Favorite Holiday Traditions Giveaway

Favorite holiday tradition for me has to be the gift giving :) the gift of giving i find is really awesome and i love seeing peoples reactions!
 
I have a few traditions that run in my family. First one being being model trains. Every year we have a model train display that we put up. It has been something that has been passed down from my grandfather to my father and to me. While I no longer have either if them to share it with I still continue to do it on my own. For me it's a way to connect to my dad and grandfather and one day I hope to pad this on and keep the tradition alive in my family so here are 2 photos

 
I don't get to see my family very often. So my favorite tradition is the 2 days I get off each year. the 25th and 26th. I just enjoy sharing stories, relaxing with all of my family and a big dinner that we do for Christmas every year.

A new tradition my Fiance and I started 2 years ago is we pick 2 kids off of every Tree we come across that has less fortunate children and we buy them a few gifts. Most of them I believe are called Angle Tree's.


I love Christmas time!!!!!
 
Our church has an angel tree, we pick a few ornaments which has the ages, sizes, of some needy children. We go out and get gifts that the children wouldn't get. Hopefully making the Holiday Season a little bit better.
 
Our tradition is to have family over for a soup supper and then off to Christmas eve service. On Christmas day we get together with my wife's family, eat and open presets etc.
 
Ever since I was 13. We would stay up till midnight, wake up anyone who fell asleep & open our gifts. I'm 51 now. But we still get together & do the same thing. Myself, my kids, my brother, his wife & son, my mom & sis... The biggest thing is getting together & laughing. One year my brother gave us all. Scratch off lotto tickets. To my sister's surprise, she won $30,000. Until she read the rules of where to collect the money. Unfortunately. It was from the Easter bunny. We try to top each others prank every year
 
For me- my favorite tradition has to be going to my moms house BEFORE Christmas. Growing up, you knew it was getting close to Christmas when you got home from school and it smelled like Christmas-themed Yankee Candles and fresh baked cookies. I always joke that around Christmas time she turns into a 'normal mom'. She doesn't like to cook, she usually doesn't bake. She rides motorcycles, drives a convertible sports car, and is far from the traditional suzie-homemaker. But every Christmas she is dilligently working in her kitchen making cookies and making her house smell wonderful!

My great grandmother used to make us handmade wooden ornaments every year. She passed away in 2005, but that was definitely my favorite tradition growing up. Every year I'd get this awesome, hand-made, hand-painted ornament. I still have them on my tree today! Now I get to share them with my wife. Our tree is full of beautiful wooden ornaments, one for each year from the year I was born, until 2005 (she died in the summer, but already had all of our ornaments done for the year. They say some people just know when it's their time- I think she did).

Also, when I was a kid- I had an upstairs bedroom, but my little brother and sister shared a room downstairs and their door faced the Christmas tree in the living room! Not wanting them to catch Santa in the act (Back then, mom always put our gifts out on Christmas eve late at night!), she had them sleep up in my bedroom on the floor. They HATED that. As we got older, we moved into a bigger house, each had our own rooms far away from the Christmas tree- and we no longer believed in Santa. But my little brother and sister still slept in my bedroom on Christmas eve! Now I'm grown and married; my little brother is away serving in the US Navy and my baby sister is in college. But she did call me the other day and said she wanted to crash on my couch on Christmas eve! Some things you never outgrow.

So those are my favorite traditions! Cool idea for a drawing Meghan!
 
Mine is pretty short and sweet (literally)! I LOVE cooking. Holidays are not the same without making my world famous fudge, Nanaimo bars, Baklava, grand pere au syrop d'erable and tarte au sucre...... I told you it was "sweet". Also can't be Christmas without a home made Yule log cake with strawberry filling.

Other than that, meat pies, ragout de patte de cochon and tourtière du lac St-Jean. That is for the savory!!

Been living down in the US and haven't been able to experience the traditional northern French Quebequer type Christmas... Actually feel very nostalgic at the moment :(

Thanks for the contest, good luck to everyone and Merry Christmas
 
My whole family works on Black Friday and at dinner we enjoy sharing stories of all of the crazy things we encounter that day.
 
This will be the first Christmas with my wife as a "married" couple. We already have a few traditions though, starting with cookies day! She bakes them, I eat them. In the words of the great George Straight, that's why I eat Christmas cookies all year long :)
 
I love going to the Festival of Lights at the Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Gardens. They light up the entire zoo with lights and its a great time with the entire family. Also, we always go to Fountain Square to do some ice skating.

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Oh man to many to pick from.... But the one that kicks off the season for us the Sunday after thanksgiving me, my wife, my brothers and sisters and there spouses and my parents all go to breakfast then go pick out a tree for our houses, yes we do real trees, then we go to my parents for chili afterwords after the chili me and my wife to home, decorate our tree and decorate the rest of the house for Christmas

This is by far my favorite holiday!! I love giving to my family and friends


Sent from space through a satellite
 
Now that I am a dad my absolute favorite thing about the holidays is watching my son enjoy Christmas. Nothing like seeing a two year see his gifts for the first time thinking Santa just left them.
 
We have many traditions this time of year, all revolving around spending time with the family.

They start with the extended family Christmas shopping weekend, the house is then decorated the following weekend. We also host the annual family/friends cookie / sweets bake off, Christmas Eve dinner, culminating with New Years Eve at our place.

We generally host well over 100 people during this period of time, and look forward to these events every year.
 
My family watches the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade to get into the spirit of Christmas.
We also have a tradition of playing 20 questions on Christmas Eve with the entire family. We pick a crazy gift and wrap it up and give everyone chances to ask questions to see if they can figure out what the gift is. Whoever guesses correct gets the gift. Makes for a great time.
Hope everyone has a Merry Christmas!

Shay
 
Going with my daughter to pick out the Christmas tree. She's growing up so fast I know it won't be but a few years and she'll be gone, but hopefully she'll always be able to come home and keep the tradition we started.
 
RevHeat said:
We sponsor a needing family!
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Very nice. Not sure if you can call two years in a row now a tradition, but we sponsor two dogs from the shelter. We get them new beds and toys, collars, bones, and go up and play with them for a while. Not that people aren't important, but so many seem to forget about our furry friends around the holidays. This is just our second year so not sure it is really a tradition yet. Next year though for sure :xyxthumbs:
 
Since my children have been little babies we have formed a couple memorable traditions. Tonight in fact we just finished cleaning up from our annual cookie baking extravaganza, all from scratch of course! We always pick a tree together, sometimes we cut one, this year we've decided on a live tree, root ball and all! I hope it makes it to the 26th. :) The candelight service at church on Christmas Eve is probably my favorite. I haven't missed a Christmas Eve service since I was born.
 
Growing up in Milwaukee and being catholic a traditions that exists up there is St. Nick would come the night of December 5th and fill our stockings with things such as candy and small gifts. When you would wake up the the 6th it was like a mini Christmas. This tradition exists in other parts of the country but I know that Milwaukee is one of the main places it takes place. I live in Indianapolis now where no one knows what it is except for my 3 kids cause they get a stocking full of goodies every year at that time. It's kind of like a prelude to Christmas.

On a side note I was in the 3rd grade and St. Nick brought me a madball (anyone remember them...basically a rubber ball that had an angry face on it. Big in the early 80's) and I took my brand new gift to St. Mathews where I went to school and a nun took it away cause it was inappropriate.

Now even if I don't get some free wax for my awesome tradition please give me some cause a nun took my madball. Thanks AG
 
Don't have a Christmas tradition as it's a bit hard being in the military and either moving here or there or spending time over in the sandbox.
 
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