Welcome to Day 6 of the 12 Days of Christmas Blog Tour. Don’t forget to check out Stories by Firefly (our host) and the giveaway here!
Today I’ll be talking about my favorite Christmas traditions! I love family traditions. 🙂
Without further ado…my five favorite family Christmas traditions.
The Christmas Tree
We usually get our Christmas tree like a week or two before Christmas and take it down sometime after Christmas (usually before mid-January). This year, however we actually got it two days after Thanksgiving!
Christmas Tree farms where you get to cut down your own tree are cool, but we usually go to a particular tree-stand with really good trees (and good prices).
Once we get it home, Dad trims it all fancy and we put it in a corner near the window in our living room. Then, we decorate it!
We each have a bag of ornaments that are either ours or are ours to put on the tree this year. But first someone has to put the lights on the tree.
While we’re at it, we tend to decorate other parts of the house with a little bit of Christmas lights and our nativity sets.
Stockings
When we were younger Mom and Dad filled our stockings each Christmas Eve, but at a certain point we didn’t do it anymore.
Then stockings made a comeback, this time with everyone involved. Around the same time we put up the tree we put up stockings for everyone in the family (including Mom and Dad) and everyone puts small gifts (and sometimes candy) in them to be gotten into on Christmas morning.
It’s so much fun!!! Coming up with stuff to put in Dad’s stocking was a little more difficult the first few years (especially since he really doesn’t like peppermint) but I think we’ve gotten better at it since then. 🙂
The only hard thing about our way of doing stockings is that since you often put some of the same things in everyone’s stockings it can me hard to coordinate. For instance, last year we all got each other Lindt truffles of some kind, which are absolutely delicious but there’s a limit. 😂 We had A LOT of Lindt truffles that year, so this year we’re working at doing a little coordination while still maintaining the surprise. 🙂
Gifts
As soon as possible (which often isn’t extremely soon) after Thanksgiving we put all of our names in a hat (excepting mom and dad) and draw someone to give a Christmas gift to.
We try to keep which person we are giving to a secret as long as possible, but we are always finding out on accident. For instance, last year I happened to know that the second-to-last person who drew a name, drew their own name and had to put it back. And somehow my intuitive brain just couldn’t help but instantly know the implications of that. 🙄 So yeah.
While we still often give handmade gifts to siblings who aren’t what we drew, our main (usually store-bought) gift goes to our secret person. That way we can make sure and get a super special present for everyone in the family without breaking the bank (and everyone getting a LOT of presents).
Coffee Cake
The next tradition I’m going to mention is something we pretty much only eat on Christmas Day. I’m not exactly sure how this started, or if anyone else does this, but every Christmas morning (or afternoon, if we don’t read the Christmas story and open presents right away) we have Coffee Cake either with our breakfast or after.
I’m not exactly sure why we need extra sugar on Christmas morning, but Coffee Cake on Christmas morning is a very special tradition to me!
The Christmas Story
This is the most essential and beloved Christmas tradition we have. Without it Christmas would not mean all it does. Sometimes we’ll read Luke 1-2, sometimes we’ll read Matthew 1-2, sometimes we’ll read both. But no matter what, before we open all the present under the tree, and before we go eat Coffee Cake, we read the story of the Prince of Peace incarnate in human form to deliver us from our sins.
Because truly that is the most amazing wondrous thing we could celebrate.
Have an awesome day, week, and year. God bless you and keep you and cause his face to shine upon you and give you peace. In Jesus’ name, amen.
Song of the Day: The Wexford Carol (Performed by Alison Krauss and Yo-Yo Ma).
Good people all, this Christmas-time,
Consider well and bear in mind
What our good God for us has done,
In sending His beloved Son.
With Mary holy we should pray
To God with love this Christmas Day:
In Bethlehem upon that morn
There was a blessed Messiah born.
Near Bethlehem did shepherds keep
Their flocks of lambs and feeding sheep;
To whom God’s angels did appear,
Which put the shepherds in great fear.
“Prepare and go, ” the angels said,
“To Bethlehem, be not afraid;
For there you’ll find, this happy morn,
A princely Babe, sweet Jesus born.”
With thankful heart and joyful mind,
The shepherds went the Babe to find,
And as God’s angel had foretold,
They did our Saviour Christ behold.
Within a manger He was laid,
And by his side the Virgin Maid,
As long foretold, there was a blessed Messiah born
“Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who, as He already existed in the form of God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but emptied Himself by taking the form of a bond-servant and being born in the likeness of men.
And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death: death on a cross.
Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”
-Philippians 2:5-11
Faith on the Farm 