Friday, December 5, 2008

it's the time of the year for traditions

...
What is one of your Christmas traditions?

We have a a few, but I'll just share one today. This is how we spend Christmas Eve...

We attend a Christmas Eve service and depending on the time of that service, we plan to eat dinner either before or after. We usually eat afterwards, but it's always dinner out at a nice restaurant. We then drive around (length of time varies) and look at Christmas lights and home displays. We try to find those houses that are literally dripping with lights and decorations. Some years we've done this in our pajamas with travel cups full of hot chocolate.

Once we get home, we each open one gift (our choice). By then, it's usually getting late and it's time to get to bed. We don't want to be up when Santa comes visiting.

Visit Kailani at An Island Life each week for Aloha Friday.

26 comments:

sues2u2 said...

I love Christmas dinner. Oh, the food is wonderful but the companionship is even better. All of the nieces & nephews not to mention my own kids, & the noise. Oh, the glorious noise!

Corrine said...

i think my favorite christmas tradition is getting new pjs christmas eve and then sitting around the tree playing eye spy with the ornaments, and then reading the nativity.

PMKU said...

One of my favorites is packing the family in the car to go look at Christmas lights.

MightyMom said...

actually these are the years that we are creating our traditions as neither of us had them before.

sues2u2...and the noise...the noise noise noise noise noise noise noise! says the Grinch :-)

Corrine, I've been thinking I would start making Christmas PJs starting next year to open on the Eve. What glorious Christmas morning pics that must make!!

Pamela, I've always loved looking at the lights. we're waiting a couple weeks till we get ours up (by then everyone else will have theirs up too) and then we'll go cruising and singing!

I think my fav tradition of recent years is the home made gifts/ornaments....and the new one of our Advent Calendar! :-)

Susan said...

This is a lovely tradition!!!
Susan

Jennifer said...

Letting the kids open a present {a board game/game} on Christmas eve and we play it as a family and Christmas dinner. =)

Momma Roar said...

I love your tradition. One thing I remember as a kid was staying up late with my dad to watch It's a Wonderful Life - I love that movie!!

Dee said...

we do fondue on Christmas eve then go to service at church!

Nina said...

We have a couple traditions. One is we go as a family each year and pick out our tree and decorate it together.
On Christmas morning my parents always come over to watch the Grandkids open presents.

Beth @ TheAngelForever said...

For Chanukah we always light the menorah and say the blessings with each other before having dinner. Then we get to watch the candles burn while we eat. Hopefully this year we can play the dreidel game with our oldest and also make come potato latkes from scratch (in the past we bought the pre-made ones).

Karen said...

Cutting our Christmas tree. It's a tradition that my husband loves and we've gone to different places throughout the years and made some good memories.

Heidi Jo Comes said...

as a young family, we are still in the process of developing our traditions. it can be tougher because we are kind of like the movie out now, "Four Christmases"...but part of our Advent tradition is our lighting of a purple candle each night around the dinner table and reading a devotion in relation to our jesse tree. the kids love being the one to hang it on the jesse tree, and the one to blow out the candle. we sing a little song every night together..."Stay awake, be ready, you do not know the hour when the Lord is coming..."

Abby said...

Unfortunately we have never actually been at out house for Christmas. We alternate between my parents and my husbands in Wisconsin and Texas, so it is hard to form traditions. We do enjoy putting up our tree together. It is so fun to unwrap all the ornaments and talk about where they came from. This year the G-man "helped". He found strange things around the house to add to the tree!

janetfaye said...

Our Christmas tradition is to celebrate Christmas Eve with a dinner and sharing gifts.

http://grammyjanetsplace.blogspot.com/2008/12/aloha-friday-3.html

Lisa C. said...

we don't have any YET...

Gem said...

Seeing the lights!

Melissa said...

We each open a pair of P.J.'s on Christmas Eve. I'm starting a new tradition this year that I'll blog about later :) I bought a bunch of ornaments that you can put a picture into. We're going to decorate them and then I'm going to let the kids go through all of our pictures from the year. They will each get to pick 2-3 pictures to have printed up. Then we'll hang the ornaments on a garland that goes around our front door. Like I said, I'm going to blog about it as soon as we have it done :)

Momstart said...

Going to look at christmas lights

Crunchy Green Mom - Suzanne said...

Traditions... we have oodles of them:

*Whole cloves inside of oranges and lemons

*Making gifts for Yule

*Decorating the tree (This weekend!)

*The newest ritual is the birthday tree and opening my 5th child's birthday presents before ANYONE can open Christmas gifts... she comes first.. then the rest of the unwrapping ;)

Tara said...

Well, I would really like to "create" some new ones since my son is 4 this year and might actually appreciate it lol Normally, we open one present on Christmas eve.. thats about it.. but I think this year we will do some new things.

MamaJoss said...

My little ones are celebrating their 1st and 2nd Christmas this year....we have quite some time to develop our own family traditions....However Christmas Eve we spend with our entire extended family on my dad's side feasting on Polish dishes and singing Christmas carols...then Santa visits!

Jenni said...

Christmas brunch at my house with my mom and dad! I look forward to that every day!

Jen - Queen of Poo said...

We drive around looking at Christmas lights too. It's something my parents did when we were kids.

Christine said...

That is exactly what we do except we don't eat out. We come home and cook up hot chicken wings and baby egg rolls and stuffed mushrooms and spinach dip any other kind of junk we desire. After that we pile into the vehicles for the light show.

Anonymous said...

Hi. Thanks for stopping by my blog. Despite that 5-hour drive home from Colorado Springs, we're starting a new Christmas tradition of having breakfast with Santa at the Broadmoor on the Saturday after Thanksgiving since we spend Thanksgiving there each year. This was our first year actually doing the Santa thing there so until my daughter figures out the truth we'll be dining with the jolly ol' guy himself each year.

eMOM said...

We're always looking to make new holiday traditions since our kids are still little.