Christmas Traditions

I can't believe in three days we will be celebrating the Birth of Jesus Christ. I look forward to celebrating Skylar and Alysha's first Christmas. I have been thinking a lot about Christmas traditions this month and what kind of tradition(s) I want to start for our family. I have been asking all my friends what kind of traditions they have started with their own family to get some ideas.

I was so excited when I came across the blog, The Bonjour Family, that talked about their family Christmas Traditions.

It got be thinking about what our traditions were growing up. There are four traditions that we had growing up that I will always remember.

1. Our Visit from Santa Clause at the Vegter Christmas Party - Growing up we always had the Vegter Christmas party at the Forest Grove Hall. The night would start with a big pot luck dinner. After dinner us kids would play for a little while and Santa would always show up with a big red bag filled with toys!!! Looking back this was so exciting for us kids..until we got to the age of 13 and were too cool to sit on Santa's lap.

We no longer have a Vegter Christmas party, but I do wish we would have kept the Santa Clause tradition going with our own extended family Christmas party.

2. Christmas Ornaments from Grandma Hoekstra - We could always count on receiving an Christmas ornament from my Grandma with our names engraved on them along with the year. To this day I still have those ornaments and it is fun to see all the different styles. Now that I am married, I no longer get ornaments from my Grandmother, however she did give Alysha and Skylar their first ornament.

3. Stockings from Grandma De Vree - My Grandma would hang our stockings right underneath our school picture. Our stockings were so filled with stuff that my Grandma would give us a brown shopping bag to use to unload our stockings!

Skylar and Alysha have stockings of their own this year. I hope when they get a little older they look forward to opening their stockings as much as I looked forward to opening my stocking from my grandmother.

4. Opening one gift early - Every year my siblings and I could not wait till Christmas day to open our gifts. So we would beg and beg our parents to let us open one gift early. Every year it worked and we were allowed to open one gift early. My sisters and I were terrible at waiting to find out what we got for Christmas. I remember one year my mom was gone and we searched high and low for our Christmas presents. We found our Cabbage Patch dolls in the laundry room that year. Another year we unwrapped our gifts and wrapped them back up.

I hope that whatever tradition(s) I come up with for our family my girls enjoy them and remember them when they are 32 years old.

Click here to read about other family Christmas Traditions.