Are Holiday Traditions Important to You as a Parent?

I'm wondering how important holiday traditions are to you parents. Do you have certain traditions that you do each year because you did them growing up with your family? Or are there things you remember doing that you might not do, but would like to incorporate at some point into your holiday routine? Do you think traditions are important because your children know what to expect from year to year? I feel that traditions are important. I think the routine that we have amiss all of the chaos this time of year helps the kids. Not only that, we have a few traditions that when my kids grow up I hope they will remember and maybe incorporate into their own family traditions.

Here are a few of our traditions. Our trees always go up the weekend after Thanksgiving. We put up two. The kids have a small tree they put up in their playroom and they put all of the ornaments they have gotten from grandparents on it. Then we put up a large tree in our family room. When the kids were smaller I would wait until they were in bed to decorate it, but now that they are older I let them help. We typically play some sort of Christmas music while decorating and usually order pizza for dinner. All of our other decorations come out at this time as well.

The first week in December we always attend the Clemson Christmas Parade. We sit on the ground covered up with blankets and drink hot chocolate while watching the parade. It's something nice to do as a family. The second Saturday in December we do Breakfast With Santa at the school. Everyone has a nice breakfast served by Chick-fil-A and the kids get to see Santa. They also have a few other activities for the kids and our kids always make jingle bell bracelets.

A few weeks before Christmas we begin making Christmas candy. I did this with my family for as long as I can remember. Now that I am 600 miles away I do it on my own. Now that my kids are a bit older they can help and they love helping! I have to remember to not lose patience and to just enjoy the moment because there might be a day when they no longer want to help. We always bag up candy and they take a nice big bag to each of their teachers.

On Christmas Eve we may or may not go to Christmas Eve Mass. This isn't something that is set in stone for us. We always make cookies for Santa in the evening. We roll out the dough and make one heck of a mess, but its always so much fun! We have a plate that says "Cookies For Santa" on it and each of the kids pick out two cookies and we put it with a glass of milk near the fireplace for Santa. The kids each get one gift to open this night. It's always Pjs. They open them up and put them on right away. Then we all settle in for a Christmas movie before tucking the kids into bed for the night.

We don't have any major family traditions, but just a few little things. I enjoy doing the same things each year with the kids. It's nice to scrapbook each year and see how much the kids have changed during the Christmas season.

Happy Holidays!