Hellobee Boards

@SweetCaroline: We do cinnamon rolls every Christmas morning! That is really the only tradition we have as of yet.

Definitely following this! I really want to create/establish some special traditions for my very own family, and figure out a good balance with my parents/sibilings and the way we have been celebrating!

Cut down our tree together
Decorate the house together
Advent candles in a sort of secular way
Christmas party we go to
Dress up for an early fancy dinner at a French bistro and walk around looking at the lights on the pedestrian street in town
Advent calendar (one with just pictures)
Bonfire on Christmas Eve and a lantern walk (we make different types of lanterns and put them all around our yard and then walk out to the fire singing Christmas songs)
Giving gifts to various charity drives

We aren't religious but celebrate a secular version of Christmas. I'm working really hard to make sure it is still a season of magic and reverence for my kids, even without church (which is part of how I got that as a kid).

We have an advent mini Christmas tree that we put an ornament on each morning.
An ornament each year.
New jammies for everyone on Christmas Eve.
DH and I have a drink and watch christmas Vacation on Christmas Eve while we set our the gifts.

Looking to start some new traditions, as this is outburst first Christmas in our new home/city.

We go to the Christmas tree farm to choose our tree as a family, then decorate it together. We write to Father Christmas at the start of December. We go to visit Father Christmas in his grotto. We do the Christmas Eve box with new pjs , slippers and a book. We set out a mince pie, glass of sherry and a carrot for Father Christmas/Rudolph on Christmas Eve. We all wear nasty Christmas jumpers on Christmas day!

@SweetCaroline: We are moving in April (building) and our new neighborhood has a tree lighting and Santa for the kids So we will definitely walk down there every year! We went tonight even though it's not technically our neighborhood yet

This is what we did over Thanksgiving and I want to build a tradition:

Thursday: build gingerbread house, DH makes thanksgiving dinner and bake yummy treats. Friday we go shopping (haha). Saturday we get the Christmas tree. In the afternoon we would be decorating when football is on TV.

We will throw an ice-skating session somewhere between October to December, I hope! We went this year and it was so much fun. It is not a tradition yet but I'd love to enforce it

Also we went to a Christmas symphony concert with some friends. It was wonderful. I am hoping to attend some sort of theatrical performance every Christmas season. I was so tempted to get tickets for The Christmas Carol this year, but I don't think DS can handle it yet as he's scared of a lot of things, and Christmas Carol can be scary according to him. I'd also love to take him to nutcracker ballet one of the years.

We've been doing Clark Howard's "Christmas Kids". We will go to the participating walmart, pick a few kids' profiles they have (usually kids from orphanage), and shop for gifts for them on their wish list. We talked about being thankful and helping others, and how fortunate we have each other, and everything that we need. We have been doing that every year since DS was born.

We also talk about buying an ornament for the tree each year if we travel. We are traveling this year to Europe this year, and DH told DS we will buy two ornaments from the Christmas markets.

Other than that, we always go to the farm in fall. We've been going to pumpkin patches / corn mazes, but last fall we went for apple picking and it was great. We drove by a sunflower farm when we were on the way, and I will make an effort to go next fall.

In spring time we would go strawberry picking. Then of course I try to find an easter egg hunt every year.