“18 fun Christmas traditions to start!” “Make memories to last a lifetime!” “Make a felt Christmas tree that your toddler can decorate over and over again!” Is it just me, or does every other Pinterest pin tack another fifteen boxes on the bottom of your to-do list? I admit: I am totally sucked in by this stuff. I want our family to have unique Christmas traditions. I want the holiday season to be a special time of year. I want the magic, the wonder – all of it. But I made that felt tree a few years ago, two of them actually. I attached them to magnets and put them on the bottom of the refrigerator for my boys to play with. And for the next 24 days of December, I picked up felt pieces from every remote corner of the house except the one closest to the felt tree. One morning, the cat woke me up, furious because a red bulb was floating in his water dish. (How? Why?) Ultimately I threw the whole racket away because I just couldn’t. It was one more thing at a time of year when there were already too many things.
Christmas can so easily be overdone; we can buy too many presents, eat too much junk food, and RSVP to too many parties. If I’m not careful, I land on January 1st with an extra ten pounds, a splitting sugar headache, a gaping hole in my bank account, and a deep exhaustion that carries through until the weather warms up in the spring. There’s just so much good stuff to do, be, and enjoy that sometimes the temptation is to run, run, run.
My kids are now five, four, and one, and last year (the year with two toddlers, one potty-training, and a baby) pushed me over the edge. I decided we would have to be selective and intentional in the rituals we chose. In order to make the cut, the tradition had to either A) point our kids toward our faith, since that’s the true reason our family celebrates the holiday, or B) fit in with an already established part of our day. While I realize that this list will change as our kids get older, here are the traditions we settled on for our family. I hope it will encourage you to be intentional with your own plans.
Faith
We opt for a daily tradition that points our kids toward our faith because I want that aspect of the holiday to loom large in my kids’ memories. Daily traditions can be tricky because during the school year, weekdays just race by. Anything that gets added during December has to be brief and meaningful. Each year, we use an Advent calendar designed to teach our children about Jesus in a season where we celebrate His birth. There are many different advent tools for families, but we will be using a virtual calendar created by Crossroads Church. It works because it is short enough for the littles and each night contains an (easy) activity for the family to complete. Some of the activities also suggest ways to reach out and serve others in the community, and that’s a value we seek to instill in our kids year-round. There’s an option to sign up for daily links to be texted or delivered to your email, and it is free. (FREE!) If you are interested in making this your tradition, you can click here for more information. Our schedule looks a little different every year, but I’m hoping we can do this right after dinner, maybe before the baby goes to bed.
Fun
The second daily tradition is a literary because I’m an English teacher and we do books. (Don’t like books? Find a new family. I’m kidding. Sort of.) On the last day of November, I wrap twenty-five books and label them according to the day; that way, I can make sure we read the book on St. Nick the night before he fills their shoes, ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas happens on the night before, and the traditional Christmas story falls on Christmas day. We read every night anyway, so shifting to Christmas and winter-related books is not that difficult. The opportunity to tear into a present every night before reading time is epic and awesome, and also (I admit) kind of messy. I’ve done this for three years now, and every year I cycle a few different books in and out. The kids take turns opening them each night (keeping track of this has proved to be super important to keeping family peace), and we read right before they go to bed. I really do strive for variety: some books light up and sing, others are religious in nature, and of course there’s that copy of Frosty the Snowman that we sing all season long.
Food
We started a food tradition last year that has become a must-do for years to come. My paternal grandmother passed her sour cream cookie recipe down to my mom, and for years I labored under the belief that it was unique to my family. So imagine my shock when I found the same exact recipe on Pinterest! (This was almost as traumatizing as discovering my maternal grandmother’s chocolate chip cookie recipe on the back of a Nestle chocolate chips bag…but I digress.) Regardless of the source, these are AMAZING cookies: they are soft, almost a cake-like consistency, and you can either sprinkle decorative sugar directly on them, or you can ice them and then add sprinkles. There’s lots of opportunities for little hands to help: they can press use the cookie cutters to shape the dough, they can sprinkle dump the sugar on the icing, and of course, they can eat themselves sick. These will be Christmas Eve staples for years to come, I’m sure. And since apparently it isn’t a family recipe, here’s the link on Peppermint Plum.
Family
My husband and I have always been adamant that we won’t spend Christmas in a Chevy, and that’s a hard line to draw with lots of extended family clamoring to see the kids. However, we’ve carved out a tradition that Christmas Eve and Christmas morning are for our family alone. We eat, we play, and we take our time. We want the kids to have plenty of open space to play with their toys and each other, hang out in their pajamas (or underwear, because apparently my kids do not believe in cold. Or clothes.), and enjoy time unencumbered by an itinerary. By mid-afternoon, either extended family rolls in or we venture out to them, and at that point our little family unit has had plenty of time to put down roots and grow together.
And that’s it. When opportunities come up and we have time, we partake. When we don’t have time, or when we need some time in, we don’t. We don’t want a huge list of must-do’s because our most important must is being together. When I look at this list, I feel good about our holiday: there’s meaning, but not rush. There’s open space to jump in the van and look at Christmas lights when everyone is in a good mood. There’s breathing room to pop in a holiday movie and actually sit down with the kids to watch it. There’s peace in having small expectations, especially for this mama. Hopefully my kids won’t have memories of an overwrought mom spinning in circles in the kitchen by noon on Christmas Eve. Or at least, maybe only a few.
Whatever your hopes for this season, I wish you peace, joy, and rest as you create meaning with your own family.
Thanks for this. It is so true, we get wrapped up, pun intended;), in all the many things to do that we forget to stop and take in what’s important to our own family. I LOVE the book idea!!