Christmas Memories

This week my mind has been flooded with Christmas memories from my past. Two especially come to mind:

1) Decorating sugar cookies at our kitchen table. If I remember right, my dad was the one behind this tradition. My mom was there, I’m sure, but he kind of took the lead in making and decorating! I remember it always being such a fun time!

2) Putting up our Christmas Tree. Every year my dad would pull out the tree and all our decorations. He would then put on hundreds of lights until it was the brightest tree ever. Once that was complete, his job was over…he would sip some iced tea and sit on the couch to watch the ladies of the house do the rest of the work! My mom would always unwrap each ornament and put hooks on them while my sister and I put them on the tree. With every ornament would come stories, laughter and memories. We always had other decorations out as well…which was equally as fun to pull out year to year.

Also this week I have read numerous articles, blogposts, Facebook rants and such about the way people celebrate Christmas. Many have been centered around The Elf on the Shelf, Santa Clause, and gift-giving.

Our Sunday Service at church even centered on Christmas Traditions and this historical significance behind them.

Then we attended a Christmas Party in which people shared something they do every Christmas that is tradition and meaningful to them and their family.

All this talk about Christmas, tradition, and why we do what we do has had an impact on me. I think traditions are important and I want Jaxen to grow up with a few traditions that we do every year. Something he can look forward to, and look back on fondly. But I also want these traditions to have meaning. I don’t want to do them just because that is the socially popular thing to do at the time. Know what I mean?

I’m not exactly sure what that will look like for our family. And I’m sure some of the things that we do will change or be forgotten about after trying them. And really we are still in, what I consider to be,  the “baby phase” of Christmas (he is too young to do/understand most things).

But - that doesn’t mean I haven’t tried!

Take a look…

I want Jaxen to enjoy gift-giving. And wrapping.

I want him to grow up wearing Christmas pajamas, watching Christmas movies.

This time we watched a Thomas the Train Christmas movie - it was a hit!

And I want to carry on the tradition of decorating sugar cookies.

Although this year instead of home-making them I purchased the roll that you cut and bake. Easy!

I am excited to begin our family traditions!

How about you? What are some of your favorite traditions?