traditions

I've mentioned on here three million times once or twice that I love a tradition. In fact, I'm such a fan that I usually put too much pressure on an event and end up disappointed. I'm getting better at that, but slowly.

Christmas time is full of tradition and today I'm linking up with AP to talk about some of my families growing up and some we have now.

Growing up there was cookie baking and Christmas parties with friends. We did a "Dirty Santa" party with our neighbors and their family each year. Christmas Eve included the candlelight service at church followed by heading back home to read "The Night Before Christmas" and the Christmas story in the Bible before getting to open our smallest gift and then heading to bed. Christmas morning, we sang "Happy Birthday" to baby Jesus before any gifts and then made our way to the grandparents for lunch. I always loved spending the morning with my parents and my brother and then getting to see everyone else in the afternoon. It was just a great day with family.

When you get married, it can be a bit tough to figure out how to mesh traditions. Before Mr. P and I had BG, we were a bit lax on tradition and were pretty go with the flow. However, now that we have BG, we're working hard to start our own traditions.

It's important to me to send a Christmas card each year. This will happen every year and it will include our family picture each year. I'm sure I'll be bribing Mr. P and BG for pictures for years to come.


There will always be church on Christmas Eve. Always. In fact since we didn't have a church home last year, I searched high and low for a church that had one. I love the candlelight service. It gets my mind right for the next day. Plus singing those hymns to candlelight? Chills.


"The Night Before Christmas" and the Christmas story will be read before bed. And in lieu of opening the smallest gift on Christmas Eve, I want to start the opening matching pajamas so we can all look adorable(ish) on Christmas morning. I just love that tradition.

I was given a holiday Barbie ornament every year by my Mom from the first year they were released on. I still love those things. I want to find an ornament collection for BG so that she can have one for every year and eventually take with her when she leaves (when she's fifty). Mr. P and I also pick out an ornament each year that we think best represents our year (ie: new baby, new home, etc). It's fun, even though I'm always the one that ends up picking out the ornament.

Of course there is the yearly Santa picture. An absolute must. Along with riding around looking at Christmas lights.

Can we talk about how awesome this picture is?! Man I heart that child!

We bake cookies to leave out for Santa on Christmas Eve and this year BG will also get to leave out reindeer food. We will always sing "Happy Birthday" to Jesus on Christmas morning first thing.

We don't do the Elf on the Shelf yet, but I kind of can't wait til BG's old enough to get it. I think that might be on the agenda for 2013...

There's so many fun traditions and I'm sure we have more but I think that's enough. The thing is, it changes every year and I kind of love it. We're figuring out what is important to us and starting new traditions as we go. These are just some of the ones that we truly love. Can't wait to read some of yours!