Special Traditions - Saint Charles,MO

We have many but one that my now grown children have recently told me they really loved was going each year to pick out an ornament for the tree. They got to pick something that was related to what they were into at the time (like dance, trains, soccer, etc.) or had something to do with where we lived (Key West, FL ornaments included a dancing flamingo and a Santa wearing Bermuda shorts). Now as adults they can look back at them and see all the phases they went through. And it made for a very interesting tree. :)

Santa brings Christmas pj's to our house on Christmas Eve that way everyone is wearing festive pj's in the morning.

Santa never wrapped presents in our house. If a present was wrapped it was from a family member or friend. If it was tossed wherever it happened to land it was from Santa, because Santa is a busy man and he doesn't have time to wrap presents and place them neatly under the tree. He leaves milk rings and cookie crumbs on the table and the reindeer leave bits of chewed veggies all over the lawn. One year the tooth fairy showed up at the same time as Santa...looked like they had a party in my living room. My daughter is 15 now so it's not quite the same, but I sure do miss those messy Christmas mornings.

One of our family traditions is a Letter from Santa and a new ornament that has something to do with what went on in their lives that year. I'm a designer so I make the Santa letter myself. It usually mentions the grade they are in and the activities they are doing and how well they have been behaving. It's very short.
Then I find an ornament that has special meaning, such as the dog ornament that looks like our dog the year we got her from a rescue. We also got them Disney character ornaments the year we went to Disney.

We have 3 kids so dating the ornaments and adding their names to the bottom or to the box helps keep them sorted if they got the same ornament of a different color. Santa's elves "surprise" the kids by putting the letter and ornament out under the tree a few days before Christmas when no ones in the house. We figure that by the time they are ready to leave home and start their adult lives they will have a good number of ornaments for their own tree—all with special meaning.

We all drive to MO to be with our extended family. Then after attending Christmas Eve candle light service, we come back to my in-laws andread the Christmas story from Matthew or Luke. Kids get jammies and then are put to bed. Once asleep, adults sip champagne and put out the Santa gifts and in the morning my husband (yes, before all the kids) jumps on everyone's bed to wake them up (since his family is who we stay with, it is all his siblings and apparently this has been his role since birth - lol!). Then we all take pictures in front of the tree with bows on our head/shoulder, etc. Which I did the first year with my son who was 3 months old at the time. I loved it and it continues to be a "newer" tradition.
A lot of our traditions happened organically. I think if after your first year with your son, you will start seeing some great traditions pop out to join those you already have :)

everyone gets christmas pjs, pre-washed and wrapped as a gift, on christmas eve night - we go to the 5pm mass, we'll do the midnight mass as the kids get older. we put our cookies for santa and food/water for the reindeer, then my husbands reads twas the night before christmas. on christmas night, we drive around and look at all the christmas lights. elf on the shelf appears the day after thanksgiving. there's prob lots more, but that's a few :)

We all get a new ornament each year, something that means a little something ot us. (sometimes they are even handmade) I have more handmade ones than not on our tree! We also do a new photo ornament of each child every year, and add those to the tree. I even do ones of our pets. It really fills up the tree, but it's fun to look back and see how everyone has changed. Now my girls and 2 younger ones all hang their own ornaments each year when the tree gets put up. I never meant for that to be a tradition, but it just ended up that way. (we have so many ornaments that we have started hanging them from ribbon from the ceiling in our livingroom as well to decorate the room. It looks so cool!) Also, we all get new pajamas on Christmas eve every year. The kids get to open them, along with 1 other gift (usually somethig quite small) from us and then they wear their new PJ's to bed so when they get up on Christmas morning they have the new pj's on and we all look good in pictures. (as far as the pj's go anyway!) I even try to get some type that the fabric or designs match which can be hard for the 4 kids since they are 21, 18, 10 (boy) and 8. The 2 older usually have the same since they are both girls, but the younger 2 not always. The foods we eat and serve both Christmas eve and Christmas day have become a tradition, so much that when I tried to change things up a couple years back my kids were very upset. (again, I hadn't realized that those things felt like traditions to them) LOL! Getting our tree is a family event. We all load up in our car to go find one and buy it. Then we decorate it together the next night. All of the gifts from "Santa" are wrapped in paper with Santa on it, so the kids know those are from him. Ours are wrapped in other kinds of paper. (our oldest noticed we had the same wrap as Santa one year when she was only about 2 or 3, so we changed it and it stuck. Also, only the childs name is on the santa gifts. He feels no need to sign the tags. The paper is like his signature. LOL! (and yes, all of my kids know the truth about Santa, but still all play along! They really still enjoy it) We track Santa and his sleigh on the computer every Christmas eve to see where he is. (type in santa tracker and it will bring up several sites) When the kids were believers it was so much fun to see where he was and watch their faces. They would all run to bed yelling we have to go to sleep NOW!! Now we do it just because they like to play along for the younger kids who are here. We host dinner Xmas eve. Also, we always do a family together for the angel tree, either through Salvation army or somewhere else. Last year was ST Vincent de Paul. We ALL go shopping together for the presents for the family, food for their meal, and then instead of wrapping the gifts, I like to include gift wrap and all the other items needed like tape, bows, tags, etc and let the parents of the chosen family do that themselves. Then I include reciepts to return items if they are the wrong size, etc. The only gifts we do wrap are the ones for the parents. I am trying to come up with something "new" and memorable for my kids this year, and so far I have gotten a few good ideas. I want our presents for each other to be more on the homemade idea than just simply store bought. I am thinking maybe having the older 2 help with the younger and vice versa? I hope that you come up with some ideas for your family. Christmas traditions are funny. Some you may set out to start as traditions, while others happen totally by accident. Trust me, the ones that will mean the most to your child will not be the ones that you expected! (at least I didn't) I was amazed! Have a fun and memorable holiday! :)

The last week or two before Christmas, we make a new homemade ornament each night. We each make at least one (but often more) and put them on the tree. Each year we have a couple of standard ones and add some new ones. We keep the ornaments and put them back on the tree the next year and add the new ones.

Start with an ornament made with his handprint, and make one handprint ornament each year with the year written on the back. It will show how he's grown and will be a testament to his development as the crafts get more intricate.