Favorite Family Christmas Traditions

Dec 22

Dec 22 Favorite Family Christmas Traditions

I absolutely adore the holiday season.

Christmas has always been a time of coziness, family, and yummy food. For the past few years, though, I’ve been in a season of transition — I got married to my husband, Paul, in 2018 and it has me thinking about all the Christmas traditions I want to preserve from both our childhoods, and the new ones I want to adopt for our own little family.

My Christmas Traditions Growing Up;

For many years, my family on my dad’s side would attend two annual family reunions at my Grandpa’s house in Cupertino, California: one on 4th of July and another on Christmas Eve. The Christmas Eve nights would always end with us (begrudgingly) singing Christmas carols around the piano with 2nd and 3rd cousins and Great Uncles and Aunts. Even though we dreaded it as kids, it’s actually incredibly sweet to look back on.
My family decorated LOTS for Christmas. One distinct thing we would always do is line the inside of the house with Christmas lights. It was always so magical to walk around the house at night (or early in the morning) to dim, holiday light.
I am one of five kids (two boys, three girls)… so we always shared bedrooms growing up. One thing we always did on Christmas Eve was huddle together in one room (usually in Onesies) and had a big sleepover together. Did it make for good sleep? No, not really…but it made for some really great memories.
As my siblings and I got older, I started to read “The Night Before Christmas” during our sleepovers. It always used to remind me of the animated Christmas movie with the mice (does anyone else remember that one??)
Leading up to Christmas Day, my family had an advent calendar that was a Christmas tree with velcro ornaments. The last one to put up was a five-pointed star, and on Christmas Eve, all my siblings and I would grab a point on the star and place it on the tree.
Other traditions we had were probably pretty typical: going on a Christmas lights drive with hot cocoa, doing lots of holiday baking, playing board games on Christmas Eve, and drawing names from a hat for the order of our present opening (and we always took our sweet time opening gifts, going one at a time, and stretching it out until around 1-2pm).

My Husband’s Christmas Traditions Growing Up

Now, I can’t speak for Paul too much — but here are a few cute traditions I’ve noticed from his family…

When someone new enters the family (whether it’s a spouse or a baby), they chose their fabric for their stocking and my mother-in-law makes it for them! Now these stockings are giant (a small child could fit inside) and they’re always packed full of the most thoughtful gifts.
An older Christmas tradition that used to be incredibly popular is to put fresh fruit in stockings. Paul’s family does this with a slight variation: every person gets a can of mandarin oranges and a can of black olives in their stocking. I’ve never heard of anyone else doing this one, and I honesty think it’s so cute and unique.
A newer tradition (as in, the last couple years), from my husband’s family is having a gingerbread decorating contest with giant gingerbread men. All the couples have their own gingerbread man that they share and we all get very into it. I usually post it on my Instagram stories for a vote — and that’s how we determine a winner! I’m not sure if we’re doing it again this year, so we’ll see (stay tuned!)

Christmas Traditions I’d Love to Continue

With all those traditions in mind, here’s a list of Christmas traditions I want to keep alive (both from things we did growing up, and from things we’ve been doing the last couples years as a married couple).

Taking our Christmas card photo on Thanksgiving in Santa hats

Putting up the Christmas tree on Black Friday

Baking Christmas cookies for coworkers

Watching “Polar Express” on Christmas Eve and “White Christmas” on Christmas Day

Going to a local Christmas tree lighting ceremony

Attending a performance of The Nutcracker

Going on a cozy Christmas lights drive with hot cocoa

Seeing The Chosen Christmas Special in theaters (if they do that again!)

Seeing both sides of the family in Nevada and Oregon — as long as we can!

Taking Kevin to play in the first snow of winter

Reading The Night Before Christmas on Christmas Eve

Going to a Christmas service as a family at our local church