it is ALWAYS pajamas, they know they are getting pajamas, but every year they are super excited to gather round and open this one gift....

Making gingerbread houses is another favorite tradition of ours....so every year we buy the little kit from Target, and the picture on the box has that house looking oh so perfect, well, this is what ours pretty much looks like every year.

may not be perfect, but always fun!!!!

 Christmas Movies.....this is probably my most favorite!  I have a MAJOR love of holiday movies, I would watch them year round if my husband would allow it.  The Hallmark Channel is pretty much on non-stop at my house from mid November straight through until New Years Day.  I have seen most of the movies a hundred times, but they never ever get old...I can recite most of these verbatim, but I will still continue to watch them over and over again, year after year.  And what's even better is my love of Christmas movies has rubbed off on my kiddos...to me there is nothing better than putting on cozy jammies and getting all curled up on the couch watching a holiday movie.  My ALL TIME MOST FAVORITE Christmas movie ever, hands down is.....

I grew up watching this movie, and at 40 years old it is still my absolute favorite!!!!

Christmas ornaments....I love love Christmas ornaments, I was completely devastated a few years back after we had moved and realized one of our boxes containing some of our ornaments was missing, I searched high and low, and it was just gone, I cried for days, no joke, days....the box contained many of the ornaments the kids had made over the years, things that I could not just go out to the store and replace...ugh!!!  Our tree is a mish mosh of all different types of ornaments, we have lots of popsicle stick reindeer, quite a few bead candy canes, and I love them all!!!!  Of course my favorite ornaments are the ones that my children have made, but I also LOVE LOVE LOVE the ornaments that my hubby and I get each year...I am always super excited to hit that little ornament stand in the mall and pick out an ornament and have it personalized...I can't wait to be like 90 and be able to fill a tree with our special ornaments.

  

two peas in a pod:)

this is my favorite....our first holiday together...and the start of so many wonderful memories.

These are just a few of my favorite holiday traditions, and a few things that our family loves to do.  Of course we do lots of other things, bake cookies, visit with Santa, etc.  Santa is a pretty big deal over here with our little ones, and yes we LOVE presents and everything Santa, but I really try so hard to teach my children what Christmas is truly about.  I want them to always know how lucky and fortunate they are for all that they have.  

Would love to hear what some of your holiday traditions are!  Happy Thursday!!!!!