Holidays
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Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
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.
Re: First married Christmas
We don't really have any new plans, yet. My parents house for Christmas eve dinner, going to my sister's bf's church to watch him and her sing, opening gifts at midnight at my parent's house, going back to our place, waking up and exchanging gifts, going to my grandpa's for lunch, and then going to DH's family's for dinner. Hmmm..
its my husband and is first christmas married as well. We havent done anything out of the ordinary, like putting up the tree, going to see lights etc. A new Christmas tradition i did start however was getting ornaments reflecting our year together. i bought a married ornament here :
http://www.jackiescrafts.com/ornaments/first.html
to celebrate our first christmas married. next year, we will add another one, maybe reflecting a roadtrip, a new home or a baby. i got the idea from a friend of mine whos been doing it for years now. its pretty cool to see your lives together reflecting on the christmas tree. just a thought
<a href="http://www.thenest.com/?utm_source=ticker&utm_medium=HTML&utm_campaign=tickers" title="Newlywed Advice"><img src="http://global.thenest.com/tickers/tt120e81.aspx" alt="Anniversary" border="0" /></a>
My parents have been doing this since they started dating in 1978. Decorating the tree is a big deal in my family. My dad basically tells the story of our family history one ornament at a time, while we all take turns putting the ornaments on the tree.
It's going to be our first Christmas too. Unfortunately our plans are the inlaws. Otherwise they'd guilt the hell out of us (Grandma: it could be my last Christmas...) and I don't need any more points against me with them. I would just rather do something by ourselves.
So, Christmas with his family. Just like Thanksgiving. And the Christmas before that. And the Thanksgiving before that.
Really makes me appreciate and miss my own crazy family across the country.
Dh & I dated and lived together for 8 yrs before marriage, so that was A LOT of holidays, bdays, events, etc. together before our "1st official married Xmas".
One thing we did do differently once we were married, is we got more involved in building traditions, whereas, before we were married - we just went w/the flow.
This is our 2nd year married and even now more than ever, I am really getting into Christmas & creating rituals because when we have children, I want to already have these things started to bring them into.
Here are some traditions that we do over Christmas:
The weeks prior to Christmas: we bought an Advent calendar this year and take turns opening each day & eating the chocolate, drive around to look at Christmas lights, watch Christmas movies, go window shopping to look at all of the decor, write out Christmas cards, etc.
Christmas Eve we put aside just.for.us. We go to my bff's parent's house for their big feast (they're Italian) and enjoy being around family (that isn't ours, ha!) and eating a ton and drinking a ton and just being together - it's like a holiday date night for us
Then, (something new I am starting this year!) once we get home, we will exchange our "Xmas pj's" with eachother (he buys mine & I buy his), get into those, wind down and relax. The only other gift buying that DH and I do between us, is we buy 1 big item for us/our home. We started this the year we got married and bought a new bed and then last year was a new tv & this year, a new camera.
Christmas morning, I am making a breakfast casserole (DH can pick) that I prepped the night before and while that is baking, play Xmas cd's and give our dog (don't have children yet) her puppy presents and relax.
Christmas Day afternoon - head to my Aunt & Uncle's house where my whole family congregates. We do a "white elephant" exchange ($20 spending cap, gender neutral gifts, not assigned) and eat & have fun.
This is my first Christmas married, and we are starting little traditions. This year "Santa" will bring us The Night Before Christmas book so we can read that on Christmas Eve together. (we want to read that each Christmas Eve and in future years with children gift them a Christmas book each year to read that day).
Other than that, we started giving ornaments as gifts-we want to do that each year (even accompanying bigger gifts for some).
We also want to make Christmas cookies together on Christmas Eve. =]
We started several traditions during our first married Christmas. We decorate the tree together on the day after T-giving. We have several special ornaments, including one we bought on our honeymoon. Those go on first. On Xmas Eve day, we watch A Muppet Christmas Carol (his fav Xmas movie) and Christmas Vacation (my fav). Then we spend Xmas eve with his family and we go to Candlelight service at church. On Xmas day, we bake cinnamon buns and open our gifts to each other. Then we go to my parents' house and exchange gifts. We have this book that we record the holiday in:
http://www.bronners.com/product/christmas-memories-book/1075030?tag=gglprdct&gdftrk=gdfV2399_a_7c470_a_7c7209_a_7c1075030
BFP #1 3/23/12 ~ EDD 11/29/12 ~ M/C 5/20/12 ~ D&E 5/21/12
BFP #2 10/21/12 ~ EDD 7/4/13 ~ Team Pink!
I really, really LOVE this idea. I think it's simple and perfect. It's an easy enough tradition to start, even if you have spent Christmases together in the past. This will be our first married Christmas, but second Christmas living together. It'll be different because he's working that whole weekend (silly paramedics, having to work on Christmas) so it will be my first Christmas waking up by myself since he will be leaving early in the morning.
I still want to do something special with him though, start to try and make traditions even in the not-so-orthodox situation that his work schedule provides. We're hoping to go get our tree tomorrow, though!
This is our first married Christmas too. We are just starting to think about traditions to start this year. We got a Christmas and decorated cookies together. We got a new ornament to start a new tradition of getting new ornament every year. Starting a photo album of the new ornament and journal entry of why we chose that ornament and what represents. We thinking of other traditions to start this year. We are spending Christmas Eve with my family and Christmas Day with his family. These will be traditions we will continue every year along with adding new ones.
Merry Christmas Everyone
This is our first as well! We decided to do our own Christmas. We couldn't afford the pricey plane tickets to see my family, and we didn't want to travel 6 hours in a car (I'm terrible with cars) to spend it with his family. We saw them for Thanksgiving, so he was fine with it.
The Friday before the holiday, we're going to see the Radio City Rockettes, which has been a dream of mine since I was a kid, so I'm very excited! Christmas Eve, I'll be baking a pumpkin pie, our favorite. Then on the big day, even though it's the 2 of us, I'm going all out with food! I'm basically cooking a thanksgiving meal lol! Then all day, we'll watch all the great Christmas movies. My tradition that I'm bringing to the table, is that every Christmas morning cinnamon buns are baking in the oven, hmmm... My Husband has never had homemade ones before!