Holidays
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Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Your Favorite Holiday traditions
I'll admit I'm a huge sucker for holidays and probably one of the biggest holiday geeks out there. I get excited for every single one of them. We've been married almost a year and a half and both of our families live in the same town as us, but we're wanting to focus more on forming our own brand new traditions to carry on when we soon have kiddos. I'd love to hear some of your own family / couple traditions for any holidays!?? I'm always looking for pretty inexpensive but special little things to do. Anyone want to share their ideas? Thanks to all!
Re: Your Favorite Holiday traditions
This will sound weird but we live within 5 minutes from a mall so Thanksgiving night we drive there and look at the crowds already lining up at all the different stores and then go somewhere and get a late night snack.
Go to a local church for a Christmas concert
A few nights we drive around town and look at Christmas lights.
A local shrine has a wonderful white light display and a nice nativity scene .
If my husband is off of work on Christmas Eve, we go get a good breakfast somewhere and then try to see Santa Claus with DD
On Christmas morning I make a breakfast of danish pancakes called ebelskivers, sausage and juice. Ebelskivers are something my husband had growing up and I learned how to make them.
http://www.williams-sonoma.com/products/ebelskiver-filled-pancake-pan/
Make a pregnancy ticker
DH had to work last Christmas, but he's off this year. I will make a french toast casserole (I plan to make it every year, it's easy and I can focus on what Santa left) and we will open our presents from Santa while it bakes. We will spend lunch and the ealy afternoon with our extended familes then we will have prime rib at our house for dinner.
We will go see Santa at the mall every year, ride around looking at Christmas lights, go to the Lights Before Christmas at the zoo, and do lots and lots of crafts and baking!
We don't travel at all on Christmas Eve and Day - we go to the beach the day after Christmas to see more family and stay for a few days.
Some of them are holdovers from my family (like driving around with hot chocolate and looking at Christmas lights).
For DH and I, we make a big deal about the tree decorating - we watch Christmas movies while we do it, and then decorate a gingerbread house. (For Halloween we carve pumpkins while watching scary movies/thrillers).
A couple years back I started a tradition with his niece and nephew since we spend Christmas with them and it's MISERABLE. They don't do anything to celebrate the holiday except open gifts Christmas morning - not even a breakfast after. We spend the entire week of Christmas sitting around and contemplating our belly buttons. No tv, no music, no nothing. So I started creating "Christmas boxes" and each day of the week they open a box and there are activities inside to do. One day the box may have cookie ingredients and instructions. One day it may have a craft project (like the year we made blankets and used them to stay up and watch a movie). Different things that give us something to do together and have fun.
We open our presents on Christmas eve and we do them youngest to oldest so we can see what each other got.
My H and I love to drive around town looking at Christmas lights. We have one street in town where every house is decorated. One even plays music to a local radio station.
My mom, her bf, and I will make Christmas cookies. Her bf and I will decorate them and how many we get decorated we get to keep.
When I was younger my family and a few other families in the neighborhood where I grew up would go to the local nursing homes and sing christmas carols. We would also bring little sweets that are families would make to share. This is a tradition that I wish to continue once we finally buy a house and get to know other families around us.
Other traditions we had when I was a kid were making cookies and sweets, and sledding. The girls in the family always shared a day of baking and decorating together, we still do. The boys do their own thing, which is usually different every year. When we still went to my grandparets' for Christmas we would open extended family gifts Christmas Eve and build a bonfire while we went sledding afterwards. We would then have hot chocolate and crash before Santa Came.
We don't have children yet and my family was always big on traditions while I was growing up, so I LOVE this post! A lot of our traditions are no longer recognized because our family has changed a lot since then, but I definitely want my children to have the same kinds of family memories that I value and treasure!
As a kid, my family used to do Christmas dinner, church and presents on Christmas Eve. Mostly because of my Uncle's work schedule and/or traveling to a nearby mountain for camp that started the day after Christmas (I used to ski race).
Now, DH and I either drive a few hours to my Aunt's house early on Christmas Eve or the night before. We spend Christmas Eve with my family and then we get up early the next morning and drive back to spend Christmas Day with DH's family.
With my work schedule, I usually end up working on Thanksgiving, so I cook Thanksgiving dinner at work (I work in a group home) and then I head over to wherever DH's family is having their dinner that year. The next day, DH's family goes to a tree farm to get their Christmas tree and then they eat at this restaurant that's on the way home.
New Year's Eve, we both usually work until 11pm. It gives us just enough time to get over to the Space Needle and watch the fireworks.
I really love spending time with family and decorating for the holidays. No matter how busy we are, we always make time to do these things and to spend time together.
This year, we weren't able to get out of work early enough to do our new year's celebration, so DH went home on a lunch break and heated our hot tub. We drank Champagne in the hot tub and watched fire works people were setting off in the neighborhood. It was great!
We watch Christmas Vacation the night before Thanksgiving.
Mimosas w/ pomegranate Thanksgiving morning while watching the parades.
Drive around looking at lights.
Take the dogs and dd to go see Santa
My father and I take one day and go christmas shopping together.
Santa comes to my inlaws christmas eve to see all the kids
We make reindeer food and sprinkle it on the lawn
Go to "frostys winter wonderland" which is like a hayride in the winter through christmastown.
Christmas morning, at my parents house. we are not aloud downstairs until my father has coffee on, fire roaring, and christmas music playing.
Our holiday have always been filled with traditions since I was a kid. My Dad called himself Clark Griswold, LOL.
We eat twice on Thanksgiving. Once at noon, then again in the evening
We drive around looking at lights.
The weekend after Thanksgiving, we go to a tree farm to cut our Christmas tree down then go out to eat afterwards.
On our anniversary (in Dec.) We go to lunch or dinner then to Macy's to pick out our yearly ornament.
Christmas eve we spend it with the ILs, then Christmas Day we spend it with my parents.
Im trying to add another tradition- Baking cookies with my mom and sister the week of Christmas.
Im looking forward to when we will have children to add many more traditions.
You Christmas Vacation fans would probably like this.
http://www.melkmugs.com/16-or-more-1190-per-cup_p_11.html
We open gifts on Christmas Eve, after we go to mass (church) and have a dinner. It is one of my favorite things about the holidays. Now that my grandparents don't want to make the trip home to CO from AZ for the holidays we are branching out a little. My family (mom, dad, me, DH, bro, bro's gf, and sis) are going to an all-inclusive resort in Playa del Carmen this year. We leave the 22nd and get back the 27th. SO EXCITED!
I will be decorating my house for Christmas the day after Halloween, as I always do. And thos decorations will stay up until at least February. I REALLY like Christmas!
my read shelf:
<a href="http://www.thenest.com/?utm_source=ticker&utm_medium=HTML&utm_campaign=tickers" title="Home D
DH & I try to keep the Holidays as laid back & free of hassle as we can. We don't go crazy with presents - we only buy for the kids on my side of the family (no kids on DH's yet) & one gift to ourselves. We usually just buy something "big" for the house that we've wanted all year long but couldn't justify buying. Last year was a new tv and this year we are thinking of getting a nice camera.
We primarily spend the Holidays with my side of the family, because his travels to Florida. Every year on NYE, we go to my BFF parent's house for their big, Italian party. It's nice because we're part of a family there - just not our own
We look forward to that the most b/c it's a lot of delicious food & wonderful, warm company.
Christmas Day, we go over to my Aunt & Uncle's and the whole family travels in. We do a $15-$20 grab bag and play a game along with it. We eat and eat, drink, laugh and just have a good time.
For Thanksgiving - last year was the 1st year that I was "recruited" by my family for "Team Black Friday" shopping, lol
I don't go to hunt for deals or go crazy with $, I just think it's fun to get up early and be out with the fam.
DH and I started going to an old beautiful theater to watch "It's a Wonderful Life."
We have a "Christmukkah" party. I'm Catholic, he's Jewish.
We go to our friend's house to judge their cookie decorating contest. That really is all about the wine, though.
Christmas Eve dinner at my sister's house, midnight Mass, then Christmas day at my parents.
We don't see his family on holidays because they are 1500 miles away.
We have been doing Thanksgiving dinner at our house now with just us and my parents for the past several years and it's so nice to not have to travel on one of the holidays. (My ILs live on the other coast and my extended family that hosts that holiday otherwise are a 5-hour drive away).
DH and I put up our Christmas Tree the day after Thanksgiving and I take down all the Fall decorations and replace with Christmas ones.
A few weeks prior to Christmas the women (aunts, cousins, etc) get together and make holiday crafts to give as gifts - bath salts, little soaps, wreaths, topiary displays from evergreens cut down from the property, etc...
Christmas we always spend up at my family's country home where the focus is really heavy on tradition and time together - not materialistic things. We have several family recipes we make every year. English toffee, spiced nuts, etc. We do stockings, have a fire, have mulled cider, gifts, big ham dinner...and after dinner we always take turns reading A Child's Christmas in Wales.
On thanksgiving DH and I go to S-GIL's earlier at around 4 and eat their thanksgiving dinner. Which is hard to explain since it's traditional but with ALOT of jewish twist (step-grandpa is hardcore jewish). Then we go to my grandma's for a traditional thanksgiving meal but we're usually so full that it's more for the delicious deserts.
On black friday, DH, FIL, S-MIL, S-GIL and I go to all the good stores, best buy, target, meijer, walmart, you name it. And then come home and crash.
On christmas eve DH and I go to my grandma's for a prime rib and crab leg dinner. Then off to our warm home to open ONE gift. It has to be well thought out so if there are cordinating gifts he won't get to find out what it is until the next day.
Then on Christmas DH and I wake up and open our stockings first. Then either he or I will play santa and alternate gift giving (he get's one, i get one, etc.). Then time to seperate ways for a lil while, while he goes to his dad's house for breakfast and I go to my mom's for stocking and present opening along with breakfast afterward while watching the parade. Then back home to get ready. Then DH and I jet off to S-GIL's for early dinner (also with the jewish twist) and then to my grandma's for desert. Then last but not least home for the night to watch christmas movies and cocoa.