My husband’s birthday was last week. We’ve been trying to cut back on sweets, so we opted to not have cake this year. We went to a nice restaurant where our daughter, her husband and their three little girls joined us. At the end of the meal, the three-year-old holds up her plate and proudly announces, “I’m ready for cake.”
The look on her face melted my heart. So we left the restaurant, stopped by the grocery store to pick up a ready made cake, and took it back to our house where we all met for dessert.
Traditions. Some stick, some don’t. The cake made it another year.
We’ve enjoyed many traditions with our family over the years. There was the nightly ritual of saying goodnight to our kids with the single acronym GNILYSYITMHAGNR. It stands for “Goodnight, I love you. See you in the morning. Have a good night’s rest.” Long story, but suffice it to say, it cut down on the bedtime frenzy. Our granddaughters even say it from time to time.
Then there’s the rap song I made up for our kids so we could get them out the door for school in the morning with everything they needed:
You got your lunch, you got your keys, you got your milk mon-ey?
You brushed your teeth, you combed your hair, you changed your underwear?
Don’t be so slow, it’s time to go,
What more can I say?
Be a witness to your friends and, hey, have a nice day!
Corny, I know, but guess what? Our adult kids (29 and 27) can STILL recite it (not without laughing, but still).
As a family we’ve sang together, prayed together, laughed and cried together. We’ve created snowmen, put up Christmas trees, enjoyed hot chocolate by a crackling fire, put puzzles together and played the California Raisins Christmas CD at the sign of the first snow.
I thought with the holidays fast approaching, it’s a good time to share family traditions. So, let’s hear it. What are some of yours?
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We started a tradition a few years ago. My family all goes to the Christmas eve service at church, then go to our own homes. We get up early the next morning and open gifts...then we have at least 15 people gathering at my aunt's house by 9:00 for a huge breakfast, after which we open each other's gifts. Then we all find a bed and take a nap until it's time to eat again.
The two most dignified people in my family always get gag gifts for each other. It's hilarious.
We have a park nearby that puts on a huge light show, so some of my friends and I are going to start a new tradition of seeing them together! I'm getting excited.
There are so many more...I have a huge family and we do everything together!
Every year since my sister and I were babies we've received ornaments from our grandmother (until she passed away in 2000) and our parents. At first they were surprises but in recent years we started picking out our own. I could almost decorate a whole tree with the number of horse and carousel ornaments I have.
Another tradition is decorating the Christmas tree together. We usually do it the first weekend in December, although in recent years it's been harder because of everyone's schedules. Dad puts on the lights, Mom unpacks the ornaments and hands them to my sister and I to put on. We listen to Christmas music, eat sugar cookies and then toast the tree in special glasses my grandmother bought us. They drink eggnog, I drink cranberry juice. Everyone's happy. :)
These are a few of my favorite traditions along with going to our favorite street on Christmas Eve to see fabulous light displays.
Oh, I love your traditions, Diann! A precious memory from my childhood was going to our neighbors' house to make Christmas cookies. Don and Jewel never had children, but adopted every country kid within a 3-mile radius. Jewel would roll the dough, the older kids got to use the cookie cutters, and the little kids were in charge of sugar and sprinkles. When the cookies were done, our mothers would come to help us eat them with hot cocoa poured from a teapot that played "Tea for Two." Years later, my sister and her family moved into Don and Jewel's house and inherited that teapot and the job of hostessing the Cookie Party.
Thanks for getting me in the Christmas spirit!
Okay NOW I'm ready for Christmas. Di thinks we're a grinch when we don't want to hear the California Raisins in September. LOL
The last few years we've started a tradition of going to Hawaii for Thanksgiving with our kids. This year Dave and Donna got married and Kara started a new business so we postponed it until March but we love this new tradition of spending a vacation together. Since the kids are grown and scattered, it's the one time we can all get together with no distractions.
Food so often plays a part in traditions. One year we had ham instead of turkey for Thanksgiving and our son was NOT happy. LOL And he always looks forward to pumpkin pie. Kara loves sour cherry pie.
We're flying out to Arizona tomorrow to spend the holiday with our baby girl. I have a feeling pie making is in my future. LOL
Diann,
Wishing you and your family a marvelous Thanksgiving. As far as traditions, hmm, I guess it involves food. Ever since I met my husband we have to have "goopies" with dinner. Goopies are cloverleaf rolls that have brown sugar and butter cooked in the bottom of the muffin tin. His mom has made them everyear since he was a little kid and now I've contiued it. It's not Thanksgiving or Christmas without having goopies.
Oh, I'm LOVING these comments! Thank you for sharing!
Deb, your neighbor sounds so wonderful! What a wonderful legacy she has left behind!
Denise, we bought ornaments for our kids too, and when they left home, we had a naked tree! LOL! I've not bought any ornaments since, opting rather for a simple tree of cranberries, white lights and old-fashioned hanging candles. I love it!
Same to you, Christy! The goopies sound good! We make date pudding every year in honor of hubby's grandma (deceased) who started the tradition years ago. Our daughter is making it this year.
What an awesome tradition, Katy!! LOVE it!!!
When my husband and I were first married, my brother (then 11) bought a Christmas card for us that said "Merry Christmas to a good-looking, intelligent, etc. relative." Inside it said, "Save this card and send it back to me next year."
Well, we did that - and with a few lost years in the middle, we've been going back and forth with the same card for 36 years. We now carefully hand it to each other rather than send it. The card records my brother's marriage and children - the birth of our children, and six grandchildren, and then last year my husband's unexpected death at a fairly young age.
I know the card will always be treasured as a family heirloom.
My family's traditions are prabably the best part of my chritmas. Every christmas eve, we go to a candle light service at our chruch. then we come home and open our stocking presents. After, we all sit at the dinning room table (this is the only time of year we use it) and eat crab legs, shrimp and drink sparkling grape juice. then, christmas morning, we open presents and my mom makes a huge breakfast: eggs, bacon, sausage, biscuts and gravy, coffee, grape juice... its amazing. I just love christmas- and even more so when i think about the real reason- Christ's birth
My mother always sent us out the door saying, "Be loverly," based on the song from My Fair Lady.
I sent my girls out the door with "Have a Jesus-filled day." I told them goodnight by saying, "Good night. Sleep tight. Don't let the bedbugs bite," after a bedtime prayer. I do the same with my grands now.
Thanks for bringing back some good memories. Have a happy and blessed Thanksgiving.
I love Christmas! I'm glad it's (finally) close to the season so we can talk about Christmas and holiday traditions!
When we first moved to Istanbul, I bemoaned the lack of Christmas lights and carols in the shops, etc., etc. (Turkey is a Muslim country, after all.) It didn't FEEL like a holiday season and it made me depressed. Now, 18 years later, I don't care whether or not I see decorations in public places--although they've started selling New Year's trees at Carre Four (a Walmart-type store) which greatly amuses me.
Traditions. We decorate our tree, do daily Advent readings as we light our Advent wreath, bake Christmas cookies, and wait until February or March for all of our Christmas cards to finally show up. Christmas Eve we eat lentil soup, bread, and shepherd salad. Christmas Day, we bake a birthday cake for Jesus. Some years, we've opened our presents on Saint Nicholas Day (December 6). Other years, we've opened a little present every day from Dec. 6-23. Several years we've skipped the presents and given the money to buy blankets and clothing for street kids. Don't know yet what we'll do this year: We'll decide that at the family pow-wow this weekend.
You know what I like best about Christmas? Singing Christmas carols at midnight at church and then walking back to the car in the dark, quiet streets.
One of my favorite nights of the year in Coeur d'Alene is Friday night after Thanksgiving--the kick-off for the Christmas season. It's become our tradition to attend the festivities in town each year, along with thousands of others.
First, a parade--much like the town's Fourth of July parade, but in the cold! Then everyone crosses over to the Cd'A resort. First there are Christmas carols. REAL Christmas carols. Then someone leads the huge crowd in a countdown--and boom! The lights of the resort turn on for the season. (We're talking millions of bulbs, all around the resort and strung in huge displays down the lake--night cruises take passengers to see them.)
At that time, the fireworks show begins--a show like no other. The fireworks are lit off multiple barges just off the beach. They are timed with upbeat Christmas music. Remember Hooked on Classics? The old classics put to a beat? The Christmas music is like that.
The whole parade/show is family oriented, happy, exciting, and absolutely, splendidly beautiful. It kicks off the Christmas season for Coeur d'Alene in a memorable way. I wouldn't miss this night--even though I'm on a deadline right now!
You guy have so inspired me! I'm ready to bake some Christmas cookies. Okay, would you believe buy a bag from the bakery?
Pam, I'll bet you have some interesting stories living there!
Brandilyn, your town's tradition sounds so cool! We're going with our daughter and family to see the lighting of Santa in our town tonight. There's nothing like watching the granddaughters' eyes sparkle when Santa comes to life!
LOL - Mine isn't a holiday memory, but your morning tradition with your kids is so much different from mine. My youngest son (also 29) had ADD and because of it, he also had insomnia.
Mornings were hard for him. I bounce out of bed in a good mood. So when I'd traipse into his room with a cheery, "Good morning, Sunshine!" he'd gouse and grumble.
Finally he confronted me. Said if I weren't so darn cheerful in the morning, maybe he wouldn't be in such a bad mood.
Okaaaaaaay. I was willing to try. So then next morning, I opened his door and growled, "Get up."
LOL - It worked! He got up in a much better mood. Never figured it out - but it worked. :o)
In 1995 I married a man who has three grown children. Their longtime Christmas eve traditon was to have homemade chili and peanut butter sandwiches and then go to church. No kidding. Now, almost twelve years later, what I once thought was an amazingly weird culinary custom is now being passed on to our grandchildren. Now i'll bet this is one for the unique list, eh? What fun to read the memories we all have!
Chili and peanut butter sandwiches? We've never tried that, Allison, but I'll bet our grandkids would love it!
Thanks, everyone, for sharing your traditions. It totally put me into the holiday spirit!
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