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Family Traditions
FlyLady recently sent out an email asking if you were starting any new holiday traditions. Here are some of the wonderful responses we received about old and new traditions!
Our children are young, and starting in October, we begin teaching them a new Christmas carol every month. Our oldest daughter, age five, often asks to sing the Christmas carols throughout the year, so they stay fresh in her mind. We donŐt celebrate Halloween, so this tradition gives the children something else to focus on in October. We sing the Christmas carol of the month every night, all the verses, before bed. By the end of the month, the kids can do it by themselves!
Hi Everyone
I just wanted to share with you one tradition that stretches for all of December, doesn't cost but for a bit of wrapping paper and guarantees a bit of family time every evening.
Before December I take a few evenings and wrap every childs Christmas book that we have. I have collected books at yard sales, etc. for a while now. We put these books in a basket and every evening the children pick out a book, taking turns at who unwraps it. We then read it outloud together. Its a great way for us to spend some quiet time together during this often busy time.
Since we still don't have 24 books I often rewrap a favourite book and put it to the back of the pile. No one minds rereading these stories.
We started this last year and plan to continue.
We made a coupon book for our kids for Christmas.
There were 52 coupons, good for an assortment of
things (mostly taken from ideas from Flylady's clutter
free gifts!!). Some were for a $2 trip to the dollar
store, some were for a fast food meal (we don't do
them often, so the kids like them as a treat). The
vast majority, though, involved some kind of family
time--a walk in the woods, a special date with either
mom or dad, an afternoon of crafts, etc. The kids
took turns each week choosing a coupon, and we'd put
it on the calendar whenever it fit that week. They
loved it and so did we, and we always had something
special to look forward to. It helped Christmas last
throughout the year (and spread the $$spending out
too, as we didn't feel the drive to spend as much on
gifts to be opened Christmas morning.
Still fluttering in Michigan
FlyLady and Crew:
My DF (including two sisters and their families) always go to dinner and a holiday movie the weekend of Thanksgiving. The younger children (and us ladies) always wear our Christmas sweat shirts to set the mood. We have been doing this for several years now and each year look forward to this special outing.
Baby stepping in Bama.
HI,
The best tradition we have for Christmas is on Christmas Eve we have a
birthday party for Jesus. My sister started this tradition when my oldest
daughter was 2, I think. The kids all help to make the cake, we put as many
candles on the cake as she is old, and then we all sing Happy Birthday to
Jesus. It's a good reminder of why we are celebrating in the first place.
Thanks for all you do,
Flybaby in TX
My husband is a long distance truck driver and we do not have children. One of our traditions started when we were engaged. I was teaching school at the time and the Christmas break was a good time for us to be together. My dh picked me up on December 23 and we spent 10 days together in his truck. On Christmas Day, we went to a tiny church in North Carolina and before Mass, we exchanged our small gifts. He gave me pencils for my classroom and I gave him a wooden storage box for his truck.
Now we always spend Christmas together "on the road". My husband works through the holidays from Thanksgiving to New Year's Day so that drivers with families can be at home with their children. We always go to church and his company reimburses us for a nice dinner, wherever we are. Last year, we were snowed in and since the governor of Kentucky had declared a state of emergency, we were unable to leave the parking lot of a toilet paper factory! Luckily, the crock pot was bubbling away with hot food. One year, we attended a children's musical program in Pennsylvania.
Many people think it is sad that we don't have a Christmas tree, we don't see our extended families and we don't have lots of presents. However, the most important thing is that we are together, we go to church to celebrate the birth of our savior, and we are making memories together. It is great fun to reminisce and try to remember where we were each Thanksgiving and Christmas.
For many years before I was married, my family went to a resort every year. It was beautiful and a wonderful experience, but it was stressful getting ready to go. We had to wear gowns and tuxedos for dinner so it involved a lot of spending and shopping in the weeks before the trip. I much prefer holidays in the truck.
Thanks for all you do!
Well, as many of you are now married, or been married, you will understand my situation...
My husband's family has Traditions out the rear! As kids, Santa decorated the tree... No one else... The youngest put the star on Christmas morning. My DH's little sister was 9 when we married, and still believed... so it made our house a NO NO for her, as I decorated the tree Thanksgiving day. They have everyone and thier brother over for a Holiday BASH on the weekend prior to Christmas. However my family got left out year after year... (Today we have been married 8 years...) So I started a NEW tradition...
We go to Bash night... enjoy his extended family... then on the 24th we are off to my father's family... the 25th is OUR Family... If you want to come, you can however we will NOT leave the house (Normally the grandparents come to peek in and give a gift or 2!!... then the 26th I host a gathering for MY Family... This works very well for us as most of his siblings are now married and have Other families to visit! Everyone has started to follow suit! We host a HUGE New Years bash open to all and that is normally when the ones who can not attend Christmas come with gifts. The kids love it cause Christmas is a week longer!
Holidays are very important to us... I love the russle of kids in the house (I have 4... like that is not enough)... I love the music playing on Direct TV's sounds of the season... The smell of the Turkey in the oven and cookies to follow...
Bein a SAHM... who is always cleaning or cooking running or shopping... the holiday to me is a time for family and friends. It is a time to thank god for what we have. For many years I did let my DH's family take control over my family. However you need to stand your ground! Once you have kids... think of them first... the others can wait! Sit down while you do your planning... Remember the ones you love that can not travel... for the rest... Make them come to you... or go to them when you have time!
Thanks to the Flylady herself... You have made me realize that MY Family is FIRST! No more stressing over the little things! Plan it... make it known and then if they dont show... well... one less mouth to feed!
Plus My NEW thing... this year I decided to order my Christmas cards from a Online catalog ... They have our names in it already... all I have to do is print the labels... and stamp and mail! Guess what... MY Christmas cards are DONEEEEE! Thank you for teaching me to plan and prepare... loose the clutter and learn to LOVE YOURSELF!
In our family we started the cereal under the tree tradition.
My kids are always begging for the cool cereals, the kind with an expensive price tag, cute cartoon characters and of course the prize. I usually buy the good for you kind, or generic, which I get a round of groans with! LOL
One year I put a box of cookie crisp under the tree as a joke, and it has since turned into our family's most favorite tradition. You should see them the day after Christmas. It's a mad rush to the cereal cabinet to get their tasty treat... You would think it were Christmas all over again.
Now, Every time we go down the grocery isle it's like a trip down memory lane for the kids. They talk about which cereal they have got in previous years, and which one they hope to get this year. Amazingly enough since we started doing this, the begging for certain cereals has stopped. It makes the trip to the grocery store so much easier, as that's the isle that we used to avoid! The $15 dollar treat for them actually became a gift of grocery store peace to me! :)
Flybaby in Pa
Flylady,
One of our family's favorite traditions centers on the Christmas tree. Each year, my DH and I select a new ornament for each of our 2 DSs and 2DDs that will somehow symbolize a significant event of that year. For example, the year my oldest DS went on a mission trip to Mexico, he received a glass snowman with a sombrero. My DH and I have so much fun deciding on their ornaments, and they look forward to opening that gift on Christmas Eve after church and during our devotion and snuggle time before bed. I use a permanent marker to put the year somewhere on the ornament. When they are grown and ready to leave our home to start their own, they will each take a box of their own Christmas ornaments complete with the memories intact to begin their own traditions!
A Florida Flybaby still looking for a white Christmas!
Dear Flylady,
This is a tradition that I started with my children when they were very young and they love it every year. Each year I find a jigsaw puzzle with about 300 pieces, (lots less pieces when they were little). My husband and I secretly put it together in the evenings while they are sleeping. Then each day from Dec 1st until Christmas, each child gets a small box, or bag, or stocking with a few of the pieces in it to add to the puzzle. On Christmas eve, the puzzle is completed. It gives them something to look forward too each day in December and helps to squelch the "I can't wait for Christmas" jitters.
Robin in WI
Several years ago I relaized that trying to have a big "nice" meal on Christmas day meant I was stuck in the kitchen while my little ones played in another room. That was NOT going to work for me, so I outlawed the big Christmas dinner in our house. Ever since, we have had our "nice" Christmas dinner on Christmas Eve (still a bit of a challenge, but it will be easier this year with my new routines taking shape). Christmas morning we have a leisurely brunch, consisting of some sort of breakfast casserole, a fruit salad and/or vegetable side dish, & some sort of muffins or pastry - all of which I can assemble ahead of time. This leaves minimal effort to put forth on Christmas morning, so we can ALL enjoy the festivities TOGETHER & still have a decent meal. The rest of the day's eating consists of hors d'ouevres, fruit, sandwiches, cheese & crackers, & Christmas goodies - food we find fun & festive. I make it available as if we were having an all-day party. This is the one time we nibble on these throughout the day. There are usually leftovers from the Christmas Eve meal & the brunch, so we've never yet gone hungry! This seems so obvious now, but as a young mother, I felt I had to put on a big spread for the holiday. Why did our mothers do that for so many years??? This by far has been my favorite Christmas tradition for our family. It proved to be a good move for the whole family - DH, DS & DD enjoy the more laid-back approach, & clearly they appreciate the more laid-back Mom!!!
Happy holidays to all!
Fluttering in VA
We bake shaped cookies and then as a family decorate
them - everyone gets to help from about 18 months
(able to hold a pastry brush) on up. Some have more
frosting than cookie some have just a few sprinkles
but they all have love:)
Then I get up early the next morning when all the
frosting is dry and wrap them in saran wrap and tie
them with ribbon. Then kids put them on the tree - our
only decoration other than lights and pine cones - and
each time some one comes to our home - even the ups
lady to the door - they are offered a homemade cookie.
This has become a lovely tradition with my family
-started in a really broke year and carried out with
love each year - even the years Daddy is deployed the
boys and I do it.
thanks for teaching us people first
d in TX
Dear Flylady,
Every year, as Christmas approaches, I keep my eye open for a new ornament that we can make as a family. As Thanksgiving passes, I try to pull out these ideas and settle on a final one. Then I can get the supplies in a line, be they purchased or be they nature items collected (which can be a family activity, too, to create a memory), and then I get ornament day on the calendar. On that day we have the project of making the "Ornament of the Year", which is an ornament that we not only add to each child's ornament collection, for when they set out on their own, but which we also use as part of our Christmas present to each of our loved ones.
My girls are 16 and 19 now, and they still have fond (and sometimes smilingly sad) memories of some of these ornaments--How we laughed and cried when the dog ate all the handprint cookie ornaments off the tree, how angry one daughter got when someone else broke one of her macaroni-wheel snowflake ornaments, etc.
My girls know our tradition can't stop just because they are getting older, because we've added their five-year-old brother to the mix, and so they can get excited about making sure he, also, is raised with the memory of the annual Christmas tradition of the homemade ornaments day!
This is a tradition we have been doing for many years, but it will be new to others: We buy a living, potted tree to use as our Christmas tree, then we plant it in our yard after Christmas. By doing this, we are beautifying our yard, helping the environment, and not "wasting" our money on a dead tree that would be tossed in a trash pile after Christmas.
Dear Flylady and Crew,
My cousin's family and my family started this tradition a few years ago and it's one that we all look forward to ecery Christmas. On Christmas morning we all go to her house for breakfast and treats. It's a great way to start the day. We gather around the table filled with things we don't normally have very often and just enjoy the time together. This year will be slightly different since I've moved away from there but you can bet that I will get up before everyone else and have breakfast ready when they wake up. My dbf's family thinks this is insane since they like to have Christmas lunch but I think it's a wonderful bonding time for a new family and he has children from a previous marriage. It's a tradition I wouldn't pass up for the world. *S*
Flybaby from eastern NC
I'm 47 and my DH and I have been married for five years. He's very romantic and sweet on an everyday basis, but he's not the best at buying gifts! I knew this from our dating and decided (even pre-FlyLady!) not to whine about it, and be happy that he's so caring and kind. So. . . when he started stressing about what to buy me for our first Christmas, I told him, "Let's bless someone else, and that will be our present to each other."
That's what we do each Christmas, and it's the BEST gift ever! We decided that we'd each spend $75 on each other, for a total of $150. First, we go to Target or Wal-mart and buy a $100 gift certificate. Then we get a crisp $50 bill and put it in a card. In the card, we write something like, "Helping you is our Christmas gift to each other. We've both been through some rough times and now we want to share, because we can. God bless you, and Merry Christmas!" We sign the card Mr. and Mrs. Santa Claus.
Now I know there are good organizations out there that collect for needy families. We donate to these through the year. But since this is OUR Christmas gift to ourselves, we wanted to do it our way. We go to a neighborhood where a lot of young, poor families live. I always say a prayer that God will lead us to the right person, someone who needs a special lift this holiday season. Then, when we see a young mom with kids(s) in tow, we open the window and say, "Excuse me. You don't know us, but we have a gift for you. God bless you." Then we drive about three blocks away, hug each other through our tears and say "Merry Christmas" and "I love you" to each other. We think of the look on that mom's face and look forward to our special gift to each other all through the year.
Friends ask us, "How do you know who you're giving the money to?" and "How do you know what she'll do with the money?" I tell them about my prayer, and I also tell them that the odds are very good that anyone who lives in that area of town needs the gift more than we do. Besides. . .this is OUR gift, and it's the best gift EVER!!!
Dear Flylady,
We have 6 sweet ladies and 3 wonderful gentlemen in our family, yep, 9 children (adults now). As each child got married, I made sure they understood that, although dad and I would love for them to be at home with us for Christmas, it was their "job" to establish their own traditions; afterall, they would have children in the future and they needed to have this established for them. Now that our children have children, we, grandma and grandpa, go the THEIR houses on Christmas morning to see what Santa has brought to the grandchildren. We go from house to house and visit for a short time; this way, the grandchildren can stay at their own homes and play with their toys.
A week or two before Christmas, each year, my husband and I rent a place to hold our family Christmas get-together. Here we all (our 9 children, their spouses and the 18 grandchildren) play games, eat a buffet type meal (with each family bringing something to add to the food table) and have our gift exchange. We set a limit of $10.00 for a gift; men bring for a man and women bring for a woman with NO gag gifts allowed UNLESS it is with a nice gift. Each family brings a wrapped gift for their own children to unwrap. This way, the children are not left out and they are getting a gift that they know they will LOVE because their mom and dad have brought it. We usually stay here at this party for 3 hours, enjoying the season and getting to visit with each other.
Another idea: You know how mothers get left out when it comes to having a "filled stocking" on Christmas? Mom sits and watches her husband and all her children go to the stocking and pull wonderful items out and she has nothing unless she put it in there herself. Well, this year, my 6 daughters and daughters-in-law are having a "stocking exchange". We are purchasing 10 items for a stocking that WE would love to have; then we are getting together on Dec. 3rd at one of our daughters houses and having an exchange of stockings. We will have cookies, hot chocolate, finger sandwiches and just have some fun and visit with each other. We will NOT open our stockings until Christmas morning, when our husbands and children open theirs. Not only will we not feel left out, but we will have the fun and excitment of receiving some gifts that we know nothing about!
These are just a couple of ways we celebrate the holidays and do things. Thank you for your website; I love it!! My daughters and my daughters-in-law love it too!! We have learned alot.
Flybaby in Ohio
Dear FlyLady and Crew,
My extended family gets together about twice a year, we wish it was more, but with everyone's busy schedules and homes across the country, twice a year is about all everyone can do. Our family is truly blessed because we are a mixed religion family. My cousins are Jewish while the rest of the family is a mishmash of Christian. We really celebrate our differences.
Every Christmas Eve (since I was 3 years old) at 7:30pm our extended family arrives at my parent's house for the holiday dinner. We have about 3 hours of hors d'oeuvres (everyone brings a dish) and then do a buffet table of sandwiches and picnic type food. My mother brings out the good Christmas china and the good wine glasses. The family talks, plays games and exchanges gifts (only the children receive gifts, once you turn 18 you are considered an adult, except for the patriarch of the family, everyone gives my father a gift). We spend about 6 hours together, talking, eating and enjoying each other's company.
When Hanukah extends over Christmas Eve everyone participates in my cousins traditions. We light the menorah and learn a bit more about the Jewish traditions and the festival of lights.
Our family is starting to grow again. My DS was born in 2001 and will be 4 soon. Our cousin also just married a wonderful woman and her two children will be sharing our holiday traditions with us. It is such a joy to see the family grow and spend time getting to know all of them.
I hope everyone has a happy holiday season!
Flybaby in Michigan.
Dear wonderful FlyLady & Crew,
We have an 'old' tradition that I am (hopefully) passing on to my children, and would be glad to share with others, too. When I was a child my mother would take out my Grandma's wedding china and use it for dinner ONLY on each of our birthdays, and Christmas, and Easter. She would also let the birthday person choose the dinner menu for that night. How incredibly special I felt!! I have been doing this for my immediate family (since my mom passed on the wedding china to me). It has become so special to my family, that after we moved 4 years ago, my then turning 9 daughter knew her birthday was the next day and asked if we were going to use Grandma's wedding china even though it was still carefully packed in a box in the basement. (I had been partly hoping that she would forget and save me the work of unpacking & then repacking it since we didn't have a cabinet or any place to put it yet, but after that initial thought I was so very happy that she had remembered and that this tradition meant so very much to her!) This lovely tradition tells each family member how special they are, and doesn't cost anything extra.
Another Christmas tradition we had (growing up, we didn't have much money, so my parents looked for fun things to do that didn't cost anything), was when all the Christmas lights were put up in the neighborhood, we (the kids) got to direct our parents for a walk at night when the lights were on. At each corner we got to in our neighborhood, we kids would take turns choosing the direction to go for the family walk. What FUN it was telling our parents where to go! And they did it!
Thank you for all you're doing! God bless you,
Fluttering in IL
My favorite holiday tradition with my little daughters is on Christmas Eve. Once we arrive home after dinner at one set of Grandparents house, we make sure the girls are bundled up and then we go out and sprinkle 'magic reindeer food' on the front yard. Magic reindeer food is a mixture of dry oats and sparkly glitter. We have specially marked can that I made several years ago when we began the tradition. The glitter lights the way for Santa's Reindeer so they know where to land and the oats give them something to eat while they are there. Once we go in the house it's time for baths and jammies. While I do this with the girls, Daddy takes a flash light with a red plastic cover and heads across or down the street. I'll pretend to hear something and the girls race to the window. We'll look and see Rudolphs Red nose shining down the street. Oh oh, Santa's nearly here and he won't stop if the kids aren't sleeping. They both race off to bed which gives hubby and I some time to sit and look at the pretty tree before 'Santa' has to set out the gifts.
My immediate family gets together on the second
Saturday in December and makes hard rock candy. There
are 19 of us and we all have our favorite flavors. We
have a big marble slab we pour the hot liquid on and
then we all butter up our hands and start to cut. It
smells wonderful and everyone teases everyone else
about "wimping out" becuase the liquid is really
hot!!! We bring soup and have some sandwiches and
celebrate the December birthdays. It's not a new
tradition but a cherished one, one that has carried on
from the 4 kids to the 4 kids, spouses and grandkids!
The recipe we use is the lollipop recipe.
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