Christmas Traditions

We have always tried to develop Christmas traditions as we have raised our family. I hope if anyone reads this blog that they will be willing to share traditions they have had in their families. My wife and I find it interesting to see what others do.

Every year, while the kids were home, we would read the Christmas story from the book of Luke in the New Testament on Christmas Eve. We would then bundle up and go look at the lights throughout the town with the thought in the back of our minds that we were wearing the little beggars down so Santa could do his job. Our daughter Katie was always so wired up that I would have to threaten her with her life to make her go to sleep. Even then she would be awake at 3 or 4 a.m. being threatened again. Two years ago my wife and I were alone, looking at the lights and got good and lost. Of course it was snowing like it had a right to and you could not see 30 yards ahead of you.

One year I volunteered, and that does not happen very often, to sing The Night Before Christmas at a church function. Actually it was a singing and narration combined. Our kids liked it so much that even now when they are around us on Christmas Eve I have to sing that thing again. It has a variety of songs like, "Thirty Two Feet and Eight Little Tails, Up on the Roof Top, Jolly Old St. Nicholas and We Wish You A Merry Christmas." I performed it last year at a church function and had to beg them for some applause so you can tell it was not so good.

For many years my wife would make special ornaments for the Christmas tree. Sometimes she would paint one side and the kids would paint the other which led to some interesting ornaments. As the kids have grown up we have passed them on to them to do as they please.

My wife got into the Christmas angel collecting. We have a small tree just for all her angels she has received or collected over the years. Women. Should have been fishing stuff.

Of course each year we would make up plates of goodies and hand out to different families. These were not always families we knew very well. The kids would sneak up to the home, leave the plate on the door step and then run like crazy so they would not get caught. It was fun to go to church and listen to the conversations as people would be trying to figure out who did it. Lately my wife and I have been alone in our house so we make up four plates of goodies and take them to neighbors that live by us. Most of the time these are neighbors that we don't know very well, some that would not give us the time of day. It has been surprising how a plate of cookies will develope a friendship that was not there prior to that time.

For many years, and I am thinking of restarting it, I would hide a small present in the tree for my wife. The kids got the biggest kick out of watching Mom look for her present. They would do the hot and cold promptings as she looked. We had many a good laugh. Actually I am now putting small gifts in one of the train cars of the model train I have under the tree.

My wife's family would not put up their tree until Christmas Eve. Now I was not raised that way so some negotiations had to be made. Her family would keep the tree up until New Years Day and I did not agree with that. Sooooooooo, we put our tree up around the first week of December but it has to stay up until New Years Day. Obviously we dicided to opt for an artificial tree. The only drawback for me is that New Years Day is FOOTBALL!! It is down right irritating for Mom to be putting things away while the games are on but I am a patient man. (Right) Relatives learned early in our marriage to not invite us over on New Years Day.

One year, and I really liked this one, we gave each of the kids $10.00 and told them that was all they were getting to spend on each other. We had drawn names previously so they were not buying or making for everyone. We also told them that one of the gifts had to be homemade and of their design, this even meant the little ones had to think about it. It was a very interesting Christmas and a memorable one. I am not gifted at making things but my wife still has the silly thing I made for her.

One year we decided not to get a lot of toys. We made Christmas gifts out of packages of nuts, candy, snack crackers, sodas, I forget what all there was. To this day the kids say it was one of the best gifts Mom and Dad could have come up with. They played with their Santa stuff and pigged out on their goodies.

Of course there are the traditional stockings. I think our kids would have been greatly disappointed if there were not oranges, apples, raisins, nuts and candy in their stockings. I personally liked going around and raiding their stockings so mine would last longer. Oh, I knew and suspected they were doing the same to me; especially Kip, Michael, Katie, Kimberly and Leslie. Shoot I even suspected my wife of doing such dastardly deeds. I am by nature a very suspicious guy.

Those are some of the traditions we had and have. If anyone reads this blog and wants to share some traditions please do. Merry Christmas.