Some Of Our Family Christmas Traditions

Posted on Saturday 23 December 2006 at 1:18 PM - Post Comment

My family is Lithuanian/Polish.  Hubby's family is German/Italian.  Umm...let me correct that before hubby reads this...Sicilian.  There are many traditions that we've incorporated into our family celebrations here @ home. 

The first is from my family...setting an empty place setting at Christmas Eve or Christmas Day dinner.  I've read several reasons for this...one is to remember loved ones who passed on during the year, another is to welcome unexpected guests, another is to sharing your meal with Jesus.

Another from my family is celebrating communion at dinner.  We did this every Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter...any family get-together.  While my grandparents used the tradition Oplatek at Christmas, we just use bread.

We put up a nativity every year.  I collect the Fontanini figurines, but I also have several other little sets that I put all around the house.  But the baby Jesus is never put into the manger until Christmas eve.  After Christmas dinner, Hubby will read from Luke about the Christmas story and then we put the baby Jesus into the manger...or mangers.

Pickled Beet Eggs.  Hubby can't stand them.  I love them.  My grandmother made them on all holidays.  She simply took hard boiled eggs and put them in pickled beet juice for a couple days.  It's not Christmas...or any holiday...without pickled beet eggs!

Decorating the tree has become a Christmas Eve tradition.  The tree with lights and garland is usually put up sometime in the beginning of December and left that way until Christmas Eve.  On Christmas Eve we have hot chocolate, listen to Christmas carols and decorate the tree.

I'm not a big decorator.  I love pretty lights and greenery inside, candles and Nativity scenes...but I refuse to decorate outside.  Outside it is "Bah Humbug!!"  First...I don't like to spend the money on the extra lights and decorations...I also don't like the extra cost in the electric bill.  So we save the time and effort for decorating inside.  But one thing I will do...I really like it especially since I don't have to go outside to do it...and I think it looks just lovely from outside...candles in the windows.  It's just so beautiful to see all the lovely big farm houses in our area...including a few Amish houses (I assume their candles are battery opperated, lol) with candles in all the windows.

Every year we buy a new nativity ornament for the tree, and we also buy Boo an ornament that is meaningful to him.  Last year it was a NASCAR (Jimmy Johnson...his favorite driver) and this year it is a nutcracker...although it doesn't really represent this past year, he specifically requested one.  I also hand-make ornaments to give to family and friends every year as gifts. 

Another thing that we've done is something that I heard someone talking about one year.  It was a tradition of getting new pajamas for Christmas.  The idea was that everyone would open these gifts on Christmas Eve and wake up on Christmas day in new pajamas.  Hubby and I loved that idea so we do that every year.

We don't do Santa...kinda, but we buy each other little things to sneak anonomously in the other's stockings on Christmas Eve.  The object is to do it without being seen.  I'm sure the anonimity would be more fun in larger families...it's still a great surprise for us on Christmas morning to see what we got in our stockings.  Stocking are not just filled with gifts but with nuts, an orange, and apple and a new toothbrush.  LOL  Now...about Santa.  Santa is the designated person who passes the gifts under the tree out to everyone on Christmas morning.  They read who it's too and who it's from...they we all watch them open it before "Santa" gets another gift out from under the tree.  This job is usually given to Hubby...but Boo says he wants to be "Santa" this year.

One really neat tradition we are just starting (now that Boo can write well) is an Italian tradition of letter writing.  Instead of writing letters to Santa with a list of all the toys they want (although I'm sure some do) Italian children write letters to their moms and dads telling them how much they love them.  These letters are placed under the dinner plates on Christmas Eve and read after dinner.

Another new tradition we are starting this year is reading Christmas books.  I read it on another blog some time ago but unfortunately I haven't found that blog again.  The idea was to take their beloved Christmas books and wrap them up in Christmas paper and place them in a basket and every night during Advent pick one, unwrap it and reading it together.  I love this idea and we are now incorporating this into our family Christmas traditions. 

On Christmas morning stocking are fair game no matter the time...but gifts under the tree aren't opened until after Christmas breakfast.

After Christmas dinner we bring out the birthday cake and sing "Happy Birthday" to Jesus.

The Christmas tree is left up until December 6th which is Little Christmas/Epiphany/Celebration of the Wise Men (December 6th)...which is the day after 12th day of Christmas (or Twelfth Night).    During this time we will take all the Christmas cards that we've received and put them into a basket under the tree and each night pick a few out of the basket and pray for those people.

Ok...just some of our Christmas traditions.  I'd love to hear about yours.