12/6/08 Traditions...What's in Your Shoes?

I love traditions. They tie us to our families our faiths our origins and our holidays. Our parents passed some on to us and we’ve started some of our own…some are just little things, others are lengthy productions, some are from our heritage, some I’m sure most households do, and some I know are just our families. As I’m bringing up all the Christmas bins I’m reminded of all the little things we do each and every year to make this season special.

Always getting our live tree the Sunday after Thanksgiving; Advent calendars; St. Nicholas Day-kids setting their shoes outside their door Dec. 5 for little gifts from St. Nick the next morning (TODAY!..A northern Europe tradition); finding different ways to give to others in need-working at a soup kitchen, Toys-For-Tots, adopting a family; making our favorite Christmas cookies and a gingerbread house while wearing our elf hats with ears; Ornament exchanges with each family and with each other on Christmas Eve; singing “Silent Night” holding candles on Christmas Eve as one child gets the honor of placing Baby Jesus in the manger that sits on the mantle; leaving cookies and milk for Santa and a vegetable-usuallly a carrot for the reindeer; tying a ribbon at the top of the stairs and one of the children gets to cut the ribbon when it’s time to come down-a fire going and music playing; the kids rushing to the tree to see who can find the pickle ornament (from Germany) first that Santa has hidden on the tree because that child gets to open the first present; always opening the stockings first; Santa’s gifts always appear in plain green and red paper with large elvish writing of names on the fronts and there’s always one gift for each child that sits out unwrapped; cooking everyone’s favorites for Christmas dinner and singing Happy Birthday to Jesus before our dessert; and finally come the Christmas crackers that contain tissue party hats and little trinkets and dumb jokes that always get us laughing; taking each child’s photo on the couch with their new toys; the day after Christmas is always “jammie day” where we stay in our jammies and play games all day, Oh and we all have fun giving hilarious “Thanks for the Memories” gifts, but I’ll save that for tomorrow’s blog…my favorite/funniest kid story this year!…stay tuned...hee-hee

What are your holiday traditions??