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We’re military families. That means we don’t necessarily celebrate Thanksgiving on Thanksgiving or Christmas on Christmas. Sometimes “life” interrupts. But, I do know that there is one thing we are very “rich” in and that is tradition. Our very being is traditional.
Our family has all sorts of little habits, rituals, and yes, traditions. Especially around the holidays. We started one last year that was giving the girls their own Christmas tree to decorate. On Christmas Eve we always get new pajamas. Christmas presents from us are wrapped but from Santa their unwrapped. We always read “Twas the Night Before Christmas” on Christmas Eve during our traditional “program” and we always hang a sock for the UNforgotten soldiers.
What are some of yours? Will you please share?
We spend one whole evening decorating our christmas tree, eating appertizers, and watching chrismas movies. Also, Christmas eve we bake cookies for santa. While talking about what kind of cookies we are going to make my four year old asked me what about the raindeer? So, i guess we will be leaving a snack out for them this year as well.
We have a tree skirt that I sew something relavent on each year. My kids are on there the year they were born, deployments, houses, moves. The most significant thing of our year goes on the skirt. We also open PJs on Christmas Eve(ever since I was a kid!) and Santa leaves unwrapped toys at our house. I always (since college) send a huge tray of goodies to the soldiers in my husband’s unit. This year we are trying something new and having a “polar express party” to kick off the holiday season. The party will be a “giving back” lesson because we will be collecting toys for needy children. My kids are really looking forward to that!
My husband and I buy an ornament each Christmas representing something important that happened that year. Underneath we write the year, how many Christmas’s we have spent, married, and how the ornament corresponds with that year. We buy a board game to add to our collection for Thanksgiving and for Christmas. We also try to put a puzzle together during the holiday seasons. For our Christmas tree, itself, we love to decorate by themes…it can get a bit expensive depending on what you decide on, but it’s nice to have lots of things added to the “decoration” collection…some examples would be: color schemes, Doves, Cardinals, Bows, Bells, Oriental, Edible (this is where you make candies, cookies, etc, and wrap in colored saran wrap–the only bad thing is that you have to replenish it!), Nutcracker themes, Santa, Bears, Snowflakes, etc, etc…the possibilities are endless!
I watch all the old school Christmas movies (I am VERY thankful for ABC Family’s 25 Days of Christmas!). My favorite one is no longer shown on TV, and I had a hard time finding it on DVD. It’s called A Muppet Family Christmas – with all the muppets, Sesame Street Muppets, and Fraggle Rock! We will go and buy a real tree and decorate it. On Christmas Eve, I sing in my church service. Then on Christmas morning, we go to Christmas Mass at Matt’s church. Then we go to his parents, where we get together with his WHOLE family – his 5 siblings with their spouses and kids. It’s craziness, but we love it. To cut down on the expens of gifts, the Saturday after Thanksgiving we draw names. His mom, after opeing all the gifts on Christmas, hands out the “cracker” things that the British use on Boxing Day. Inside this litte tube thing is little games, a paper crown, and jokes. We all enjoy opening our crackers and then we go around the living room telling the jokes that were in ours.
I love watching the old Rudolph clay-mation type show, and decorating the tree. My husband and I have both received ornaments each year all our lives and it is fun to pick and choose and look at each other’s ornaments. My family always did one gift on Christmas Eve, always pajamas, so we’re continuing that. Probably if we had children we’d bake for Santa, too. I like the idea of the stocking for unforgotten soldiers, too. I should learn to sew – it would be fun to do a patch from each unit we’re at together as a couple. I find myself collecting primarily unbreakable decorations – wood and metal! Plus I have a snowflake picture frame, and update it each year with last Christmas’s photo.
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