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Special Christmas Traditions and Memories After
l0 years of trying to have a baby, Kenny arrived and we were ecstatic to have
our first Christmas as parents. Kenny
was two months old, we spoiled him rotten, took pictures and the joy and love
that Ken and I shared that Christmas as first time parents will always be
special in my heart. Now we have 2
more kids and every Christmas makes a special memory. We
have been truly blessed. Patty I
have several Christmas Tradition. When
the boys were younger one of there presents that I gave them was a box of cold
cereal. Example Ryan was into G.I. Joes and at the time they had G.I.
Joe cold cereal and he got that. I
matched the cereal to the kids. Joe
always seemed to get fruit loop. When Now the kids or grown and all go there different ways on Christmas so they
start there morning with me and I make monkey bread and we have hot cocoa and
open our gifts and then they all go there different ways and my dh and I have
they rest of the day together. Ronda
in Boring My
favorite memories of Christmas day are when we would get up early and make
a cup of hot chocolate for each of us the kids looked forward to it and
we would have our hot chocolate and
a sweet roll then the kids would take turns
taking a package from under the tree and passing it to who it belonged to
and we would wait as each package was opened it made it more meaningful as we
all got to see everything. I
do miss those days. Aleta One
of our family traditions started with our children.
On Christmas eve each of the Children could open one gift, but I got to
pick the gift!! Well, it was always
a pair of new pajamas. After a few
years they caught on to that, so we changed to two presents on Christmas eve and
I still go to pick them!! That way
they could have some little toy to play with.
Now it has turned into a tradition that I buy all the children and
parents their PJ's to open on Christmas eve.
They really look forward to it, and I start in Sept. looking to find just
the right pair according to their likes at the time. I hope this continues for a
long time. Well,
there it is. Hugs, Colleen Our
favorite tradition is our annual Christmas decorating spree.
We have so much stuff, it looks like the inside of a major department
store. We have several trees we put up. In
the living room is a Santa tree-handmade, antique and one new one added each
year. On the wall to wall mantle,
in front of each of the mantle windows is a 3 foot tree-one with paper mache
Santas and the other with hand blown glass ornaments.
In the Dining room goes our memories tree-I started it when I was in
college (and I'm 47, so it has been a few years) we each pick out an ornament to
purchase (usually Hallmark) and add it to the tree.
We also have a tree with Kwanza ornaments.
Plus my mother is a craftsperson of Victorian Santa's-ranging from about
1 foot to 4 feet high-plus I collect others.
My Santa collection is in the hundreds and takes its place on the mantle
around the trees and across the mantle. The
bookcases under the mantle get the Dickens's Village with all the trimmings. I also have a snowman collection which gets placed on
three antique washstands. If that
is not enough for the normal Christmas nut, we also do a small tree on the front
entry porch with miniature glass ornaments.
I also take down all the pictures on my living room walls and We
even have a few tears from the memories of the Christmas's past with each Chris
Peden Many
years ago, when I was in grade school (mid 1970's) I had a friend to whom I was
very close. We spent every weekend together, either she was at my house
or I was at her's. Her mother
became sick, nothing REALLY major, but she spent so much time with us, she was
like one of the family. My
parents had promised both my older brother and myself stereos for Christmas.
I asked them if they would also buy Angie one. My parents explained that they really could not afford to buy
3 of them, but would buy her one if I wanted to give up mine. Because
we were so close, and I loved her, I told my parents to buy her one instead. Christmas
morning there were 3 stereos under the tree.
My parents just wanted to see how much I was willing to give up for my
friendship. It was a wonderful
Christmas, and Angie and I remain friends to this day! Kay
in IL My
best memory is the smile of my Dad's Face On Christmas morning with my sons.
Wasn’t sure which one was the children though, my sons or my Dad! Carlotta Every
year at this time, I smell my Grandmothers wonderful kitchen. Although
she is no longer with us in this world, I am sure she is up there in heaven
telling the angels the same story she had told me for years. "oh I just put
a handful of this and a pinch of that" you see, I never saw any cookbook in
front of that woman in my whole entire The
traditional baking always started right around Thanksgiving and went on thru Christmas
Eve. My mouth waters at the thought of eating of her delicious date filled
cookies, and I was always amazed at how she put together her fruitcake....that
were lovingly stored in brown paper bags so they could "age" (that
recipe had actual rum in it). They had Then
came the wonderful fudge, not the instant fudge you make with sweetened
condensed milk and choc chip, oh no, this was the candy thermometer, hard ball,
soft ball stage sort of fudge...and also lets not forget the divinity! The
divine divinity is what I called it! For the weather had to be just right
outside or the stuff wouldn’t set up properly....I know she would just be
beside herself if it looked like it was going to rain! But the good Lord always
managed to work with her on this one, even if it wasn’t exactly the day she
wanted to get it done. I
of course had the privilege of decorating all the sugar cookies...and we would
set a day aside just for that...grandma would make me her special "egg
coffee" which was just a kettle of boiling water, she would through in the
coffee and she would beat up a couple eggs and stir that in, the eggs added
something to the coffee that is indescribably mellow, and of course the eggs
would also bind up the majority of grounds so that we had a wonderful kettle of
coffee with out grounds. On
Christmas Eve, my grandmother always made us a meal of homemade Oyster Stew...it
was soooo good...and home make bread to go with it of course...and for desert we
had of course plates sat out with all the wonderful things she had been baking
and freezing 6 weeks before....LOL....that’s when we finally got to eat the
"aging" fruitcake. We opened our gifts to the sound of wonderful
Christmas music played on their old stereo console (played the 33 speed albums)
of course before we moved out here to Washington, all this was done inbetween
milking 20 cows twice a day! LOL...oh and when my grandmother was younger and
they had S and H Green stamps she had bought herself a complete set of currier
and Gloria
(skookumbar) My
most loved Christmas tradition is actually a Christmas ornament. Many years ago
my Grandmother had it, she passed it on to my Mom and finally Mom gave it to me. My
story though will start when I received the ornament. Every year I would go over
to Mom’s and check out her tree to see if the “ornament” was on it. One
year I couldn’t find it. I was a bit upset. What in the world had happened to
it? I asked Mom and she went into the dining room and there on the hutch was the
“ornament.” She brought it into me, gave me a hug and told me it was my turn
to have it. I was in my 40’s then; guess she finally figured I was responsible
enough to have it. VBG! I’m
not sure how old this ornament is, I know at least 80 yrs old. It isn’t even
pretty by the standards of today’s ornaments. What it is is a pear that what
must have been covered originally by glitter of that time. It is green and has a
wire loop to hang it. It’s value
though is not in monetary, its value is in the lessons it has taught me. That
things don’t have to be pretty to be special and that family traditions such
as a small ornament are so very important. Debby Santa
came to see our children on Christmas Eve so that my parents In
God We Trust, Pat
Argo A
fond Christmas memory is seeing the sparkle in the eyes of my kids on Christmas
tradition, ooh this one is harder. We
have a couple of them. Not
really a tradition, but it works. Nobobdy
gets to open anything until Catrina Gosh, we have sooo many traditions that it is hard and very time consuming to tell you about all of them, LOL! So, I will tell you about our Christmas Eve which is my favorite and if you asked Chris and the kids they would pick this also. Christmas Eve: We have a traditional italian Christmas Eve dinner. This is a menu that has been handed down through many generations as Chris and his side of the family are very Italian. We have pasta and seafood. The menu consists of manicotti, aglio e olio, pasta with clam sauce, baccala, crab, shrimp salad, and homemade garlic bread. It is a delicious meal. Later in the evening, the kids get to open a special Christmas Eve gift from us. This is traditionally new pajamas. This is something that was passed from my side of the family and the kids love this. We do advent and get a special picture of them in their new pajamas in front of the tree. Finally, it is Christmas cookie time! We make lots of Christmas cookies and peanut butter and chocolate fudge as well. All the christmas tins come down from the shelves and are spread across the dining room table. Everyone has been waiting in anticipation of this! But, before we have our goodies, all the lights get turned off and every candle in the house is lit. I have candles EVERYWHERE! I love this. All the work has been done and we just sit together and spend time. The house looks so pretty all lit up, with christmas music playing in the background, and a happy smiling family sitting around the table. Blessings - Wendy
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