Thursday, July 24, 2008

Christmas in July - Traditions


We are getting to the end of the month and this is my last giveaway. A cute nativity ornament. It measures about 10cm x 15cm. Leave me a comment and you will be in the draw to win it! In our house we decorate with Christ Centred ornaments and stars, bells, wreaths, lights and a lot less with santa.

Here are some traditions that we do and so we have yet to do. Hope you enjoy.

We make pinatas for everything else - why not for christmas? See the Christmas Pinata from Craft bits.

Each night before bed I read a christmas based story. We get some from the library and each year I try to buy a book to build up our collection. I also have a book called the Lions Children Christmas Collection which has about 50 stories. Previously I was keeping them in a basket next to the tree but after seeing this idea from Makes and Takes -
Wrapped Christmas Books about wrapping 25 books and it will be a surprise what is inside. I am going to do this. Who doesn't love unwrapping gifts? Even if they are books you already own!

We put our tree up on the first Monday night in December for Family Home Evening.

We go to see Christmas Lights

And one of our favourite traditions is having a Full Christmas Dinner (my favourite because my husband cooks it ALL!!) on a Monday night before Christmas (1 or 2 weeks prior) where we invite both sets of parents (the children's grandparents) so the children are able to enjoy their grandparents all to themselves without having to share with cousins. This is one of our favourite traditions. Our children get both sets of grandparents, we eat yummy food, it prolongs the Christmas season, we can move at our own pace and basically have a fantastic time.

We celebrate Advent I use this Online Advent Calendar click on each day and it will give you a scripture, a prayer, a craft and a treat - I don't use all of them, but there are some great ideas there. I think a daily celebration of advent makes the holiday go longer

Have a birthday cake for Jesus on Christmas Eve. Help teach kids the real meaning of Christmas.

We try to attend some carol singing either at church, school or in the city at Carols by Candelight.

Some years in leiu of cards we have made a Christmas Video that is emailed out to family and friends with our children acting out parts in the Nativity story and last year they did Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer. This year we are thinking of doing "The Night before Christmas"

I try to get my children to do a service or give to a neighbour, a friend, and a stranger. I am always looking for ways we can help others at christmas if you have any ideas, please forward them on to me.

Enjoy your family traditions at Christmas - leave me a comment on what your family does at Christmas.

10 comments:

Jan said...

That is so cute Bobbie. I love that.

Melissa said...

Thanks for all of these great ideas. I take out our Christmas books the day after Thanksgiving and put them up on New Year's Eve, so they are new every year. This year I'm planning on making fabric bags to "wrap" them in, and O will get to open one each day. I'm also going to make an advent calendar that will have special treats or activities that we will do each day. I can't wait!

Janell said...

Love the giveaway!!! Love your traditions!

Montserrat said...

One of our favorite Christmas traditions is the advent calendar my dad made for us. You can read about it here.

We also love to read a different Christmas book every night. And instead of doing regular homeschool we have Christmas school and learn about a lot of different things that have to do with Christmas - the symbols, colors, Names of Christ, food, how it's celebrated in other countries, etc.

Bobbi & Noe said...

I'm starting to really like you Bobbie. I'm seeing your blog everywhere and you leave the sweetest comments!

I do all my Christmas shopping in the summer, because my husband is a wildland firefighter and it's fire season and it's when he makes all our money. People usually think I'm weird when I say that I'm going Christmas shopping right now. I LOVE the pinata! It is beautiful. Wonderful idea~

nicole said...

I love the idea of a full Christmas dinner with the grandparents. Currently there are 12 grandkids on just one side of our family so get togethers are pure chaos. I may have to implement this one this year.

Last year I started doing a 25 days of Christmas. Each day we did some sort of craft or cooking or some sort of Christmas activity. I took pictures each day and digiscrapped them and had a book made. You can see the pages on my blog. I loved spending time each day enjoying the season and am already compiling my list for this year.

mylittlegems said...

um that is so cute! I love it and would love to win it too:) sharla

mylittlegems said...

oh- and I do the 25 C-mas books thing. I just wrap the same Christmas books up every year and we open one a day and read it. It is really fun!

-Tee- said...

I am so going to make a christmas pinata!! I never thought of it before but it's awesome!! Thank you for the idea!

Frannie said...

my son is very young-- just turned 2 yesterday.

but last year we started a tradition where we wrote down 25 activities and we choose one out of a basket each day. Most were free or of little cost- we didn't want it to be about money. and we separated them into things that we short on time and longer. We saved the longer ones for the weekends and did the shorter ones (like reading a special Christmas story) on weekdays.

it was a lot of fun!

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