What are your favorite memories of
holidays as a child? More than likely those memories include family traditions from, day you choose to decorate your tree, to kinds of food you eat at holidays.
Remember that you and your husband came from separate families with different customs and traditions.
When creating a legacy for your children, it is appropriate to use a couple traditions from each of your families and come up with some new ones for your own family. Don’t try to do them all or you’ll end up feeling overwhelmed rather than enriched. Here are some ideas.
Kick off holiday season by attending an event every year. Some suggestions are: The Festival of Trees, attend a play such as A Christmas Carol, or a Christmas concert.
Together, bake a cake on Christmas Eve for Jesus to remind you whose birthday you are really celebrating. Light a candle and even sing “Happy Birthday” to Him.
Sound, smells and tastes can certainly bring back fond memories of past Christmases. The sound that is Christmas to me is Johnny Mathis’s Christmas album, which my mother played each year and I still adore now.
The food that means “holiday” to me is a Frozen Fruit Salad recipe. We had it almost every holiday season. What are sounds, smells and tastes that evoke your Christmas memories? Include those as part of your family’s traditions.
This tradition was submitted by Marilyn Brina: On Christmas morning, youngest child goes in and opens his stocking. The other children go in and open their stockings all while Dad is taking movies of us. Then Dad hands out each gift and we all watch as each gift is opened. Then after gifts are opened, we eat scrambled eggs, sweet rolls and hot chocolate for breakfast.
There are several books of compiled Christmas short stories available in bookstores and libraries. Read to your family each night before bedtime.
On first day of December read to your family “The Giving Tree”, by Shel Silverstein. As a family, make an advent calendar in shape of a tree and determine 25 “gifts” you can share with neighbors, relative, teachers, and friends. The gifts could be things such as shoveling snow from a neighbor’s walk, visiting a widow, taking homemade bread to someone. Write each gift on a separate “leaf” and attach it to tree. Number leaves from 1 to 25. Each day during December, turn over corresponding leaf on calendar and give whatever “gift” is listed there.
