Pittsburgh Nesties
AmandaJLewis
member
Dear Community,
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.
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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.
Favorite Christmas/Holiday Tradition
New or Old, what is your favorite family tradition of the holiday season?
Re: Favorite Christmas/Holiday Tradition
Old: Christmas Eve midnight mass (although we haven't done this with the boys yet), lottery tickets in your stockings, driving around to look at lights, family gifts on Christmas Eve (usually new pj's); our annual Christmas Eve Eve Bar Crawl.
New: Christmas Eve at my dear friend's house, Elf on the Shelf (as much as I hate that damn thing, Mason loves it), being the host of Christmas dinner...as the boys get older, I'm sure we will have some more new traditions.
Mine is a new tradition. Christmas Eve breakfast at our house with just the 3 of us. Santa comes to our house a day early.
My old favorite traditions aren't possible for me to take part in b/c of splitting Christmas Eve and Christmas Day b/w my family and Andy's.
Even though I have found myself stumbling around downstairs at 5am moving the damn thing, I do enjoy the Elf on the Shelf. I love how it never gets old for Jake, he is excited every single morning when he wakes. And I love that I host Christmas; I feel very lucky that our families are both willing to come to us that day.
I really want to start the new PJ's at Christmas tradition, but didn't do it this year because my mom had already gone and purchased PJs for the boys and gave them to them a few weeks ago.
Old: I used to LOVE that my dad would build a fire every Christmas Eve and read Christmas stories to us while we drank hot chocolate. If we ever figure out if our fireplaces are safe to use, maybe we can do this, too, haha! for now, we do the stories & hot chocolate.
Jake - 1.15.08
Liam - 5.17.11
Ours have changed so much in the past ten years, it is hard to call anything a tradition anymore. Kids born, parents relocated, grandparents lost, laid off, new job, no vacation days, DH's father gone, SIL married, DH's cousin hosting, etc, etc.
Ultimately, what I look forward to is spending time with family and seeing friends in Ohio that we often only see once a year.
The tradition that I've maintained from my childhood is reading "The Night Before Christmas" on Xmas eve and the kids waking up in their own bed on Xmas morning. The tradition I've added is giving the kids new pjs on Xmas eve.
Waking up in their own bed Christmas morning was the expectation DH and I set with all of our families before we even had kids. it was the best thing we could have done.
i wish we could do this but unfortunately it would mean missing out on seeing some family! My parents and dh's parents don't live near us. My mom is a nurse and always has to work holidays so them traveling to us is usually impossible. We have been alternating staying home one year and in laws coming to us and the next going to my parents. But this year is at home and the in laws can't come. So while its nice to have my kid wake up in her own bed on Christmas I'm sad we won't have close family! My parents are actually coming up when my mom gets out of work on Christmas Day and that's the best I could hope for with them! I actually didn't think that would be a possibility so I'm happy for that!
My parents always did the new pjs on Christmas Eve for us too and I've done it every year for dd as well so I enjoy that.
i also like elf on the shelf and our advent calendar.
We try to see everyone sometime over the holidays, even if it's not Christmas eve/Christmas day. This year we're going to my parents house Saturday-Monday morning. Then we'll see DH's brother and his family, who live close, Christmas Eve and Christmas day (dh's parents are deceased.)
We see my family the weekend before or after Christmas, DH's immediate family on Christmas Eve and this year we'll probably see his extended family around new year's. We are lucky that my parents can come to our house for Christmas, but if they couldn't, we would stay home and see them a different day. It hasn't always been an easy priority to maintain, but with all the change it has been the only thing I'm persistent about.
My favorite old tradition (that we have done in my family since we got married) is that when you're finished decorating the tree, you get one brand new ornament after dinner. I also loved that my dad would read us The Polar Express every Christmas Eve.
Since it's our first Christmas with Logan, I'm sure we'll start a lot more new traditions. I do love hosting Christmas Day though.
I do love hosting christmas day dinner too. I can't wait to do the midnight mass with DD in the years to come. That was one of my favs as a kid because often santa came when we got home. BONUS.
We had so much fun this year just decorating the tree and looking at all the ornaments and remembering the past years.
I LOVE midnight mass. I have not gone since Adam. = ( I think we took him the first Christmas but he slept through it. I hate missing it every year...
Christmas Eve has always been a "big deal" I am 50% Polish and we do a traditional Christmas Eve. Pierogies, fish, peas, sour kraut, rye bread and mushroom soup. My Grandma used to make all the pierogies, but about 12 yrs ago all the women started getting together to make them. We do 100's!! last year we did 2 small groups because of the days Christmas fell. And this year we almost didnt have Christmas Eve, but my SIL decided to do her party Sat. so I am now hosting. My Aunt is getting Chemo and wont be able to make it- my cousin is debating on staying home with her or coming. Since it is kinda last minute, my cousin, her mom, and I are doing all the pierogies....
It won't be the "same" but we are trying to Hold as much of the tradition together as we can!
Married, September 23, 2006