As I mentioned before, I LOVE the holidays. The things I love the most are the traditions I have brought from my family, my husband has brought from his and we have created as a family. So, below you will find my faves. The things I love the most about the holidays. So, tell me about your holiday traditions in the comments below!
Classic Christmas Movies and Shows (and a Contest!)
One of my all time favourtie Christmas memories was watching Miracle on 34th Street with my Dad. Usually my sisters and my mom weren’t interested so it was something we did together. This movie continues to give me the warm and fuzzies and now that I have it on DVD I am going to watch it with my 8 year old. Natalie Wood does such an amazing job as Suzie discovering the meaning and magic of Christmas.
and Frosty the Snowman, as well as a Bonus Holiday CD. If you are like me and LOVE these classic shows enter our ONE-WEEK-ONLY CONTEST to win your copy in time for the holidays! Remeber, you must be an urbanmoms.ca member to win!
The list would not be complete without the ultimate green miser, The Grinch! I loved both the book and the TV movie of the How the Grinch Stole Christmas. There is just something so magical about his heart growing 3 sizes that day and little Cindy Loo Who!
Christmas Eve – One thing I look forward to every year is my family’s Christmas Eve tradition. This has been going on as long as I can remember and was born in the 1960’s or 1970’s by my parents. Every Christmas Eve we have a family fondue feast! We have both a scrumptious cheese fondue found by my sis at a restaurant in Chamonix, France (remember my LOVE of cheese!) and an oil based meat fondue. We serve the cheese fondue with green and red pepper and apple as well as bread and serve both beef and chicken for the meat lovers. We also make this wonderful sauce to put over the meat and on rice called Kabuki Sauce. No matter how big or how small the group we always manage to fit in our fondue dinner!
The wonderful thing about this tradition is that fondue is not a quick meal. We spend a lot of time together in the kitchen preparing and then a few hours sitting around cooking, munching, and talking. Even the kids get involved! My 8 year old son loves both types of fondue and my daugher (who is a very picky eater) can sit and chat while nibbling on the bread. My mouth is watering just looking at the picture!
Post Christmas Dinner – We often spend part of the holidays with my husband’s family up at their farm near Ontario ski country (I know, I know, it ain’t the Rockies but it’s all we got!). Usually it is post-Christmas and no one wants to see another turkey for at least a few months so my sister-in-law wisely invented Christmas Lasagna! Thanks to President’s Choice or another easy to prepare option and after a day of skiing our new holiday tradition is a welcome change. With homemade garlic bread and ceasar salad our tummies are full and everyone’s happy.
Community Christmas Dinner – Sometimes we are not up north at either of our families for Christmas Day which means we can host Christmas dinner at our house. That means turkey and all the trimmings (with a lot of help from my mom because, as many of you know, I am no kitchen diva) and it also means opening up our home. For years we have had friends join us for Christmas dinner. We have friends whose families are overseas or friends who for one reason or another are on their own. We also have couple friends where one of them does not celebrate Christmas so we get the pleasure of integrating many different cultures and traditions into our Christmas. Nothing like a homemade latke to go with my stuffing or a Finnish Prune Rice Pudding with my Christmas Cake! Also, my sister is a vegetarian so we incorporate some wonderful vegetarian dishes into our traditional holiday fare.
Christmas morning is the best! A little too early but the energy and excitement is enough to get us up and moving. The rule in our house is that no one can go and see what Santa brought until everyone is ready. After the heat is turned up, the coffee is put on to brew, and we have all taken a trip to the bathroom the kids close their eyes, we get out the camera, and we lead them to their stockings. Then 1, 2, 3 open your eyes and see what surprises are waiting! This is so much fun and extends the excitement just a little bit longer.
One very important tradition we have which I have forced onto my husband’s family is the take turns and appreciate approach to present opening. The kids get to be elves and then we open gifts one at a time by age. The Elves choose a gift for the appropriate person and we all watch as they open their gift. This means that everyone gets to appreciate the moment, share their joy, and say thank you. We acknowledge each gift and it is not just a free for all of greediness!
Christmas Eve can be a late night only to wake very early on Christmas morning. To avoid the post-present blahs my family has started the tradition of the Christmas Day skate, ski, or sled. Depending on where we are (in the city or up north) we will open presents and have a light breakfast and then head off the the rink or slopes or toboggan hill. This is a great distraction for the kids and a great way to fill the day. It also means overtired little ones are out from under foot when Christmas dinner preparations are going on.
I know there are tons more but these are my faves. Please share yours in the commments below!
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Wow!! I love it all. It is just so incredible and always a wonderful time with family and friends. A few additions are Egg Nog – a must have when decorating the tree. I also now have The Sound of Music as a Christmas tradition with my best friend and her husband – he cooks while we watch and sing along – he actually knows all the words as well. This is also my first year in the UK where I am bringing in some wonderful English traditions to add to mine. Much of this is the addition of even more food for Christmas dinner!! And I have to say I love the idea of popping out to the pub Christmas afternoon to wish friends a Merry Christmas.
I’m Jewish, but I LOVE the Christmas TV programming…. 🙂 I love how the streets are quiet…. I love the energy, the romance in the air….
As for Hannukkah, I love the gifts every day! We haven’t made a big deal about Hanukkah in a long time — because it’s really about the kids. This one’s going to be a great one for the monkey and rascal. I’ll make it memorable. Decorations, latkahs, dredels and everything!
I have to say that White Christmas is my absolute favourite & frankly most years it is still November when I watch it for the first time. I know, a little early, but I figure if it is after American Thanksgiving then anything is fair game. My hubby’s fav is Scrooge with Albert Finney (the musical one…I know, he’s weird) & he can sing every word of every song. Crap, I’m gonna get in trouble for saying that.
We too have carried on the fondue tradition with friends of ours, wherever we happen to live. It is my fav meal by far (beats turkey hands down) & I really miss the big family fondues with the women throwing in the towel fairly early & the guys with a dozen or so forks in the oil fondue. I love the thought that there are all these fondues going on, frankly, all over the world because of Jen & Kath’s wonderful parents starting this tradition all those years ago!! I’ll toast to you over a pot of bubbling cheese this Dec 24!!
Every Christmas Eve, my whole family goes to my parents’ church where they proudly show off their ever-growing flock of grandchildren. After that, my parents host a party for our closest family friends… now almost all of the kids have their own kids and it’s the only time we see some of them all year. Christmas Eve, by far, is my favourite tradition.
My kids are just getting into the old Christmas specials and I love watching them together.
I just love this time of year. The snow, cheerful attitudes and family get togethers.
Traditions are a wonderful thing to have. In my family we always got the opportunity to open a present on the 24th. After dinner everyone had to have their bath and then mom would hand you the gift. We were so excited to do this, and as usual it was a new pair of pajamas. Every year we would look forward to getting our new pjs. I carried on this tradition with my family and they enjoy it just as much as I did.
One thing has changed on Dec. 24th though, it happens to also be my older daughter’s birthday (yes bad timing on my part LOL, but they did bring her to me in a stocking that said Merry Christmas Mom). She gets to choose her Birthday dinner, which is always a prime rib roast dinner with roasted potatoes and veggies. We clean up, open the new jammies and watch a few christmas movies. Well four to be exact, since we all have our favorites. I personally like the Grinch who Stole Christmas. Oh did I mention my kids are 20, 17 and 14. I just LOVE the fact they still look forward to our Christmas Eve tradition.
Ahhh…where to begin. Being your sis, of course, many of the above are near and dear to MY heart, too.
I have come to appreciate Miracle on 34th Street, and make a point of watching it, but I have added two new oldies to our family’s holiday movie repertoire: The Sound of Music (it’s usually on either while we trim our tree or when we have a nice fire in the fireplace. Ahh!) and Holiday Inn. DH introduced me to Holiday Inn and White Christmas, and I love them both. So much that I sometimes get them mixed up and can’t remember which is which!
The Grinch has somehow graduated to a year-round fave bedtime story in our house (I think my 4 year old just sees it as a natural extension of The Cat In The Hat & Green Eggs And Ham), but I adore seeing the TV special, too.
DVDs and PVR are great because they save you the pain of realizing you MISSED Rudolph and it’s not on again until next year (GAWD, I STILL remember that year *sob*) but there is still something special about planning your pre-Christmas nights to include the “specials”.
We will be inviting friends to turkey dinner for the first time this year. So many folks in Calgary hail from elsewhere, so it’ll be the transplanted Torontonians hosting the transplanted Nova Scotians 🙂 Can’t wait!
And YES, I fully insist on the one-at-a-time gift opening approach, until we get to the insane point where one or two people have 20 gifts left under the tree and everyone else is finished (remember Mom’s gifts from co-workers??). Usually this is the kids with a bunch of extras from all over so we let them go nuts at that point. I think this is probably the most important aspect of the day…appreciating the moment of giving and receiving, and formalizing the giving of thanks.