My Favorite Christmas Traditions

Christmas traditions are so special. With tomorrow being Christmas, I want to take a stroll down memory lane with you. I want to tell you about some of my favorite Christmas traditions in anticipation and celebration of Christmas. I’ll be sharing some fun new and old traditions I’ve had through the years. I had attempted to get this post out last week, but alas it is a busy season. Other things took precedence over this post for the last few weeks.

Family has always been super important to me, and as such Christmas traditions are important to me as well. While I’m married now and my husband and I have our own traditions, I still love to keep up with the traditions my parents set in place many years ago that we still love to do.

Growing up, my mom had a special tradition of making hors d’oeuvres for dinner on Christmas Eve (fittingly). She would make things like: spinach dip and crackers, sausage balls, peppermint bark, and the like. We would always eat dinner together, but on Christmas Eve we ate by candlelight which I always loved. It just felt so special, and still to this day is one of my absolute favorite Christmas traditions.

Another one of my favorite traditions, is putting up the tree and decorating it the day after Thanksgiving. Of course, as we all got older and had jobs, my sister and I couldn’t participate as often as we would have liked, but still loved it. Truthfully, I still try to do this at my own house by going shopping for a Christmas tree the Saturday after Thanksgiving.

My mom, sister, brother and I would put up all the Christmas decorations on black Friday, and my mom would always save the angel tree topper for my dad. When dad got home from work, he’d put the tree topper on. We all would watch in amazement as he placed it.

With my husband and I, one of our favorite traditions to with each other right now is decorating our porch with brightly colored Christmas lights. Another favorite at Christmastime, is driving around with some Christmas music playing, a warm drink, and looking at Christmas lights. Doing this brings me so much joy and my inner child comes out oohing and ahhing at all the lights. And the ones that have light shows set to music? I’ll sit there for HOURS just watching them and dancing to the tunes.

This year, we hosted our first “Friendsmas” and had several friends over to our house for food, fun, & fellowship. This is quickly becoming a favorite tradition as well. I am a servant, and serving others through hospitality at my home is something I absolutely love to do. There’s just something special to me about hosting people and inviting them into my home.

My husband tells me that growing up, one of his favorite Christmas traditions was opening presents after breakfast with his family. This reminds me of a story about my sister and I on Christmas Eve one year. Now, she and I were teenagers at this point, which makes this even funnier.

On Christmas Eve one year, my sister and I were so excited about Christmas and presents that we literally could NOT sleep. We shared a room, and our bedroom was right outside the living room. Like kids, we were quietly crawling on the floor in our room to the door at about 3am and trying to peek out to see if “Santa” (aka our parents) had put the presents out yet. We were trying so hard not to laugh or make noise, which was kinda impossible for us.

While we never actually saw the presents come out, we DID see that our parents bedroom light was on and the door was closed. This signaled that the presents were about to come out. SO, we hurriedly scurried back to bed and tried to sleep until a “normal” hour. We got up at around 6am that morning and acted “surprised” when we saw all the gifts and stocking stuffers. I will forever be fond of these memories and Christmas traditions that our families have and continue to do.

What are YOUR own favorite Christmas traditions? Tell me in the comments!