My Holiday Traditions

For me celebrating Christmas with family is one of my favorite times of the year. Everyone has different traditions, and here are a few of mine :)

Merry Christmas everyone! Or Happy Holidays for whatever you may celebrate :) This time of year is such a fun time and I feel like everyone is always in such a good mood! I love being home around family and I have so many great memories on Christmas! Last year was a different year as Vince and I went to Hawaii with his family. It was the first time that I had been on a Christmas vacation and it was SO much fun! This year, will still be a different with COVID restrictions, but I am excited to be with my family. Here are a few of our typical family traditions :D

Christmas Eve Church Service

One of my favorite things over Christmas is the Christmas Eve service at our church. Jesus being born is the reason for the season and I love celebrating! One thing I love about the service is the candle light song at the end. It brings everyone close together and during that time, everyone is so kind to each other. They offer hot chocolate and cookies after the service for people to chat over, and it is so great to see everyone be so merry! They also have cute decorations around church and we always like to get pictures by the Christmas tree :) The church service is a great start to all the Christmas celebrations!

Christmas Eve With Family

Families are different on this one, but we always open our presents with our immediate family on Christmas Eve. Some of my favorite memories of Christmas happen during this time. It is so nice to have all my close family together and laughing together. I also love to gift give. I love getting gifts for people that have a meaning behind them and seeing their faces light up means so much to me. One memory I loved growing up was, being the youngest I usually got to be “Santa” and got to hand out gifts to people. Now my cute little nephews hold this job title, and it is so fun to watch them be so excited! Another great memory I have about Christmas Eve is looking up where Santa is on NORAD Tracker. Believing in Santa was such a great part of my childhood and my parents made it so special for us. My dad would throw a basketball on the roof in the middle of the night and we would think Santa was here! We would wake up early and be so excited to see our presents from Santa.. Such great memories :)

Christmas Day at Grandmas and Grandpas

Every Christmas Day we would have a wonderful, traditional dinner at my grandparents. Here is a photo of my cute grandparents, we convinced my grandpa to wear this Christmas sweater :D I have so many great memories from these times at my grandparents as well! My grandma handmade us all stocking and would have special treats for us in our stockings. Also, every year, she hand makes us a gift, she is an amazing sewer!! This is always my favorite gift from her because she is so creative with it. From oven mitts to garbage bins for our cars, whenever I use them I always think of her! Also, every other year my cousins come to celebrate with us. Growing up we were all so close, but didn’t get to see each other very much during the year. I love this time so much and we have so many great laughs!

Christmas Poppers From England

This tradition started because my Grandma had an old time pen pal friend from England. Each year around Christmas time her pen pal would send over Christmas poppers with little toys in them. If you have never done one of these, each person pulls a side of the popper, and the person that gets the bigger side when it rips, gets to have the item in the middle. The toys ranged from a mini deck of card to a slinky. The toys were fun and all, but the best memories I have are the times going against another and sharing laughs over pulling it apart. We continue the tradition by still getting them from Target each year. Here’s a cute picture of my mom and nephew going against each other :)

Christmas Day NBA Games

I know this isn’t all that Christmas-y, but it is a fun tradition we have celebrated for years. Our favorite team is the Milwaukee Bucks and usually only the “good teams” play on Christmas and for years we were FAR from that.. We would watch the Lakers and Celtics play, and finally a few years ago, the Bucks finally got a Christmas Day game. We definitely celebrated this, and yes the picture on the left was our Christmas Day outfits that year because we were so excited :P This year is the first year the Bucks are hosting a home Christmas Day game, and if COVID wasn’t a thing, I am sure this would have been our Christmas Day outfits again and we would have been there at the game cheering them on. But we will be cheering them on from home!! :D

Some of these traditions will have happened by the time this is posted, but I am so excited to share these traditions with my family again this year! I am sure I will eat way too many Christmas cookies (okay maybe this is another tradition!). I hope you have a wonderful holiday season with whatever you celebrate!! Enjoy your traditions, even if they are a little different this year :)