Christmas Traditions

Growing up we had holiday traditions like decorating cookies, picking out the tree, seeing the lights, going to church, visiting relatives and opening packages on Christmas morning.

Now that I'm grown with my own family and my grandparents have passed, it is time to create new traditions for my little family. I found some cute ideas in Family Fun magazine that might inspire new traditions in your family this holiday season:

1. Wrap your packages in brown craft paper and then let your kids decorate them. I love this idea especially for keeping kids busy on rainy days. You'll have to be able to handle some "creative" packages under the tree though.

2. Select a name of a family member and then come up with a gift for them that doesn't cost any money. On Christmas Eve, turn on the video camera and let each person present their gift. It could be a song, poem, craft or anything they come up with.

3. Have an Annual Christmas Movie party. Invite friends over, let the kids wear pajamas. This would be so easy and fun. You could put out movie snacks, pop some popcorn and turn on different Christmas movies in different rooms depending on the age groups.

4. To contain the package opening madness on Christmas morning, instead of gift tags, put a family trivia question on the box. Read the trivia question and the person it pertains to is the recipient of the gift. What a great way to teach younger generations new and interesting things about their relatives.

5. Instead of candy in the advent calendar put slips of paper for activities that you can do together. You could bake cookies, make hot chocolate, decorate cards, read a Christmas book, watch a holiday movie, or go shopping for Toys for Tots.

6. Here's a holiday shopping tip to keep you on budget. Write an index card for each person you need to buy for and make a list of what they like. When you purchase a gift make a note of it on the card along with how much you spent. Then you can keep track of your purchases and your expenses.

7. One more idea that was featured in Family Fun magazine that I absolutely loved was the adorable graham cracker gingerbread house they featured using healthy snacks. They used peanut butter to hold it together, and added raisins, Chex, pretzels, Cheerios and other dried fruit for decorations. I think this would make for a great after school play date, snack/activity.

What new or old holiday traditions do you enjoy?

Posted by Liz