My Favorite Christmas Traditions

Every time someone asks what my favorite Christmas traditions are, I have to stop and think for a minute because my family has oh so many. None of them are big or flashy, but all have loads of great memories and are so sweet to me. I can't wait to do them with my own family some day and pass it on. So as us kids get older and move away and do less and less of these traditions, I'm going to write them down so I don't forget and can keep them going.

1. Reading a Christmas book every night for the 25 days of Christmas.
This was much easier when we were little and didn't have friends to hang out with or extra school stuff to do, but I loved having a basket full of wrapped up Christmas books by the fire waiting to be read. No matter how old I got, I loved gathering in the family room to read our favorite books. With stories like A Christmas Dress for Ellen (told by President Monson) and Auntie Claus and the Night Before Christmas in Texas and classics like Polar Express, we all have our favorites and love the surprise of opening up each one. And every year on Christmas Eve, my mom gets a brand new book for us to read that then gets added to the collection.  And thank goodness this tradition will be super easy to start as our family now has collected SOOOO many books that we'll be able to divvy them up for us kids.

2. Christmas countdowns all over the house.
This is a very very simple tradition, but we all loved getting into it. We have three (maybe more?) Christmas countdowns throughout the house and every year we fight to be the one to add the next day of December. One is a fabric tree that hangs over the door and you add fabric ornaments to it and everyone loves picking out the ornament to put up for the day.
I LOVE Christmas countdowns and I'm making our first this year!

3. 12 Days of Christmas.
We didn't do this one every year, probably because it takes lots more participation than we teenagers wanted to put in, but the times that we did were very memorable and special. Before it all starts, we sit down as a family and brainstorm who we'd like to give little gifts to. We think long and hard about the people we know that are deserving or special friends or would just need a little cheering up around Christmastime. Then we help in creating the little gifts like jams or cookies or ornaments (or picking something out at the store) for each of the twelve days and then get to do the fun part of doorbell ditching them, trying to be as sneaky as possible but usually giggling the whole time. It helped us really think about the true meaning of Christmas while also bringing us together to have some fun.

4. A huge Christmas Eve dinner.
I love the way my mom makes Christmas dinner so special, with fancy Christmas china, red cloth napkins, and our big long wood table that we all just barely fit around. Then theres the plethora of ciders, homemade rolls, jellos, salads, potatoes, and my dad makes a delicious prime rib. We eat and eat and eat and hang out around the table for as long as possible before its time to start doing the dishes so we can eat dessert and read our book together.

5. Christmas morning.
I love that our Christmas morning is it's own tradition that we stick to every single year. As kids, we weren't allowed to wake up our parents until all the other kids were awake (which was difficult when you had a lazy teenaged brother and sister) then we wait at the top of the stairs (NO LOOKING DOWN INTO THE LIVING ROOM!) for mom and dad to get ready.

Then we all bound down the stairs to find Santa's gifts to us around the tree, not wrapped and in little groups for each one of us. Once the thrill of Santa's presents are over, we check out the little gifts in our stockings and sit around together eating little candies while mom and dad get breakfast going.

Then not only do we get a full breakfast with sausages and eggs and english muffins, but we each got to pick out our own special cereal. Yes, we got to pick whatever cereal we wanted from Reese's Puffs to Cookie Crisp to Cinnamon Toast Crunch. This was the only time of year that happened so it was very very special.

Then once we've had our fill of breakfast and the clean freaks have showered, we gather in the living room to unwrap all the presents under the tree, one by one so we can all see what everyone got and have a chance to say a real thank you or let them explain something about the gift. And then once we're all done with opening our presents, we sit around and watch mom open up her presents from dad, since she gets spoiled every year by him, a funny but oh so sweet tradition that put a lot of pressure on Josh when he married into the family...

Then we shower, put on any new clothes, and if there's time (which there was absolutely none this year) watch one of the new movies, before packing into our car[s] and heading up to Grandma and Grandpa Wills house for presents and tacos (a story for another day).

6. A new Christmas ornament.
I'll never be one of those people with a color coordinated Christmas tree (thankfully, since I think those are lame and have no personality) because each year, we get a new Christmas ornament in our stocking, usually of something relating to our lives in the past year. To name a few, I have a Cinderella from the year I was Cinderella in the school play, a ballerina from the year I did ballet, a cupcake from the year I decided I was going to open a cupcake shop, and more than 20 others that are in my own special box. We also kept all of the homemade ornaments from throughout the year- the stained glass Ninja Turtles I made in my art class freshman year down to the popsicle stick picture frames from kindergarten. At one point my family had filler ornaments but now I don't think there's room for those with all of ours! Now we just have to get Josh caught up so it's not a bunch of my Christmas ornaments on our own tree!

So future children, you have a lot to look forward to. I may suck when it comes to making you Halloween costumes or baking a million cupcakes for your class on your birthday, but Christmas will be good. I promise.