December 5, 2013

Christmas Traditions

Growing up every family has it's holiday traditions.  Whether it's taking a trip to visit Santa, doing a advent calendar or entertaining that mischievous little Elf on the Shelf.  When I was little we didn't do much besides the honorary decorating of my mom's famous silver/gold/crystal tree which required hanging 5 million crystal angels which we all dreaded.  Other than that we were pretty ho-hum until Christmas morning when my DAD would wake everyone up.  Usually it's the kid{s} waking the parents, not at my house.  Five in the morning my dad was up, coffee was made and Christmas music was playing throughout the house.  By 9 o'clock we were all ready for a nap.

When I got married and Jimmy and I got ready for our first Christmas there were lots of decisions, important decisions, to be made.  Colored lights or white lights?  Real tree or fake tree?  Do stockings get presents?  Some "fights" he won, some I won but coming up with our own family traditions was fun.

SO...

Do you/Santa/Santa's Elves wrap presents that are under the tree or are they put together, ready to play with when your littles wake up?  I had never heard of presents NOT being wrapped until a couple of years ago.  All presents were wrapped and under the tree when I woke up on Christmas morning.  The only thing I can remember NOT being wrapped was my Barbie Dream House which my dad had stayed up until wee hours Christmas Eve to put together.

What about your tree?  Real or fake?  Growing up we always got a real tree.  Sure it sucked stomping through the snow but that was part of making memories.  Our first Christmas we froze our butts off with a brand new Kendall in the Moby.  The following year my grandma gave us a very nice, fake tree and we never looked back.  Sure I miss the smell of the fake tree but I don't miss the mess and I can get a Yankee candle that smells just like it so win, win in my book.

Do you put presents in your stockings?  I have always had real gifts in my stocking.  One year I even got a Tiffany necklace in my stocking!  Jimmy always got small things, candy, ornaments, gift cards, etc.  Now we do a combination.  We don't put extravagant gifts in the stockings but sometimes I like to still put one "good gift" in there for a surprise.

Now the great light debate.  Jimmy likes colored, I like white.  I win.  Well on the tree anyway. We compromised that we'd do white lights on the tree and colored lights on the house.  That's fine by me, as long as he doesn't mix colored AND white lights outside, that I cannot handle.  Either all colored or all white, no mixing.

What other traditions do you get into?  Do you open a new Christmas book every night?  Get new special Christmas PJs every Christmas Eve?  Do you make an ornament each year?  I'm always looking for new ideas and traditions to start now that we have our little family.

16 comments:

  1. We do real (I Love the smell). Lights change each year. Last year we had a Ravens tree (purple lights, black/gold/silver/purple balls). This year the house is in white lights, so the tree is colored. If it were up to Dave it would be every light ever made..anywhere (bless his heart). We do unwrapped under the tree. Christmas eve, we do pajamas and those are wrapped.

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  2. Stockings...I forgot. That's usually candy and little things (last year we put in bottles and what not). This year I hope there is wine in mine ha and D's will have a new toothbrush, candy, some dvd's, etc

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  3. We do one santa present. I decided I still want some credit and while I like Santa and am ok with doing Santa, I don't want to overdo it. We also initiated the '3 gift rule' this year. Not the whole "need, want" thing but 3 fun things they'd really really like. We had gone overboard in the past. We do stockings, for everyone. Each thing IN the stocking is wrapped separately (that's my husbands tradition..>I hate itttttt ohhhh the wrapping). We do a fake tree, because honestly, in this house it would be insane to do real. Plus, I'm really OK with fake. I really am. It's pretty and predictable every year. And white lights. Always white.

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  4. This year we got to have the discussions about Cmas decorations. Thankfully we agreed on colored lights, but bf refused to buy LED, it HAD to be the traditional lights.

    The tradition my family always did was read the story of the birth of Jesus in the Bible. My mom tried advent candles and candles (being a good Catholic and all), but as kids we were never really interested.

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  5. I saw this thing on Pinterest with the Christmas Eve gift, with the new Christmas PJ's a movie and popcorn to open on Christmas Eve. We're going to do that this year for Chloe. I'm pretty excited about that. Other than that, we're not really doing anything exciting. We started the Elf last year, and I've been a lot better about moving her this year than last....we do stocking gifts....and all presents are ALWAYS wrapped...with the exception of big stuff, that needs to be put together :-)

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  6. all of the gifts under the tree come from us, anything in the stocking comes from Santa (little things nothing huge). we prefer to take credit for the gifts and teach that Santa is a cool guy, but not the reason we celebrate Christmas.
    I grew up with a fake tree and my hubby grew up with real. the last 4 years we have always had fake and it will stay that way. I dont do the watering and cleaning up that comes with a real. plus our fake is so full and green, the real one never look that good.
    we have always done all colored on the tree and house until this year. all colored outside, and a mix of LED color and LED white on the tree. it is amazing what a difference the LEDs make and how they brighten everything up.
    as for other traditions: Marissa gets jammies every Christmas Eve (a tradition my mom did for us kids) and before bed we watch A Christmas Story (something my dad always did) and on Christmas Day we stay home and watch Christmas Vacation while Marissa naps :) my mom also gets each couple and each grandkid a handmade ornament and a Hallmark ornament each year.

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  7. We have a fake upstairs and a real one downstairs.. I need the real smell of one! We are doing elf on the shelf.. 25 days of Christmas books.. And we take our oldest to pick out a toy to donate.. Oh and we always always bake cookies...

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  8. We have a fake tree, my husband is dying for a real one but I always win that argument because you can't keep a real one up for as long. He also like colored lights and I like white, so this year we compromised and did both outside, on the tree only white! All presents are wrapped though this year we are getting my son a glider balance bike so that I think we may leave unwrapped but put together with a bow on it. Stockings are for smaller gifts.

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  9. I decided to do things a little different with my son. Mom and Dad give you almost all your gifts wrapped under the tree and Santa brings one or two big things (usually the big ticket item). Sometimes it is wrapped sometimes not, but always put together when given by Santa.

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  10. We don't put any gifts under our tree until Christmas morning. It started out because we had a naughty puppy but we kept it going because even as a teenager they get so excited to see all the stuff under the tree on Christmas. I love that look on their faces when they see it!
    I refuse to have colored lights in the house but just like you I let Todd do his thing outside. Absolutely no mixing colors & white lights!

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  11. Fake tree, although I want a real one so bad. White lights on the main tree, colored on my Gma's old old OLD tree from the 50's or 60's (that's what was always on it when it was hers so couldn't break that tradition), stocking stuffers are not wrapped but range from inexpensive 'fillers' to actual gifts that fit (cologne, a CD, etc), Santa's gifts are wrapped and in a particular way -- the paper has him on it, and not cartooney but as real looking as possible, and they are decorated as fancy as possible (growing up Santa brought gifts wrapped only in tissue paper and a sharpie marker was used to write our names on them). This year the boys are getting a big basketball arcade-type game from Santa so that will be put together in the basement with a big bow on it. Hmm, did I forget anything?

    We don't do gifts the night before b/c we are at my parent's house celebrating and opening gifts there after going to Xmas Eve mass with the whole family (we have a 5:00 mass). By the time we get home it's past the boys' bedtime so no time for more gifts. They don't even put cookies out, my husband and I do that for them. Lame, I know.

    One of our traditions is watching all of our Xmas movies together on the weekends leading up to Xmas. We put on the fire, make a simple supper and sit in front of the tv together watching our movies. We read all of our Xmas books together throughout the month. We celebrate Advent and talk about the real meaning of Xmas. We visit Santa. If the weather is decent we attend the town's lighted Xmas parade. My mom's side of the family does s/t called 'Tree Hopping'. We go from house to house on one Sunday afternoon and look at their trees and eat snacks and just hang out. It's a fun way to be Xmasey but not exchange gifts, it's all about being together as a family.

    Sorry, this was a post in itself! :) Sounds like you guys have fun traditions you do and are passing on to your kiddos. Have fun with them!

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  12. We do white lights on the house and on 2 of our 3 trees. We recently bought our third (fake) tree and it is the "kids" tree so it has colored lights and TONS of colorful ornaments. :)

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  13. Real tree. Always! Santa comes with presents, with moms writing ;) We also do stockings with every wrapped with mostly fav candy, gum and toiletries.

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  14. I grew up in the 1950's and we didn't have any holiday traditions. We were just happy to get A present. Not like kids today who are so spoiled and needy. And believe me, I know that, because I spoil them!! We used to always do a real tree and it was such a tradtion to go to the farm and cut it down ourselves. My husband and I loved it...the kids not so much. The lights on our tree have to be colored (that is husband, not me). Everything that Santa brings is not wrapped and the things from us are. And just fun stuff in the stockings. But always a new toothbrush!

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  15. Growing up, my family did all of our family gifts on Christmas eve (one before church the rest after) and Santa came on Christmas morning with wrapped gifts. Then we got together to play this game with silly gifts and dice. In our new little growing family, we do it all on Christmas. We go to church together on Christmas eve and then come home and make cookies for santa. My husband and I have decided to stay home for Christmas even though our families live about 1-2 hours away. We invite my mom to come up mid morning on Christmas. We just like the idea of it just being the four of us for a little while. He never had Santa gifts wrapped, so we have carried that on since we open other wrapped gifts later in the morning. Santa usually brings the best gift and we give a few too. Stockings have mostly goodies, but a few better things-like a cd or a movie or gift card.

    Our tree is real. We cut it down the weekend after thanksgiving. We make a little trek to the mountains to get it. We use white lights. We both had colored growing up, but my mom switched to white when I was in my teens and I like it. We do use colored lights on the outside because they're a lot more festive. Our ornaments are collected over the years from trips and family memories. When we get a bigger house one day, I would love to have two trees. Though I love a real tree, I would probably do the second one as an artificial just for ease-and I like being able to leave it on all of the time without fear. I would probably put colored lights on it for nostalgic reasons.

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  16. I wrap all the gifts and have them under the tree but we don't do Santa so it's not like they magically appear. We have a fake tree even though we always did real growing up. I'm just not a fan of the real tree. I am a fan of clear lights rather than multi colored lights. I don't mind colored lights but only one color. I have blue lights on my deck but clear lights on my tree. I also do small gifts in the stockings. I have stockings for everyone but I'm not sure why I have one since my husband never fills it! He isn't a big fan of Christmas so buying gifts at all is a big deal for him let alone having to fill a stocking. I'm looking for new traditions to start with my family too. I think I'm going to start the Christmas Eve box which is filled with little goodies like a Christmas move, PJs and snacks.

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