Lucas and I each came into our marriage with a number of family traditions for Christmas - problem is - they didn't really jive together very well. For example, on Christmas morning in my family, we get up and open our stockings and presents from Santa, then read the Christmas story, eat breakfast and then start working on opening the Christmas presents from each other - one at a time! In Lucas' family, they get up incredibly early, have a giant free-for-all at all the presents and stockings and its over within an hour! See how those two traditions don't exactly work together?? So over the last few years we've tried to figure out which traditions are important to us and which ones we want to start for our own family.
Here's a few of the traditions that we have that are of note:
1) We always go out to get a real tree and we decorate it together. Here's our tree with some presents underneath - it's really looking like Christmas now!!
2) As we decorate the tree we talk about where the ornaments came from - especially the ones that we've gotten as gifts or ones that we bought while on vacation ... apparently we share this tradition with the NewlyWoodwards :)
3) Eat lots and lots of lemon bread - in fact, I'll be getting a loaf in the oven later this evening.
4) Enjoy a candlelit Christmas Eve service with one of our families - this year it will be Lucas' family, last year it was mine.
5) After the service, head back to our family's place and break out our new board game. See Lucas and I began this tradition where every Christmas we buy a new game and we play it Christmas eve. So far we've collected these... and we'd love to get some recommendations - hopefully we'll have quite a collection soon!
and we'd love to get some recommendations (we are considering Balderdash for this year but we aren't convinced we'd like it) - hopefully we'll have quite a collection soon!
We haven't quite figured out what our Christmas morning traditions are going to be since we are still spending each Christmas with one of our families - but once kiddos arrive we'll figure those out :)
To Check out some other bloggers traditions visit:
8 comments:
I love Phase 10 - I discovered that game a few years ago and love it. What about Scategories - its always fun to find out what others come up with. Or there is always the classic Scrabble. :)
I LOVE the games tradition. Great idea and a great way to build a collection. I can imagine that kids would love that, too.
We got Apples to Apples last Christmas... it's awesome! We've played it at every family get-together since. Highly recommended.
I totally understand having to work out your own traditions. Ryan's family and mine have totally different ways of "doing" Christmas. But, I love that we've made it work. =)
PS. I love love love your tree. It's so pretty and full. I Cannot remember if I already told you that.
I second Apples to Apples! It such a fun game, sure to get everyone laughing. Also try Common Sense. You think you have basic street smarts until you have that game! Haha!
Happy Holidays!
Love your games tradition! How fun! What about bananagrams (it's like scrabble but without the board) or quiddler (another spelling-type game)? Otherwise, we definitely love apples-to-apples!
I love the game tradition! We love Rummikub. I'm not a fan of gin rummy, but I love Rummikub. I also love Apples to Apples, though you need at least 4 players, so for us its not a good year-round game.
I love that you guys have started your own traditions now. Hubby and I are waiting for kids to really make our own, but we might start incorporating some of our own now. Why wait?
Loving the games!!! What fun! Merry Christmas!
Thanks for the suggestions everyone! We ended up settling on Balderdash because I found it on a fabulous sale... We played with both sides of the family over the holidays and everyone seemed to like it :)
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