Monday, November 22, 2010

12 Days of Christmas, Day One

Ladies, ladies, ladies (and gentlemen)....obviously I have become addicted to these "blog challenges." I'm participating in another one--12 Days of Christmas Blog Challenge--sponsored by Molly and Aly.






Without further adieu, welcome to DAY ONE! :)
Grab a cup of coffee and enjoy!

CHRISTMAS AND HOLIDAY TRADITIONS

Growing up we always had our family holiday traditions; however, those have been thrown out the window with marriage and growing families.  This is such a fun time for our growing family, spending the holidays with each other and creating new traditions. We have welcomed TWO new babies to the family this year alone--one on each side  :)

As a child, our first official family Christmas event was selecting our Christmas tree. We always had a live tree, which is a tradition that Alan and I will carry on at our house!  Each year we also had our family cookie decorating competition, I took the title several years :)  On Christmas Eve day, my dad would make clam chowder (which I would not eat) and my grandparents would come over for lunch. Then, we would proceed to family bowling, boys versus girls style! I come from a competitive household.  Christmas Eve was spent at my Aunt and Uncle's house with our entire extended family. That is one of my absolute FAVORITE meals of the entire year, each person brings the same dish every year--main course, beans and cornbread! YUM!  Christmas morning our immediate family would join at our house for gifts, I was always the early bird that set the time for this event!  I would spend the early afternoon hours at my dad's parents house for present opening and a meal, and the evening hours with my mom's side of the family for another meal. Obviously, my family is ALL about good food :)

Marriage has changed this WHOLE process for me.  Unfortunately, Alan and I work crazy schedules, so these traditions are hard to maintain. Fortunately, our families are very flexible so we get to participate in all the fun holiday events :) Take Thanksgiving for example, this year we're having Thanksgiving with my parents on Saturday night. Looking at it this way, I get a Thanksgiving meal on Thursday, Friday, AND Saturday!

.....Alan and I will have traditions that we will set once we are blessed with children. For now, we just work around our schedules to enjoy holiday time with ALL our family!  A typical holiday at our house includes visits to: my parents, Alan's mom, Alan's dad, Alan's paternal grandparents, my paternal grandparents, and a visit with Alan's step-dad.  Of course, each of our stops include yummy food--a few stops include some football viewing and a couple stops include a Naughty Santa gift exchange.  To us, the most important part of the holidays is spending time with our incredible family! We consider it a HUGE blessing that we have so many places to be and people to see :)

I'm looking forward to reading about YOUR family traditions!




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5 comments:

Molly said...

Hey girl! Thanks for playing along, don't forget to go link up on either of our blogs ;)

Love your traditions. You're so right, its all about being with family and just enjoying being together!

Hope you have a wonderful day!

xoxo

Neely said...

Hi im new to your blog over from Molly's blog for the challenge and its so cute! I will def be coming back to read more. You and your hubs are precious!

Summer said...

What a cute blog you have! I am def a follower now! Love all the traditions girl! We used to pick a tree every year and then when Kelcee was born I was scared of the needles to to still implement the tradition we go get hot chocolate and wreaths...oooh I forgot to put that down as one of our traditions oopsy LOL

xoxo
Summer

Kit said...

I LOVE having a live Christmas tree! We are going to the mountains to cut on down ourselves so maybe we can make that a tradition!

I too love some blog challenges!!!!

Aly @ Analyze This said...

We never did the live tree thing ... That totally bummed me out!

So I'm thinking that this year my Mom, sister and I will do a cookie baking and decorating competition- I love that idea! And being the competitive girl that I am ... this is perfect!

Thanks for linking up and playing along!! :)

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