My friend Tiina Maija shared how Christmas is celebrated in Finland, and it's inspired me to share how our family celebrates. Growing up with a Swedish mother, Saint Lucia Day, kicked off the beginning of our Christmas season. Now that I have a family of my own, we begin right after Thanksgiving.
We usually chop down our Christmas tree from a local Christmas tree farm the day after Thanksgiving. My husband's family used to do the crazy waking up at 4:00am to go shopping thing, but now the day after Thanksgiving is more a day of bringing out Christmas decorations and hanging out with family.
Our decorations are mostly Swedish. We make Julgranskorg and Julgranskaramels which are hung on the tree or given away with presents.
The Jul Tomte also appears! He expects a bowl of rice pudding on the porch on Christmas Eve and riding his Julbock, a straw goat, he'll deliver Christmas presents. Tomten are sort of the Santa equivalent and my grandmother left me many handmade dolls we display at Christmas time.
We treat ourselves to certain favorite foods like Swedish meatballs, rice pudding- (single girls, find the almond and you're the next to marry), Glogg- a homemade fruity spiced wine you drink warm, and my husband will make "The Dip", a secret family recipe. Our food is usually casual with finger foods or sandwiches, Smorgasbord style. DMIL will bring Chick-Fil-A nuggets and of course we'll have cookies.
Our family usually has to have soft gingerbread, pecan fingers, spritz, peppar kakor, sugar cookie cut outs, and peanut butter with the Hershey kiss on top! We've also added another tradition of eating tiny powdered sugared donuts Christmas morning.
This began when Jared was still a toddler. He had this adorable powdered white sugar mustache in all of the opening of the present photos because the first thing he did Christmas morning was grab for the mini donuts. So now you must first eat a mini powdered sugared donut so your lips are covered in white while you open gifts!
We usually spend Christmas Eve with extended family, and Christmas day its just us with Grandma. We exchange our gifts Christmas morning or occasionally on Christmas Eve.
The boys like to watch The Polar Express and A Christmas Story. We usually watch a few other movies since DVDs are a typical Christmas gift we give each other.
One of my favorite things to do at Christmas is light candles. Advent candles are lit, one each Sunday during the 4 Sunday's leading up to Christmas. There is something so relaxing about candle light.
We usually also set out a jigsaw puzzle for everyone in the household to work on. We'll also play card games and trivia games.
Christmas Day is the ultimate day of relaxing in our house. How do you celebrate?
11 comments:
Wow what great traditions! We don't really have any. We watch a few Christmas specials, Rudolph etc together. Hubby puts out his grandfather's trains. That's about it. We're boring. lol
Thanks for sharing. You've given us some great ideas.
That was very interesting .. thanks for sharing it. :O) Hope you have a great day !
I love reading about family holiday traditions! Yours sound great! I must say your tree is absolutely GORGEOUS! I want a full tree like that.:)
We didn't really have traditions growing up, so I have implemented traditions to carry on with my family. :)
We usually put the tree up Thanksgiving week or weekend. This proves to be a great time to talk and remember the past as I tell Alex about ornaments going on the tree.
We tend to do a lot of baking and candy making each year and focus on giving to others through out the month. This year, we have not done a lot of candy making tho.
We overdose on holiday movies. We started a new tradition with our Elf on the Shelf this year. Our elf, Buddy Sam, reports nightly to the North Pole where he tells if Alex has been naughty or nice. He shows up each morning in a different place. :)
Christmas Eve we watch several airings of A Christmas Story and somewhere in there we have to see the Griswalds too. :)
Christmas Eve night, Alex opens up one present which is always a new pair of pajamas. She makes reindeer food and sets it outside. She also fixes a cookie plate with milk for the big man in the red suit. Santa always leaves her a note to read Xmas morning. This year, she's written a note to put next to the cookies. I assume she'll do this each year.
Christmas morning, I make donuts and that's our breakfast. Alex opens her gifts when she gets up and I video tape her. That afternoon, we head north to visit a day with Roger's family and the next day we visit with mine.
Christmas is very much a time for us to relax and enjoy time together as a family.:)
Love to know how others celebrated Christmas. Thanks for sharing
How honored I feel that you felt inspired to post about your traditions when I posted about mine. I found the meat balls part very interesting, I must say. I also think in general your traditions sound really nice. Having some Scandinavian added to it must make it very original.
Thanks for sharing. It's nice hearing others traditions.
I love seeing the pic of your tree in the field, and then fully decorated in your house side by side! Great traditions! I love having traditions, too, I think they are important. :)
I love your tree, it so beautiful and the family traditions are wonderful memory makers.
This year our traditions are different since there are no grandparents on either side.
Day after Thanksgiving is spent putting up lights in the kids rooms and their trees. This year Tim has decided he wants his room to look like a ice cave - he has all blue lights on his ceiling with icicles and snowflakes hanging from them. It is really cool looking. He also has his small tree all decorated and multicolored lights on it. Katie's room is decorated with multi colored lights, snowflakes, icecylcles and she is calling her room this year the fairy snow palace.
We get our tree the first week in December and cut it down at a local tree farm, this year ours looks as big as yours, We give it a day to warm up than we put all the lights on and ornaments on the tree.
We put up our fireplace on the dining room wall made from construction paper and hang the stockings on it. We do some crafts during the month of December and bake cookies.
On Christmas morning the kids wake up and open their presents that Santa has left. I make Christmas dinner usually ham sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, and bisquits. My sister in law will be coming for dinner.
Ooh, I LOVE the idea of the kids fixing up their rooms! We may have to do that next year! :)
Sounds wonderful. Hmmmm... I may have to think about this and post something.
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