Ah, the end of the year. It comes so quickly and then flies by so fast. Part of the reason is the absolute busyness of the season. Traveling to and from different families houses, last-minute shopping, and meal preparation are all necessary actions during the planning stage of the holidays.
But, it’s during some of these moments that the best memories are made.
Holiday traditions are born out of the intimate and meaningful interactions we have with our closest friends and family members. An evening of preparing Christmas cookies and pies with Grandparents becomes a way for us to connect with loved ones. A meal a family eats every year becomes special. And specific routines, like reading a story, become important for everyone.
Here are our team’s holiday traditions with their families!
“Growing up our holiday tradition was to make cookie tins. My mom and I would makeup eight to 10, maybe 12, different varieties of cookies and then split them all up into the tins and deliver them to the neighbors, and my aunts, uncles, and cousins. That is probably my fondest memory of Christmas traditions. Because it was a really old house that was cold, my mom would put them in tupperware and store them in the back porch. I remember sneaking out there every night and looking through all the cookies to see which ones I wanted.”
– Sara Anderson
“We usually go to my grandparent’s house a few days before the holidays and we make a huge batch of homemade noodles. We end up making chicken noodles and then making mashed potatoes and stuffing. Nothing’s store bought. And, we always end up putting on 1950’s-era music and dancing around the house. Our grandparents raised us to like 50’s music! We’ve done this ever since we were little.”
– Jasmine Storer
“I’ll buy my three boys a new pair of pajamas, a movie, and a Christmas book and wrap it all up. We’ll open it on Christmas Eve. And I always read them ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas.”
– Lonni Moye
“On Christmas Eve, we always get new pajamas for our whole family. They usually have either the same theme or look alike some way. And then we take a family photo!”
– Brianna Swartz
“We make little ornaments and we all get into our Christmas pajamas and take a photo by the tree. We also do stockings. We do our own Christmas and then do Christmas at both my parents. If everyone can go, that’s a lot of people! I have nine siblings. We also like to do breakfast all together at one of the parents’ houses. My mom usually makes monkey bread and party potatoes. We sing happy birthday to Jesus, too!”
– Daphne Bowersock
“For my Dad’s side of the family, we always do a white elephant on Christmas Eve. And then right before Christmas we always make cookies with my Mom’s side of the family and my Grandma. On Christmas morning, we always have to be in our pajamas, you can’t actually get dressed before presents. My brother moved away, so on his way to our house for gifts he had to stay in his pajamas!”
– Emily Cave
“There’s two things that I do, one is with my husband’s family. We do holiday baking before Christmas, usually hard tack candy and fudge. With my family, we’ll decorate the tree while we listen to Christmas music and drink eggnog.”
– Kristina Deubler
What are your fondest holiday traditions and memories? Share them with us, we’d love to hear what your families do to celebrate the season.