Some of our family's holiday traditions:
- Every year around this time, we take our holiday family photo. For the past couple of years, this photo has been of just the kids and we usually send it out for our Christmas card. This year, we coordinated the kids with cozy essentials and holiday looks from Gymboree. I love how they all coordinate! We plan for these outfits to be their go-to for our holiday parties, as well.
- We love making yummy hot chocolate and driving around looking at Christmas lights....with the windows down and Christmas music playing! Longest running tradition for the Jansens! We then let each kid pick their favorite house and give them some cookies.
- Every year on Christmas Eve, we gift our children new PJs. This tradition started when I was little...we got to open one gift on Christmas Eve. We've adapted this to specifically be PJs. My kids look forward to this each year! Gymboree has such darling PJs and slippers!!
- Elf on the Shelf. This tradition is fun for the kids...but geez...he gets on my nerves. This year he isn't making an appearance until much later. Last year he arrived on December 1!!!!
- We do a family night reading the Christmas story and acting out the nativity with our kids. This not only makes for special memories, but also reaffirms for our children the meaning and purpose of why we celebrate Christmas.
- We plan to institute this tradition Blake grew up with once our kids are a bit older: On Christmas Eve when everyone was asleep, the kids would try to sneak down the hall to get a "peek" at the gifts. BUT, Blake's dad would have booby trapped the entire hallway so that the kids would inevitably trip one of the obstacles and make a sound, then scamper back to bed before their parents woke up...then repeat. Think: rattling coffee cans and fishing wire. Genius!
So tell me...What are some of YOUR family's favorite holiday traditions???
Love these traditions! My parents and aunts/uncles used to booby trap us too. Our family does a progressive dinner a few days before. We start at one house for cocktails and appetizers, next house for dinner and the third house for dessert and the pickle game! It’s fun to see everyone’s decorations and it splits the work up amongst the family. The pickle game is one of our favorite traditions. I bought my grandmother an Old World Christmas pickle ornament. Its from a German tradition. We modified it to be the pickle game. My grandmother would get little prizes and then all the cousins would hunt for the pickle on the tree. Whoever found it got the surprise. Sometimes that tree was rocking back and forth and ornaments were falling off. ��. A few years later it evolved to more surprises. We would leave the room and the pickle would be hidden again. Another few years later, the aunts and uncles wanted to play too. So now there are three different rounds of finding he pickle. Thanks for sharing!
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