My Favorite Christmas Traditions
A look into my family's Christmas
One lovely aspect of a new marriage is uniting family traditions. My husband and I have a few traditions in common such as opening a gift on Christmas Eve and giving the kids a new pair of Christmas pajamas every year. There are, however, a few traditions that we didn’t have in common but we’re passing down to our children so they can experience the joy of the season that we did.
November 1st; the start of the Christmas season
Jumping into perhaps what is the most controversial tradition I had growing up: November 1st the official start of the Christmas season in our home. My mom and I have been doing this tradition for years. It’s our way to say “See ya!” to the distasteful Halloween holiday and celebrate the start of the best season of all: Christmas! We decorate the home, drink the season’s first glass of egg nog, my sister puts up the tree and my mom and I watch a Christmas movie with the kiddos.
Also, when I was growing up I worked for a small family business. I was aware that most of the purchases the customers made during November and December were going to be Christmas gifts. Being able to create those gifts for others while drinking hot chocolate and watching Christmas movies made me feel like a happy Christmas elf!
When I first told my husband about this tradition, he was all in. He, too, loves the Christmas season and was more than happy to share in this tradition with us. He also likes to buy Christmas gifts early so it was a good excuse to try and have all gifts purchased by November.
Early Gifts
Speaking of buying gifts early… one of the traditions my husband came up with (completely unintentionally) was giving gifts early. It’s not limited to Christmas, either. We typically do this for any holiday or occasion and it’s pretty spontaneous. We don’t give all gifts before the actual day of the holiday, but we usually exchange at least one or two in advance. For example, one of my Twitter mutuals is Deus Vult Lapel Pins. He’s always coming out with based lapel pin designs. I discovered his shop around 2 months ago and I’ve already placed several orders. My husband and I collect pins so usually when I order one, I get a second for my husband.
I originally purchased the pins as Christmas gifts but when I stuffed his stocking with little gifts I’d previously squirreled away, I was out of room! So, I decided the pins would make a perfect early gift.
Christmas Light Shows and Events
Another tradition my husband came up with is going to a Christmas light event. His family did this growing up and he wanted to pass it down to ours.
The Christmas we were engaged, he wanted to do something extra special so we went to two different events.
The first was a few towns away at the state aquarium. They had the entire inside and outside decorated in lights and displays. Some of the fish tanks also had black light effects and Christmas decorations inside!
The second was a day trip to the town where we had our first date. We walked the same pier and then took a trip to the local gardens he had wanted to take me to for our first date. We didn’t end up going to the gardens that first date because my map app messed up on the closing time and they had closed for the day by the time we arrived.
We ended up attending that lights event for the first New Year’s Eve we were together. It was truly a special way to welcome the New Year – the gardens were fully decorated with thousands of candles and Christmas lights.
The 12th Day of Christmas
The last family tradition of ours that I’ll discuss is the 12th Day Christmas, also known as Epiphany, which is the day celebrating when the magi arrived with gifts for the infant King Jesus.
In my family, 12th Day (as we call it) is celebrated by reading the story of the magi and giving the children of the household one last Christmas gift. Instead of the gift being a fun or silly gift, we focus on a gift that’s more practical and try to find something that will be useful to them in the coming new year. For the first 12th Day after each of our babies are born, we give them their first Bible. This year, my toddler is getting a numbers and letters workbook since that’s what he’ll be learning in the coming year.
My husband didn’t grow up with this tradition but he loved it so much, he wanted to continue it not only for our children, but for each other as well. Gifts in the past have been practical things like replacement shoes for my husband (he goes through shoes rather quickly at his job) and a nice set of pajamas for when I was newly postpartum with our first baby.
Blending our Christmas traditions and creating new traditions has been a lot of fun. I would love to hear about the parts of your family culture that you’re passing down to your children—please, share your favorite traditions in the comments!