Posted in Its a CARNIVAL

Dan and I grew up with different traditions in our families so when we married we decided to meld the best of those when we were able to do so.  We spend Christmas at my parents one year and Dan's the next so we have to get them in where we can. 

I grew up opening presents on Christmas Eve, had Santa and stockings on Christmas Day and there was not really much more than Christmas Eve and Day that we celebrated.  My parents were putting the tree away by  a day or two after Christmas.  We did put it up at the beginning of December so we had it up for several weeks. 

Dan's family was pretty much the same way but they opened presents on Christmas Day along with getting Santa and their stockings were always full of stuff.   Whether because of procrastination or just out of not putting the tree up too early, Dan's parents got their tree up later in December and left it up through January 6th (Epiphany) most years.  

We have decided to put our tree up the Weekend after Thanksgiving when we are home.  We leave the tree up for the entire season and take it down around January 1st.  We do not wait until Epiphany because Dan has to head back to school before then and we want it down when we start back to school, too.  We have added something that our parents did not do.  We celebrate Advent.  We spend out Sunday evenings reading scripture and talking about Jesus birth and second coming.  It has changed our focus in many ways.  We are not looking forward to the presents and focusing on what we get so much anymore.  We buy one big Santa for the kids and have scaled back our presents quite a bit.  We still fill those stockings with fun things but the grandparents and aunts and uncles help with that, too, so we don't buy too much.  Stockings are more of a group effort with the children now. 

Some years I send out Christmas cards.  I did not make it this year.  I just did not think about it so much this year with so much other stuff on our plates.  I may start making it a New Year's Letter and change that up a bit, too.

We go to concerts and church events but not too much else.  we are not party animals and don't go to lots of that kind of stuff.  LOL  We have scaled much of it back in recent years to take all the stress out of it.  It has just never been fun for me to run myself ragged and then crash on Christmas Day night sick with a cold or other ailment from overdoing.  We have let that stuff go much more in recent years and I am grateful for that. 


We have other little traditions that we have developed over the years for our family.  We let the children open a pair of pajamas every Christmas Eve and then we open everything else Christmas morning.  We make cinnamon rolls for Christmas morning and then we make coffee and hot cocoa to have with them.  Yeah, we load them with sugar and then take them to Grandma's house...  LOL  We still try to have Mexican food on Christmas Eve and that is made easier since we live in El Paso and the tamales are made in abundant amounts this time of year.  The Mexican food tradition was one both our families shared, btw. 

We also have this angel that the kids take turn putting on the top of the tree.  We also let the kids put the tree up and decorate it now and I really like sitting back and watching it happen as long as there is no fighting going on.  I step in every now and then to put a few ornaments on as does Dan but for the most part they are getting older and can do it themselves.  I am hoping that I will walk in someday and they will surprise me with it all being done and I won't have to do a thing!    Oh, and we still decorate in shifts.  We put the tree up and then later we will do the lights and then later still we will do ornaments.  It may take us a day or two or even a week to get it all up now. 


We also bake cookies and make candy together.  We have made those prefabbed gingerbread houses in past years but will be trying our hand at one from scratch this year.  We will see how that goes to see if it will really be a tradition or not.  LOL


So, those are some of our traditions and how they came to be...



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