Growing up my family never celebrated Christmas, or any holidays for that matter. It sounds worse than it is, you can’t really miss something you never had – and my parents have always been loving, giving and fun, so we never felt like we were deprived.
BUT… now that I’ve started my own family, with a husband and two kids who very much DO celebrate Christmas, we have had a lot of decisions and compromises to make for our growing family.
And while I still feel like I didn’t miss out on Christmas and Santa, I do love the idea of Holiday Traditions. I love that the onset of fall means the Holiday Season is upon us and soon things are a whirl-wind of costumes, turkey and presents. I love the lights all around the city! I love the hot chocolate and eggnog. And lately, I am loving the Holiday Pins filling up our Dallas Moms Blog’s Pinterest board!
Last year, Miles was still a bit too small to really know or care what was going on during this season. And the big kids have always done Christmas and Santa with their mom. We always get them presents and have our small Charlie Brown tree on our urban “fireplace”.
But this year I’ve really been thinking a lot about these Holiday traditions and what we are going to implement for Miles as he grows up. I want it to be something that honors my parents beliefs and the beliefs I grew up with, but I also want to make sure that Miles has great family memories and has something to look forward to each Holiday Season.
Thankfully my husband has some experience in these holidays, so he knows what he’s doing! And I also have Pinterest for TONS of (Elf on the Shelf) suggestions. Throw all that together with a good Seinfeld reference and our Festivus traditions are slowly being born.
As I may have mentioned a time or two, I’ve been spending (way too much) time on Pinterest looking for holiday ideas and traditions that we can make our own.
These are a few of the things that will make up our Holiday Traditions now and hopefully for years to come:
- Elf on the Shelf — this is one that my husband hadn’t even heard of until I told him, but it’s also the one I’m most excited about! And it is ALL over Pinterest. Not sure if you’ve noticed, but I can hardly go on there without seeing tons of fun/cute/naughty ideas for hiding this cute and mischievous elf and letting the kids find him. We’ve just purchased ours and I can’t wait to start hiding him. I’m not sure if Miles is old enough to enjoy searching for him yet, but I think the big kids will really have fun helping me hide him and teaching Miles all about him!
- Tree Lighting Ceremonies — 2 years ago at the ceremony on Main Street, Santa repelled down the side of the Neiman Marcus building to the Superman theme song! And this year Santa “space jumped” and then landed with a jet pack at Main Street Garden! Darth Vader and some Storm Troopers always make an appearance… as do some guys on stilts. The whole thing doesn’t really make much sense, but it’s such a fun time and this year Miles really enjoyed the festivities! And now Klyde Warren Park is going to have their Tree Lighting Ceremony on the 15th! I can hardly wait to see what they have in store!
Awesome tree at AT&T Plaza
- Santa – with the help of this AMAZING post yesterday I actually feel good about our plan of attack on Santa this year! Santa can be a part of our traditions, which will make Miles’ older brother and sister very happy. And I don’t have to feel guilty about the “lie”. It’s a win-win that I didn’t see coming!
- These awesome looking treats for Christmas Eve! And these!
- A yummy ham with macaroni and cheese for Christmas dinner! I’ve made this for the big kids on Christmas for a few years now and they adore it! I can’t wait to make it for them again!!
- Walking around downtown to see all the lights and trees!
Our list is short and we’d love to add to it! I’d love to hear what other traditions your family holds dear!
