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We had advent calendars with chocolates and made paper chains, I plan to continue, those were my two favorite traditions!

My husbands family gets woken up VERY early every Christmas morning by a set of sleigh bells my father-in-law rings. My husband wants that for us. They also watch each person open each present so we an ohh and aww over everything. And every Christmas Eve they read the Night before Christmas.

My family gets together both Christmas eve, day. and new years day. This likely won't happen for us again for awhile because the cost of travel east n Canada is ridiculous. We Eat BBQ in Christmas Eve, even in a snowstorm, Turkey on Christmas Day, and Ham on New Years Day. Every New Years Day features a new dessert.

Our new traditions include Elf on The Shelf, New Christmas Eve jammies, and bringing home a fresh self cut tree (we live in a pretty remote Northern area).

Hopefully we add more awesomeness as the years go along!

@Charm54: I LOVE the idea of getting the jammies from Mrs. Claus, so cute!

I have a love of Charlie Brown trees. Every year, my husband and I go to a Christmas tree farm, find the saddest, ugliest tree on the farm, and chop it down. I love bringing home something others would pass up and making it beautiful. We hope to instill our love of Charlie Brown trees in LO.

Traditions we'd like to incorporate include: only
3 gifts per child (one gift something they need, one which has spiritual significance, and one that is something they want) + a stocking, cookie baking and decorating, caroling at nursing homes, Christmas pjs, advent calendar, and of course decorating our tree.

I also want to make Christmas morning a special time with just our immediate family. My parents always spent it with extended family and that was disappointing because it didn't allow us to have any memories of our own traditions.

We go over to my aunt's house on Christmas Eve morning and make the gumbo that we eat for Christmas dinner. If there are kids the right age, then we will decorate a gingerbread house while we are there.

Something I want to start with my LO(s) is a sleepover under the Christmas tree when we put the tree up. I plan to give everyone their Christmas PJs and we will start wearing them that night.

We can't have a "live" Christmas tree in our apartment (whomp whomp) so we are going to get a LIVE Christmas tree- an actual houseplant tree!

I hope to bake cookies with DD, drive through the light display, drink cocoa, get Chinese food, and matching jammies for all!

I also want to volunteer at a free-meal kitchen when DD is older!

@coopsmama: I love the three gifts idea!!!!

@Applesandbananas: are the paper chains done a certain way or with significance or are they just made for the tree or the house? That sounds fun!

Every year my aunt gives us all a chocolate Advent calendar on Thanksgiving. Her daughter, my cousin, has already said she plans to carry that on for the next generation (our future kids). I can't wait for that! It's one of my favorite holiday traditions.

I'd like to start the book countdown tradition for my family for each night of Hanukkah.

--Bake Christmas cookies
--Teddy bear tea (my mom did this with me when I was little )
--Pics with Santa at the mall
--Special Christmas pjs to wear on Christmas Eve
--We aren't religious but in a couple of years we're planning to tell her that Santa gives to those who give to encourage her to choose some of her toys/clothes to donate to children in need.

@Greentea: I think it was just a cheap, easy, low mess activity that my mom came up with and every day we tore off a loop, as a countdown to Christmas. So much fun though!

One i want to start when my baby gets older is kind of specific to our house. Right now we have two fireplaces (both gas, but baby doesn't know that) right on top of each other on two different floors. The "main" one in the living room is where santa will bring his gifts and the stockings will be hung, but on the way down, Santa may accidentally drop some presents out the first fireplace that will "spill out" into that upstairs room. So they'll get some fun/random side gifts strewn about.

also advent calendars - my mom made a felt tree when we were little that we would put a felt ornament on every day out of numbered felt envelopes... i'm going to ask her to make one for our LO, too.

We always had "Christmas Elves" visit us when we were growing up. My parents moved into our house on Christmas Eve so they made up this elaborate story that the elves would visit on Christmas Eve to check for Santa that they were still in the house... or something. They would leave us new pajamas, a book, some chocolates, that kinda thing. we loooooved our elves (Binky & Elmer!). We actually passed it on to the neighbour's kids and never told them it was us, which I thought was so fun. I'd love to pass that onto our kid's but probably a scaled back version.

We'd like to do the "something you want, something you need, something to wear, something to read". I saw it on here and pitched it to DH and he loves the idea. We were both SUPER spoiled with gifts growing up and I want to make sure our kids appreciate Christmas for more than the gifts.

We go to DH's family party every year on Boxing Day and it's sooo fun and I'm so excited for our LOs to be a part of it so we will continue to do that for sure, even though it's a 4 hour drive!

1. new pjs on Christmas Eve. This was a tradition my mom started for us and she has carried it onto our children.

2. December 1st our Elf on the Shelf will appear with a Christmas Movie, popcorn, candy, ect. as a way to "kick off' the Christmas season. (new one I'm starting)

3. We will deliver a bag of old toys to be donated before Christmas, so that way kids in need have toys as well.

4. We will buy a gift together for a child from the giving tree.

We'll do new pj's on Xmas ever. Milk and cookies for Santa (he likes vegan/gf, right) ;). We aren't around our family, so we're currently trying to figure out our Christmas tradition. We usually do dinner with our friends, which is so great.

I love the ideas for Xmas countdowns.

Anyone do any charity around the holidays? That could be a good way to balance the idea that it's all about gifts.

@NCSUchick27: we are doing the book thing this year!

Wow I have never heard of the book advent calendar, I always just had one of those cheap chocolate advent calendars from the dollar store and thought that was super special growing up 25 holiday books sounds a bit overkill personally, but I will try getting some from the library and maybe doing 2-3 new holiday books a week in Dec. (though she has already picked out a couple Christmas books from the library in past weeks haha)

Some traditions we have continued:
-Making truffles and cookies for our neighbors
-PJs gifted on Christmas Eve
-Going to my mom's house on Christmas (my side of the family always meets there on holidays and we draw names for a gift exchange on Thanksgiving and exchange the gifts on Christmas and have our feast for lunch)
-Chocolate advent calendar
-Photos with Santa and family photos/sending Christmas cards
-Putting up the tree and decorations the weekend after Thanksgiving