Merry Christmas everyone! Today we continue with more reader favorite holiday memories and traditions. If we didn’t feature your submission yesterday, you will find it here today. Blessings to all this Christmas day!
“Christmas is not a time nor a season, but a state of mind. To cherish peace and goodwill, to be plenteous in mercy, is to have the real spirit of Christmas. ~ Calvin Coolidge
Some of my fondest childhood Christmas memories involve baking with my grandmother. She would have me help her make gingersnaps every year. My job was to roll them and then drop them in the sugar. It was a special time for just the two of us. I am carrying on this tradition with my daughters by making a variety of Christmas treats with them each year. We start early and freeze each batch as we make it. Then, on Christmas Eve, we set out a plate for Santa that has a few of each item we have made. We also make plates of treats for friends and neighbors. The girls love to help and they also love to sample what we’ve made! ~ Carey W.
One of my favorite holiday traditions is hosting Christmas Eve at our house every year. We include both sides of our family and everyone comes over and enjoys lots of good food and fun. We always have my mom’s homemade tomato soup (a tradition that dates back to when I was in Junior High), smoked salmon, and lots of good cheeses-and anything else we want to make. It’s lots of fun to visit with everyone and share in the kids excitement and anticipation of Christmas Day. ~ Laura S.
One of our favorite family holiday traditions is going tubing in the mountains at Hawksnest Resort. We like that we can make a reservation online for a tubing session and drive to the mountains knowing we will have a reservation for two hours of endless tubing. {No waiting in long lines with children!} We always end the day with hot cocoa in the lodge, a stop at our favorite BBQ restaurant and listening to our Christmas tunes on the drive home. ~ A. Snow
My favorite holiday memory is going Christmas caroling in my late teens in my parents’ neighborhood. There was snow on the ground, and a good group of us, and we went around for a good long time, singing to our neighbors. They sang with us, they invited us into their houses, they offered us cocoa or cider and cookies. Those from other countries (my parents lived outside of Washington DC, and there were a lot of foreign diplomats in the neighborhood) were charmed but at a loss as to what their role was on the other side of the “transaction.” We insisted they owed us nothing, but we ended up walking away with boxes of chocolates! ~ Liza Baron
One of my favorite holiday memories is gathering at my grandmother’s house every Christmas morning (after we checked out our Santa loot, of course) for a big breakfast spread of everything imaginable, including the main attraction, SALT FISH BISCUITS! Yummy! Would love to have those this year…if someone else would clean them for me. ~ Lynette P
Hands down, my favorite holiday tradition was always receiving one present to open on Christmas Eve. It was always a new pair of pajamas and while that may have sometimes been boring as a child, it quickly became something I looked forward to and then something I wanted to do with my kids. Now my kids open their new PJs every Christmas Eve and I enjoy the search for a new pair every year. ~ Courtney T.
My favorite Christmas tradition is our Christmas Eve picnic under the tree. We always have pizza, sometimes we order out, sometimes we make our own and set up a picnic blanket under the tree. We turn off all the lights except for the lights of the tree and the candles in our windows. We read “‘Twas the Night Before Christmas” and the Bible and then it is off to bed. This tradition started when I was 7 years old and I love continuing it with my three boys. It also fun to know my brother and his children and my parents and my siblings are doing the same thing too. ~ Carrie Scott
One of my favorite Christmas traditions is the Christmas Eve Lovefeast at Friedberg Moravian Church. I began going to this Lovefeast with my mother when I was a small child, even though we are Methodists and this was not our home church. But my mother loved the candlelight ceremony, the traditional Christmas carols and hymns that are sung, and the breaking of bread with other Christians. Before my marriage, my husbands’ family began attending Friedberg Moravian, and now we continue the annual tradition and make new memories with both sides of the family and our 6-year old daughter. ~ Lisa Hinshaw
I have a very fond holiday memory of going to my aunt’s house every Christmas Eve. All of the family would gather for a nice holiday evening meal. After dinner we would open presents and the adults would play a present numbers game. Each person would pick a number out of a hat…. and the gifts werer also numbered accordingly …and whoever drew #1 would open the gift that was numbered #1 and then whoever drew #2 opened gift #2 and so on. The advantage was to get a high number …as if the person wanted to trade their gift could trade gifts with any of the lower number people. It was a lot of FUN and a lot of times the gifts were hilarious!! Some people call the game “Dirty Santa”. I will never forget the these great memories that I am now able to share with my own family! ~ Glenda Lee Hedenskog
What is about Christmas and holidays that tie us to traditions? It is as if we believe by doing the same things, or eating the same things we can recreate some sort of perfect moment we made once but can’t quite seem to recapture. Before I had a family of my own, I longed for these sort of traditions, the ones that would assure me I was systematically approaching a perfect Kodak, Norman Rockwell, Good American, color-coordinated Christmas. When my husband (then boyfriend) celebrated our first Christmas together (in 1997) I set out to create just that. With exceptional zeal, I stitched little hand-embroidered stockings and meticulously labeled our twelve ornaments so we could hang them on the tree – all while listening to our Christmas CD, and drinking champagne. Now each year we faithfully relive our Christmases together as we decorate the tree. That first year I also made a stocking for our dog, and matching pajama bottoms for my then-boyfriend and I, and drank champagne as we carefully unpacked each year of ornaments hanging them in order. The first of many to come, that memory was perfect. ~ Summer Riley
Growing up, my favorite part (and most anticipated part) of the holiday season was our family’s annual trip to see the Nutcracker. I loved putting on a pretty dress and venturing out on a cold Saturday night to the warmth of the Stevens Center to see the most spectacular show I have ever been to. Our 3 year old, Maggie, was born with a congenital heart defect and we were told a few months ago that she will need open heart surgery soon. She watches Nutcracker Barbie multiple times every day and has been since way before the holiday season began, therefore I would love to take her to see the “real” Nutcracker which would make her dreams come true. ~ Kim Richard
The fun thing we do together is make a gingerbread village. Typically it starts with us trying to assemble the village pieces (which are impossibly small, this year we are getting one bigger house!), me sending the children away to do it myself lest I say a bad word or throw the thing away in frustration, then calmly calling them back into the kitchen for the decorating part. I do not direct the decorating; they can do whatever they want. And what I love about this tradition is that I can look at their finished products and know exactly who did what! One child’s will be neat and symmetrical, one will be haphazard and incomplete. And all the village buildings are perfectly precious! ~ Jill Sherron
Every year we gather all the kids for our annual Gingerbread House party. We started the tradition 8 years ago when we lived in PA to give the girls something to look forward to as they waited for Christmas day. We have no less than TWENTY houses ready for this year’s party and even will have gingerbread people for the younger ones that aren’t ready to tackle an entire house. Nothing is better than watching how the creations have become more elaborate over the years. Thanks for the great chance for tickets to what I hope will become another Christmas tradition – The Nutcracker!! ~ Kristen D.
My husband’s side of the family is Italian and their big celebration night is usually Christmas Eve. Often it will be called Feast of Fishes, including seven, nine, eleven or more fishes. The more fishes the better. However, one time, early in our marriage I had an idea to top all the other fishes and we included red candy “Swedish fish” on our Christmas Eve menu. The Swedish fish haven’t returned for a long time, but we all still look forward to a long, joyous family night of seafood creations! ~ Stephanie Piraino
My favorite memory as a child growing up in Winston-Salem: Standing in line for HOURS with my mom and her friends to go to the Candle Tea in Old Salem. I loved singing the Moravian carol “Morning Star”, smelling the beeswax candles and, of course, savoring the sugar cake and coffee! I was always entranced by the putz and what new building they added. And who can forget the Moravian gingerbread cookies?! This and going to the Nutcracker (I remember when it was at Reynolds Auditorium) have always put me in the Christmas spirit. ~ Andrea L.
