Christmas … it’s my favorite time of the year!  Whatever way you want to call it, the fact is it is a season of love, peace and joy.  One of the many reasons why I love Christmas is because it lends itself to a lot of family time which brings birth to family traditions.
Do you have family traditions on Christmas? We do. And we have plenty.  Our family traditions are not elaborate or sophisticated. They are just simple things that our family enjoyed doing together, year after year, that it now counts as tradition.  I’m excited to share some of them with you:

1. Putting up the Christmas Tree right after Thanksgiving.  We decorate our Christmas Tree as a family and it’s always a fun time. As we pull out the ornaments, we remember memories associated with them.  Being busy working parents, we learned that putting up the Christmas Tree on the night of Thanksgiving or that weekend after the Thanksgiving works best for us. After the weekend of Thanksgiving, the calendar of activities gets too hectic, it’s harder to find a time.

2. Making Gingerbread Houses.  I did not get to create any gingerbread house when I was a child. But I always love looking at one. When my two kids were old enough to be able to decorate a Gingerbread house, I started the tradition.  Our family looks forward to it.  My kids were 4 and 5 when we started this tradition – they are 13 and 15 now and they still love it!  To make it less complicated, we just buy the Gingerbread House Kit at Costco, one for each child.  The house is already built so it’s just the fun part of decorating that we do.

3. Picture with Santa – Santa Claus is everywhere on Christmas Season. It’s easy to find him at the malls, shopping centers, and events.  When my kids were little, we visited a friend’s house and part of her decoration is her Christmas photos when she was a child. It gave us an idea and we started bringing our kids to take photos with Santa as well. Now we have a collection of them and loves looking at their photos as the years go by.

4. Watching Christmas Movies – We own many Christmas DVD’s. I bought most of them from thrift stores and garage sales.  But now we don’t even need a DVD as Netflix on the internet gives us a variety of choices of Christmas Movies.  We love watching Christmas movies as a family – complete with pop corn and hot apple cider or hot cocoa.  Some of our all time favorites are This Wonderful Life, Miracle on 24th Street and the Christmas Story. How about you, what is your favorite Chrsitmas movie to watch?

5. Reading Christmas Books – Aside from owning a lot of Christmas DVD’s we also own many Christmas Books. One of favorite book that I read was the “The Best Christmas Gift Ever”.  We also enjoy reading the Christmas Story from the Bible as we remember the true reason for the season.

6. Baking Christmas Cookies – I am not a good baker, but my husband is. He is usually in charge of baking the real chocolate chips cookies and the oatmeal cookies. For my kids and I, we do the sugar cookies. From the box. And we enjoy decorating them as much as we enjoy decorating the Gingerbread houses.

7. Christmas Family Photo and Christmas Cards – This is a bit complicated as my husband and I do not have the same level of enjoyment when it comes to taking family photos for Christmas Cards.  I tremendously enjoy it and he does not.  So the truth it this is not really a part of our family tradition.  But I included this on the list because I know it’s a good one. Some even hire a professional photographer to take the photos of their family.  Do you?

These are just some of our Christmas family traditions that works for us.  There are more!  I am sure many of you have your own Christmas family traditions too. I encourage you to share them here in the comment section so we can learn from you. Aloha and Mele Kalikimaka to all!