I have really been getting into ideas that we can do as a family to celebrate the Christmas season. I want to implement things now, while Leah is young so that she can say when she gets older, "We've done this since I was a baby." I know she won't really remember much we do this year, but I still want to make this a special holiday and start traditions that we can continue throughout our children's lives. Christmas has never really been my favorite holiday, because I think it is so over-commercialized. But I still think it is a special time of year, and want to use that as an opportunity to make good memories with my family.
Some Christmas traditions we've already done, this year & the past years:
- Pick out our Christmas tree from the tree farm the 1st weekend in December-ish.
- Bring the tree home & decorate (with ornaments from my childhood, which will probably over time be replaced with ornaments, homemade & otherwise, from our children's childhoods) while watching Charlie Brown Christmas or listening to Christmas music, and munching on my infamous hot Pizza Dip.
- Take a family photo in front of the Christmas tree to use in the Christmas cards.
- Go to a Christmas parade. (Well, we haven't gone yet, but we're going to one in a neighboring small town this weekend!) Or one of those drive-through lights displays. (We did that last year.)
- Watch several of the popular Christmas cartoons & movies at some point in December-- Rudolph, Frosty, It's a Wonderful Life, A Christmas Story, National Lampoon's Christmas...
- On Christmas Eve, after a Christmas Eve service at church, go home & read the Christmas account from the Bible and open one gift before bed. (This gift may end up being pajamas for the kids, but I'm not sure yet.)
Some traditions I would like to implement this year or in years to come:
- Some sort of Advent Calendar or Christmas Countdown. This year I bought a nativity set called "What God Wants for Christmas." There is a different box to open each day for 7 days before Christmas, and each box contains a piece of the nativity scene and has a short kid-friendly story to go with it to tell the Biblical account of Christmas. The last day has a mirror, to show that what God wants for Christmas is you & me. Perhaps when the kids are older, we'll do something a little more involved.
- Another "countdown" idea I'd love to do is to create one of those paper chains where you tear one off each day before Christmas. Each chain will have an activity on it that we can do as a family, whether it be small like "have hot chocolate in front of the fire together" or larger, like "drive around to look at Christmas lights in the neighborhood." I have a lot of ideas for this that could be a lot of fun.
- Hopefully volunteer somewhere as a family, maybe at the homeless shelter or soup kitchen or something.
- See a Christmas-y play, like the Nutcracker or even just Disney on Ice.
- Make Christmas cookies together-- some to eat, some to give as gifts to teachers & neighbors.
- Make some Christmas ornaments or other decorations together that we can save & take out each year to remember Christmases past.
- Shop together for our "shoebox gifts" for the Shoebox project that is sent overseas. (I have done one in the past, but missed the deadline this year. Plus, it would be more fun if Leah could pick out the gifts herself for a child her age.)
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