Holiday Traditions

By Katie M

I’m so fortunate to be starting this blog in December when there is so much to write about. Hopefully you’ll still be logging on to read posts during the slower parts of the year too. So with Thanksgiving just one week behind us, no time is better than now to start blogging about Christmas! It seems only fitting to start with holiday traditions. With everyone’s busy schedules, sometimes it’s hard to fit in traditions let alone start new ones – especially for families starting out with young children.

Our family doesn’t have any traditions out of the ordinary, except for the past three years we have celebrated Christmas morning on the morning of Christmas Eve because we travel on Christmas Day (which is also the cheapest day of the week to fly – and the least busy). My husband is from Minneapolis, and most of my family lives in NJ, so every other Christmas we travel to one of those two places. In order to keep things less chaotic (if that’s possible), we decided to celebrate Christmas morning one day early so our children (ages four and one) can open their gifts at leisure and then we end the day at Christmas Eve mass. Lucky for us it has worked, but we think this may have to be the last year we continue this tradition because my daughter is now almost five and may soon catch on.

For instance, our cover was almost blown last year at Christmas Eve mass when the priest started talking about Santa visiting all the little boys and girls the next morning. To our surprise our daughter was actually paying attention, and then she leaned over to me and asked (not so softly), “How come Santa is coming to all their houses tomorrow? He came to my house this morning.”

I quickly whispered back, “Shhh. I know, but you are not supposed to tell anyone. It’s our secret with Santa. He thinks you are special enough to come to our house first. Isn’t that great?”

She sat back and stared at me for a minute, then crossed her arms and scrunched her eyebrows in deep thought. Thankfully she didn’t ask anymore questions and I’m praying the same scenario doesn’t play out again this year.

Share with us some of your holiday traditions however crazy – or simple – they may be. Perhaps you have an idea that someone would want to adopt for their own family.

Posted by Triad Smarty Pants at 9:00 AM