Traditions solidify the family bonds and create life-long memories and something to look forward to each year.
I never planned to have specific holiday traditions, really didn't give it a lot of thought. But luckily for me, they happened anyway.
I'd like to share two of our Christmas traditions. The first happened by accident, but I'd like to suggest it to anyone with a small child because it is an absolutely blast.
Each year around Christmas, I take a picture of Brady with a little chair he got when he was born. It happened by accident the first two years and when I realized what I had done, I kept it up. Now he has a blast showing how big and strong he is, flinging that chair around.
I present The Nine Christmases of Brady:
The second tradition came purely from Brady's imagination and "why not" attitude toward life. It is this attitude that led to the stick house we built and The Invention Party. Nothing gives me greater joy than when Brady has one of his big ideas I can say "yes" to.
Awhile back after reading a book that involved Christmas, he said, "I want to celebrate the day before the day before Christmas and I want to call it The Rise of Christmas." Now, when he said "Rise of Christmas" his voice changed and had a sort of grandiose hum to it.
"Okay," I said. "Why not."
So we sat down one night and wrote a list of what things we should do on The Rise of Christmas. Here they are:
 |
| We had all of these guys going at once! |
- We decided Elvis (aka my husband in his Elvis mask) should make an appearance. And oh boy, he did. He wore a long leather trench coat and had us in stitches before he "left the building."
- We turned on every Christmas decoration we had to lots of lights and music.
- We drank hot cocoa.
- We watched The Grinch and Rudolph.
- We opened 1 present.
- We read about the birth of Jesus from the Bible.
- We drew a picture in Brady's memory book that he made.
- And an impromptu part of the night was a little "show" Brady put on for me with a couple of pillows.
 |
| Yum, I liked this part of The Rise of Christmas a lot! |
I hope your holiday was joyous and I wish you all the best in the New Year!
Posts
ha, That's so cute! My son has that little chair. This is our first Christmas with him so we're working to just build traditions! Glad you have a good Christmas - happy new year. :)
ReplyDeleteOh how cool they still make that chair! That was back in 2005 when we got that one. How fun that you get to start new traditions. Some you plan and some just sort of happen, LOL.
DeleteAwww -look how much he has grown up. We have a few traditions that we do year after year like we always make a HUGE breakfast feast the morning of Christmas eve. Pancakes, bacon, french toast, bagels, muffins....the works. I am not sure how it started, but we do it every year.
ReplyDeleteHow fun that you have a breakfast tradition! I'm terrible about doing anything special for breakfast. Man, yours sounds awesome. And yes, I'm amazed how much he has grown.
DeleteI don't think we really have any traditions but I love yours! Especially the picture one with the same item each year. Fun!
ReplyDeleteI'm just glad it started early enough since I hadn't actually planned it!
DeleteI love his ideas, and this one made me smile! We have Christmas Eve traditions in our own house as well, but this year we added a new one---dancing to the Christmas music while around the tree! :)
ReplyDeleteBlessings
~Heather
Thanks, Heather :) He is always thinking, that's for sure. I love the dancing to music! That's a fabulous tradition!
DeleteOMGOSH I love that Elvis came to visit your Christmas! In my book, that is better than Santa! :)
ReplyDeleteLOL, I read this to my hubby and he thought it was hilarious. I think you're right, it was better than Santa.
DeleteI love his creativity and imagination. And I love that his mom and dad foster it :) You're an awesome parent!
ReplyDeleteThanks so much, Terra :) His personality has helped shape me as a parent because he's so creative, so intense, I want to be able to say "yes" as often as possible.
Deletehow cute my son had one of those chair though i'm sure he would be too embrass to indulge me now with a picture.
ReplyDeleteLOL, there seem to be lots of those chairs around! I hope my kiddo just accepts this as part of life cuz we've always done it. I'm hoping to make it to 18 :)
DeleteThat sounds like so much fun. We have different traditions based on if we are home or at my grandmas (every other year we switch off), but we always go to the Christmas Eve service no matter where we are.
ReplyDeleteWe do too at our little town church, that's when we light the candles. How cool there are different traditions depending where you are! That keeps it fun and fresh. The coolest tradition I ever was a part of was a friend's family who made tamales on Christmas Eve and passed around the baby Jesus to kiss his head.
DeleteI love this! Since Madison is still pretty young I can still do this. Brady is such an amazing young man. I can't wait to see the 16 Christmases of Brady. I hope you have an amazing 2014!
ReplyDeleteOh I'd love to see something like this with Madison! I hope you do and post it! Thank you for your kind words about my boy.
DeleteOh, Stephanie, the Rise of Christmas sounds like a blast!! I wanted to start some sort of tradition this year, but I never did. Maybe next year I will come up with an awesome list like this! :)
ReplyDeleteHi Jane, thank you and it totally was! I'm so glad Brady is so creative, he makes me use my brain, ha!
DeleteIt neat to watch kids grow in pictures and see all the changes. It will be something he your son can treasure the rest of his life. Thanks for sharing - very enjoyable article.
ReplyDeleteThanks Marla! It really is amazing how they change as they grow up.
Deleteour traditions consist of a big dinner on Christmas eve and opening one present.
ReplyDeleteThat's what my mom and I always did when I was growing up, open one present on Christmas eve :) I think we had eggnog too, but no good with egg allergies!
DeleteI love Family traditions especially around the holidays. We have 2 . Open PJs on Christmas eve and buy an ornament for the tree every year.
ReplyDeleteLove the blog and look forward to reading more. New follower as well
I have heard of the new PJs tradition and I think it is just adorable! I'll bet you have a lot of neat ornaments by now. Thanks so much for stopping by and nice to meet you!
DeleteThese are great traditions! I LOVE the 9 Christmases opf Brady! :)
ReplyDeleteThanks so much! It really is a fun tradition and he seems to look forward to it as well.
DeleteWith the uncertainty of us and other family getting things in the post early enough to arrive before Christmas, it's becoming an unintentional tradition to open gifts over Skype on Christmas Day as well as on Ukrainian Christmas. Although I don't follow Ukrainian Christmas in other ways, I keep saying we should celebrate it then and take advantage of after-Christmas sales!
ReplyDeletePs: Grinch is my favourite movie, too!
Oh, I love the Skype tradition! That is so neat! The grinch is really a more complex story than it seems. A true lesson of the heart :)
DeleteI love the picture of Braddy and his chair from time to time. It is nice to see how he grows. Happy new year too.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Adelien, and Happy New Year to you too!
DeleteI never thought about it, but my kids all still have their "stuffies" that they have always slept with. they carry them around all the time and they are probably in all our pics somewhere. that would be cool to go back and see.
ReplyDeleteFor us, getting the Christmas tree is a big one since we go cut it ourselves at a local tree farm. Also, going out to look at Christmas lights, reindeer food on Christmas Eve.....just lots of little things that all add up I guess. But make the holiday special for us.
Stuffies? Are those stuffed animals, LOL? I love these interesting terms from other places. I love that you get a real tree. The needles would totally freak my hubby about, he's always vacuuming. Reindeer food! That's a neat idea, we should do that too!
DeleteThis year we added Mario Kart to our Christmas Eve tradition, so much fun!
ReplyDeleteI think that is so cool that you play as a family. Brady loves Mario Kart.
DeleteI love how you support Brady in his imagination and his inventions. More parents should have that 'sure, why not?' attitude. And thank you so much for the many comments on my blog this last year. You were #1 on my commenter list!
ReplyDeleteThank you so much, Missy. My boy is so creative and always thinking of new things, he has helped shape me as a parent. It is such a joy to say 'yes' when I can and of course there are times I can't, LOL. Wow, glad to hear I was #1 commenter! I truly enjoy reading your words :) Happy New Year!
DeleteI love how you took this picture for 9 years. This is a great idea! Thanks for linking to Pintastic Pinteresting Party.
ReplyDeleteThanks so much for stopping by, Jill. It has been a fun tradition!
DeleteYour Rise of Christmas activities sounds so fun! This was my first Christmas away from home. Back home, we had caroling with church friends (we usually went around in a bus because there were so many of us), open houses with lots of food, and a pot blessing dinner after church. I especially loved the dinner because the old people would cook traditional foods and we would have dozens of dishes to feed all 300 of us.
ReplyDeleteThat must have been hard being away from home! Oh my gosh, the caroling with church friends sounds so so fun! I wish our church did that! I may have to suggest that to them. Also love that they had an open house. How beautiful. That sounds amazing.
Delete