Christmas... a time of traditions!

Christmas time is special, it's a time where we celebrate many things and we try to do it as a family. Which isn't as easy as it sounds. My family all live 100s of miles away, as does my husbands family, and while we'd love to have both families stay over the Christmas period we just don't have the space for them all. So we share our Christmas between them as much as possible one year with his family, one year with mine!

Sharing your Christmas with another family highlights some of the different family traditions your own family has! Since it's Dec. 1st this Saturday I thought I'd share some of my family traditions with you.

Little hands help decorate

1st December - Choosing the tree! We always have a real tree, and DangerBaby & Daddy run off to our nearest Christmas Tree farm to choose the tree. Once the tree is up in the lounge we decorate, all taking turns to choose an ornament to hang on the tree after Mummy has put the lights on! We don't use tinsel on our tree but it still looks festive once all the decorations are on.


5th December - St Nicholas Day! On the evening of December 4th we put out a shoe onto our doorstep  or near the front door. If we're on Santa's good list he leaves us some sweeties in the shoe to find on the morning of the 5th December. If we're on the naughty list we may find coal in our shoe...

Chocolate decorations may
not last long!!

24th December - Christmas Eve! Everyone is allowed to open one present from under the tree on the night of Christmas Eve. This is the time that we remember and toast those members of the family that are not with us for Christmas (they maybe far away).

25th December - Present opening, lunch eating and Christmas day walk is all we have to do on this day! The Christmas Day walk is usually done in silly Christmas hats - a tradition started when my Dad walked out still with the paper hat from a cracker on his head one Christmas!

26th December - Boxing Day BBQ!! We invite all our friends & neighbours over for a BBQ, regardless of the weather. We drink mulled wine and stand outside cooking sausages, steaks, burgers... and play games on the wet lawn (we even tried croquet one year without knowing the rules... it was a bit Alice In Wonderland!). Being outside blows the cobwebs away and the mulled wine keeps you warm.

So when we start to plan a 'traditional' Christmas in our house these are the traditions we have. We try to give at least one traditional gift, last year DangerBaby was lucky to receive her memory quilt for Christmas. This year Daddy DayCare is receiving something special... and traditional!

unikgifts.co.uk

Christmas traditions...we BBQ on boxing day!

Firstly, a huge thank you to everyone who came along to the Christmas Markets to support us. It was lovely meeting you all, we look forward to seeing you all very soon at the next fayre!

Having spent two whole days in Christmas mode, Anna and I are definitely now feeling very Christmassy. I know we still have a while to go, but I'm thinking of sending Daddy DayCare up to the attic for those boxes of decorations... we now have a playpen especially for the tree (to keep the little angel from pulling it down on herself)... and the local Christmas Tree farm has it's 'Opening on Dec 1' sign up. OOOOOHhhhh I can't wait, we'll be there on the 1st all wrapped up warm finding our perfect tree!

When we had builders there was only one place for the tree

Putting up the tree on the 1st Dec is the start of our Christmas traditions. From that point onwards we have a mixture of our families traditions from all around the globe. Here's our traditions:

1 Dec - Tree is put up... the youngest person always puts the star on the top.

5 Dec - St Nicholas Day... children put their shoes outside of the door on the evening of the 4th) to see if they're on the good or naughty list (if they've been good the shoe is filled with sweeties by the morning of the 5th)

24 Dec - Evening, everyone is allowed to open one family present.

25 Dec - Christmas Day - presents, small breakfast, goose for lunch, family games or a walk in the snow!

26 Dec - Friends invited round for our BBQ. Yep in all weathers, some years we have to dig the BBQ out from under the snow! The adults drinks gluhwein or mulled wine to keep warm... and the younger ones all play snow croquet or football or rugby! After 35mins in the cold, everyone is hungry for their hot dogs or burgers cooked on the BBQ.

Anyone seen the BBQ?

From Boxing Day onwards Christmas is slowly wound down as we look forward to the New Year and soon after my birthday!

So those are our traditions... what are yours?