Christmas Traditions

When Braden and Dalton were just babies I had seen this Christmas Tree skirt where you have the kids put their handprints on it each Christmas. I needed a new tree skirt anyway and loved the idea of this precious keepsake. The kids look forward to it each year and it's fun (and sad for me) to see how much they've grown each year.

We have a few other Christmas traditions like new pajamas on Christmas Eve, making reindeer food to leave out for the reindeer, milk and cookies for Santa, baking cookies.

When I was little, I remember going over to my grandpa and grandmas so that my mom and grandma could do all their baking and making Christmas candies like fudge and divinity. Mostly though I remember the red and green popcorn balls everyear. I loved those!

Every year, someone different in the family would hold Christmas Eve at their house. If it wasn't at our house, we'd load the car up with all our gifts and head over to my uncles or grandparents house. Then, just as it was getting dark, my dad, grandpa and uncle would gather all us kids into the car and we'd go "looking for Santa". We'd drive around and point out unidentified ligths in the sky that we were sure were Rudolph and his team. We'd drive around for a while before heading back. I didn't know at the time, but this little diversion gave the women in the family time to fill our stockings and put the Santa presents under the tree. It really was a well rehearsed scene and they had it down perfectly! I remember the feeling of pure magic when we'd walk through the door and see all these presents Santa left and our stockings filled (we always got oranges, apples and bananas in our stockings, along with a few goodies). My mom would always say "oh, you just missed him" lol.

We always celebrated on Christmas Eve because parts of the family couldn't get together on Christmas day due to other family obligations. On Christmas Day, we'd then go over to my grandparents to eat our big Christmas meal which was ham, scalloped potatoes, and beans. And pies. My grandma always made the best pies. Lemon Meringue was my favorite and I remember she'd have them cooling on the wash machine as we'd walk in the door and I could never resist the temptation to sneak off the pretty little peaks of meringue as I walked in. She'd also have to make a Minced Meat pie for my grandpa (he was the only one who liked them) and usually she cooked something like pheasant too that my grandpa got while out hunting.

Our little Christmas traditions have changed now but I know our new traditions will always hold special memories for my kids as well.

Today we have a potluck dinner at Nick's work at noon. Nick volunteered me for the cornbread dressing so I now have a pan of cornbread in the oven. Why couldn't he volunteer me for something super easy and way less time consuming like napkins?