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I love getting our tree an decorating it. My birthday is December 6th, so heading over to the local tree farm with my family is like a birthday present, too!
I love to see all my kids waiting to open their christmas stockings . I think they almost prefer these to anything else .
I think the most important thing is being with family. It is the time of year when we make quality time for one another and create our memories.
I love decorating the house, the anticipation of the coming holiday gatherings with family and friends.
I look forward to our Annual Tree Trimming party. Picking the theme, making the invitations/Christmas Cards, cutting down the tree, decorating the house, and making the cookies and other party goodies all happen before the night of the party…and all are in anticipation of gathering with family and friends to decorate the tree! So much fun! AND such a great way to start our holiday season!
Last year we had a set of twin boy elf on the shelf visit our house and got into all kinds of shenanigans! I hope they return this year! My daughter is hoping they bring a girl elf with them this time!
I love having all of my family coming home to spend a few days together. We enjoy playing games, going sledding and of course eating Christmas goodies.
Getting together with all our families! We have about 30 guests come over each year and then we take several road trips to see the rest of the family.
I look forward to having a break from school with my boys and watching them decorate the Christmas tree.
I love that I am an adult and can still visit with one of my grandparents. It is such a treat, and having lived through the depression she loves hand made cards and gifts. Thank you for allowing me to add joy to her life.
Stir-up Sunday at the end of November, which is the day when I make the Christmas pudding is my favourite tradition. I even FaceTime my older daughters, who are away in college so they get a virtual stir of the pudding. It starts off the whole season by getting everyone together, even if we are far apart.
I look forward to going to pick a Christmas tree right after thanksgiving. That event kicks off the season for my family and the anticipation builds from there!
Decorating the tree and listening to Christmas carols as we do so. Having had four children in five years, the youngest now old enough to help hang baubles, my tree is messy, lopsided, mismatched in colour and completely and utterly beautiful.
Seven years ago one of us received a Fruit Cake in a tin. When our extended family got together, the fruit cake was put on the table with desserts. No one opened it. We decided to pass it on each Christmas and we did, as a surprise. Now that we are in other places (we lost our homes in Hurricane Katrina), the person holding the cake has to take a photo, and mail it to the next. We share photos of sending and receiving the cake. It’s a funny tradition that keeps us connected during the Holiday season.
Our entire season is so full of traditions I don’t think I could pick just one. I love Christmas jammies. We all have some and take a family photo in them on Christmas Eve. I love putting up the tree and the mini tree. Opening presents and stockings! Love the stockings! I love baking cookies as a family and watching Christmas movies. I love pulling out all the handmade ornaments and decorations from the littles and making new ones each year. It really is the most magical time of the year!
I would have to say that what I love the most is just gathering at the table with all the family there and spending time together for the holiday!
I love to decorate. I do a staircase garland and one on the mantle filled with beautiful, delicate ornaments. I often leave the mantle one up a few weeks after Christmas to make winter seem a little shorter.
My sister and I take turns every Christmas Eve making eggnog for our party. Every year it’s a new recipe and we try to out do each other. Our party has a ton of food and I love eating the leftovers on Christmas morning while we open gifts.
Christmas Eve church service..remembering why we celebrate Christmas
Such a fun & festive release! How do you keep coming up with such pretty and new hings release after release?!! I always look forward to playing Christmas music while decorating our tiny tree and putting out the pine boughs and Woodland critters and snowmen around the family room and dining room. Thanks for the chance to win! Great release!
Jesus is the reason for the season!
Our Trim A Tree party. Always hand make the invites too. Who would have thunk?!
I love the evenings when the tree is lit and decorated and we’re all chilling out watching Christmas specials.
I love getting out the Christmas decorations each year and decorating every nook and cranny! And also burning LOTS of candles on Christmas Eve. I’ll never forget when my new DIL walked in one Christmas Eve, looked around and said to my son “No one does Christmas like your mother!” A compliment I’ll always remember!
Gathering at my sisters with family for a BBQ and pool party.
When my daughter was very young, we didn’t have stockings so she would color the lunch bags we used for stockings. We lived in such a small space, we would put up the folding table and put out our decorations, a small tree, a snowman she made in school and our bags. Now she is nearly done with college, all she wants for Christmas is handmade things. It makes me very happy. (I get handmade things as well :D)
Christmas traditions seem to change over the years. When I was a kid, I most looked forward to eating potato sausage at my grandmother’s house. It was the only time of year I was able to eat it, and boy, was it delicious!! Now that I’m a mother, I most look forward to making cookies with the kids, and (just for me) making gifts to give the kid’s teachers and our favorite bus driver. I always turn to PTI for fun products and inspiration to help me with that last one. ?
Decorating the tree with my family.
I can’t wait for November to arrive so I can start playing the Christmas CD’s. My husband rolls his eyes but I know he enjoys it!! Even my now grown children call and ask if the music has started!! haha!
Turning up the Christmas Carols and baking up a storm is what I look forward to each year. Then, taking all those baked goods out to deliver to neighbors, co-workers, and friends. So much fun!
Making Christmas cookies and crafts with my kids.
Trimming the tree and hanging the stockings while singing Christmas carols.
We love getting the tree out and decorated. The earlier the better – more time to enjoy it, and all the work into putting it up!
Every Christmas Eve celebrate the morning with the blessing of our Daughters birthday. In the evening we gather with family for Christmas Eve Mass celebrating the Birth Of Jesus. What a wonderful Day. Christmas Day we gather with My family and spend the day just being together.
I love decorating the tree with my family while listening to Christmas carols.
Listening to Christmas carols & decorating the tree!!!
My favourite family tradition is the “lovely parting gifts”. After Christmas dinner is over, and everyone’s ready to leave (or go to bed), there are the consolation prizes. I shop throughout the year for little gifts that are especially fun or funny and wrap each one up (there’s always one or two especially coveted surprises included). They’re left in a pile by the front door and everyone gets to choose a random gift before leaving. Much hilarity ensues. 🙂
After all the good food of our Thanksgiving dinner, the Christmas tree would come out and Mom would put the lights on and then all of us kids would get to help put the ornaments on the tree…then Mom would finish it off with all the icicles…I still put my tree up on Thanksgiving and have such fond memories of me and my brothers hanging the ornaments…
I love the celebration of the Christmas Eve church service!
Gathering with my family is a major highlight. This year I’m also looking forward to worship on Christams Day, since Christmas is on a Sunday.
I look forward to decorating the house. I put up 7 trees so it is quite the task to get the house decorated. Especially since one of the trees takes me 5 hours to put it up.
Going to Midnight Mass with my family.
Our annual holiday open house. We’ve done it for three years now and I love having friends visit our home. I make lots of goodies to share. It’s the highlight of our Christmas season!
My favorite holiday tradition is creating “Boo” bags with my children, friend’s children, nieces and nephews – which we distribute randomly to neighbors. I love that it gets the kids together to create, while getting them excited about giving (rather than getting). Since it’s early October, it’s much easier for all of us to find time together (too difficult around Christmas!) But I especially love that it opens the children’s eyes to how much impact a random act of kindness can have. For weeks, all they can talk about is how far the “Boos” have spread – essentially we leave a creative package of Halloween goodies (candies, toys, novelties) anonymously on a few neighborhood porches and an attached note asks the recipients to pay it forward. Those recipients place a (provided) sign in their window to let everyone know they’ve already been Boo’d (so they aren’t boo’d again), and the kids watch for the signs to spread from house to house!
Finger Family Christmas – My In-laws, their children and spouses, the grandchildren and great grandchildren all gather for Christmas the weekend before. It’s a large crowd with 72 people all together at the family farm.
Christmas Eve dinner is our tradition it is the best with our small family than Christmas Day with the whole family.
My favorite holiday tradition is to go cut our Christmas tree . We go to this tree farm in rural Indiana where they use horse drawn wagons to take you to the field . We all have to agree on the perfect tree and then my youngest picks out a name for it . Last years tree was fluff !
My mother usually makes beautiful table centrepieces with flowers, gum nuts (we’re from Australia) and candles. I love seeing them on the dining and coffee table.
I look forward to decorating the tree and my house for the holiday’s (although I also dread getting all those bins from my small attic)
Annual family gathering at my sister’s. Chance to see everyone and share a wonderful meal together!
My favorite tradition is reading in one of the Gospels of Christ birth which we do before opening gifts on Christmas day. Jesus is the reason for the season.
PeggyA
We have many great traditions as a family at Christmas time. One of my favorites is going to the farm to choose and cut our tree.
We do an Advent Calendar every year with our kids. As they’ve gotten older, we’ve had to become more creative about what goes in it – and THAT has been so much fun! It even has its own section in my planner. It is so much fun!
I’m going with Christmas dinner….I love turkey, stuffing, roast potatoes, pigs in blankets, vegetables (not Brussels sprouts) and gravy, starter & dessert too!
Of course spending time with my family is always the highlight of the Christmas season..but I do love all the holiday cookies. I seem to have become the official family’s baker which I happily take on.
After Christmas Eve services, we get together with friends and drive around looking at Christmas lights. Then we have hot chocolate and holiday snacks together.
Simple…..just being with family from near and far.
I love to sit and watch the Christmas tree lights twinkle at night, especially while singing Carols on Christmas Eve. It really means a special time of year to celebrate!
Just as PapertreyInk needs to get the season started early to get their products out to eager stampers, I also start the Christmas season early during the month of September when I bake my Christmas Cakes. They need a long time to fully mature into that deep intense flavour. For me, this is the start of the Christmas season. Cheers. 🙂
My favorite tradition is my cookie exchange with my craft friends. As someone who does not bake- it has become a hilarious tradition for me to find a fabulous bakery to do decorated sugar cookies and then I decorate the packages. I show up to the cookie exchange with flour on me as though I was baking all night. We all know the truth but this has become a very funny tongue and cheek with my friends!
I love to decorate for Christmas! This year we’re in a new house that we spent a year remodeling and all through that time, I put things together specifically with Christmas decorations in mind… I cannot wait to see how it all comes together!
My favorite tradition is going to get the tree and then the whole decorating process.
Christmas crafting has become one of my most favorite holiday traditions! I love to tuck something handmade into gift giving…and I do all of this while watching my favorite Christmas movies. 🙂
It’s always a mad rush as we hurry to eat and get to church on time, but I love our traditional pancake supper and Christmas Eve services afterwards. Those are the two constants every year–oh, and Christmas cookies as we open gifts!
I love Christmas Eve. My brother and sister in law make a beautiful dinner and decorate their home beautifully for Christmas. It is wonderful being with the family.
Love spending time with family. Love the Christmas music.
I love seeing the joy in the kids throughout the season. I love telling them the story of Jesus and talking about what that means to our lives. It really is just a fantastic time of year!
I love everything about the holidays! But I think I look forward the most to our putting up all the decorations and tree together as a family 🙂 so much fun for us and the kids!
Baking with my mom. We don’t spend a whole day like we used to, but any time with her is a treasure
I love mulled wine and have a couple of gorgeous mulled wine sets which I look forward to bringing out each holiday season. That makes it feel like Christmas!
Decorating the trees with family. The main tree and several little trees- with children and grandchildren and having them all over the house. Family all together- love it!
Christmas Eve worship and then open house at our house for a cup of Christmas cheer! I love it all but this is my special favourite!
Barbeque and oyster soup on Christmas Eve at my Dad’s with my brother and sister and our spouses, children and grandchildren!
Being together with family. Since we we are all in different places, it’s the one time of year we get to be together.
Getting together with family and friends for the Feast of The Seven Fishes on Christmas Eve. We have such a good time.
The beautiful hymns and anthems of Advent and Christmas! It’s a wonderful time of singing in our church choir. Glorious music and words to stay with me all season long.
Carols, lights and Elf on the Shelf!
Decorating the whole house. The kids love all the details put into our Christmas Season. I think they will remember it always!!! A second thing and this is with complete truth – I wait all year for this release and all the other Christmas products. It is my absolute favorite crafting things and I love creating Christmas crafts the most!!!
Decorating the house the weekend after thanksgiving!
I love gathering all the Christmas decorations, as each one brings back precious memories from all our travels and especially love looking at the ones my son made when he was little!!!
My favorite holiday tradition is being with family on Christmas eve and then opening Christmas presents and spending the whole day together on Christmas.
Getting together with my Dad and my sisters and their families on Christmas Eve. We have a big meal, play some games, open presents and we all just have a great time.
I look forward to decorating our multiple trees every year. It doesn’t feel like the Christmas season until I have my special ornaments hung.
Being with family, playing games, and laughing a LOT!
The morning of Christmas Eve, my children and their spouses and children come to my house. We all pitch in making pierogis which we have as part of our Christmas Eve dinner. Every one (even the children) have a specific job (dough maker, roler, crimper, filler)
We all attend the Children’s mass in the evening. After that we eat dinner, then open gifts. It is a wonderful Family day!
Definitely getting our tree an decorating it.
My favorite tradition has always been gathering the whole family together on Christmas Eve. We have a very special dinner –the same menu – every year — and everyone is allowed to open one gift. This has always been my most favorite event.
Being with family is by far the most important holiday tradition for me. All the other traditions are most enjoyable when done with family: trimming the tree, reading the Christmas story from the Bible, filling–and unfilling–stockings.
After reading about it in a magazine, my family started a tradition of writing “stocking notes” to each member of our immediate family when our children were young. It was a chance to tell each person why you loved them, how they were special, etc. We open them on Christmas morning and things get very quiet for awhile while everyone reads their notes. There are often tears (of joy) and it is easily the best part of my Christmas EVERY year. That’s not to say that the kids didn’t complain about having to write theirs over the years, but it’s easy to see that they love it as much as the adults. They are all adults now and we still continue the tradition (and they still complain sometimes)…but that’s okay. We have one grandchild now and she’s been included as a “recipient,” but she hasn’t had to write her own notes yet though. I encourage everyone to give this a try.
I really just look forward to gathering together with family and friends and simply enjoying the moment. Thanks for a great release! Can’t wait for shopping time!
I love Christmas music, especially the music played at church on Christmas Eve. It’s so promising and sounds great because everyone sings enthusiastically.
I have a tradition of buying a new ornament every year. I love shopping for it with family and looking for something new and different to add to our collection.
I love making and sending Christmas cards.
I look forward to more time indoors where it’s cozy, crafting with family and friends.
Baking cookies with my mom and daughter. We used to bake thousands of cookies over a whole weekend. Now we are down to just a few favorites but it is still a treasure!
I look forward most to taking a week off of work to spend extra time with the family. I’ve done it for several years now and am already anticipating the down time spent with family.
I love Thanksgiving – the food, my family, my friends and time to enjoy all of it.
I love waking up on Christmas morning to bake the cinnamon rolls my husband lovingly made the night before. We do this as we open our stockings and it is the best part of the holiday.
It has always been the time leading up to Christmas! Wrapping gifts, baking cookies and decorating the tree!
What a beautiful release! I love pulling out and setting up my nativity every year. I put on the Christmas Tunes and think of the amazing story the figurines represent and I am just thankful and at peace. Every. Single. Year.
The one holiday tradition I look forward to most every year is watching the kids each open their Advent Calendar. The excitement on their faces when they see their treat and quickly eat it is always just so nice!
Love decorating the entire house…inside and out. I also like how our small town has hardly any traffic Christmas eve evening….except when Church service has just ended or is about to start…that calm on Christmas eve in town is so peaceful.
Christmas is one of my favorite times of year. I look forward to the season of being with friends, sharing special holiday foods and just remembering the reason for the celebration, the coming of God’s son Jesus. I hate to see the season end because it is such a special time of peace and joy. I especially love the tradition of decorating our tree as the ornaments hold fond memories. Thanks for your beautiful products that inspire creativity and a means to remember the reason for our celebration.
I love to go to church with my family on Christmas Eve and share a lovely dinner on Christmas Day. As I get older, I’m just thankful for the time I/we get to spend with my parents/brothers/uncle/nephews and inlaws. My parents are in their 80s now and I know every year we get to spend together is such a blessing. Many of my friends (even my husband) have lost that opportunity. It really isn’t about the gifts (my kids don’t completely agree, lol)
The Holiday Tradition I look most forward to is
making & giving Snow Cookies.
Watching my son get excited over our Advent Calendar and getting together with family are my favorite things about the holidays.
Every year I look forward to making Christmas pudding with my daughter. The smell is wonderful. We love to make a big batch and give most of them away wrapped with cellophane and topped up with a sprig of holly.
Christmas morning breakfast.
I like going to get the tree with my family. Whether we cut it down, or just go someplace local, it is always fun.
I look forward to sharing presents with family, relaxing at home, and spending downtime with my kids!
I love unpacking all of the ornaments. We have a John Glenn ornament with a sound bite from his Friendship 7 flight in 1962, and I hang that on the tree first & flip the switch to hear, “Roger zero G…”, and any offspring in the house come running.
I look forward to getting the whole family together (30+) for dinner on Christmas Day. We attend the midnight service the night before then the gang comes early in the morning. There’s nothing like the noise and laughter of young and old together.
My favourite tradition is lunch after the catching of Christmas cray. This is where my husband and a couple of close friends get up at crazy o’clock on Chirstmas morning each year and go catch something (usually a crayfish) for dinner. They get back to the house (rotated annually!) about mid-day and everyone, families included, have a wonderful BBQ lunch.
Sitting with my family watching Its a wonderful life.
I always look forward to creating tags for all my wrapped packages.
I don’t have any Christmas traditions. We celebrate the birth of Christ by going to church. Then the rest of the day is spend like a Sunday. We stay home and have a quiet day. Peace, Love & Joy!
The best tradition is having the family gathered together and enjoying the Day. With 2 grandchildren, what could be more special?
Playing Christmas Carols is my most favorite thing (along with gazing at our Christmas tree!) – they get me in the spirit of the season and remind me of all the Christmases that have passed.
Going to see the Plaza Lights in Kansas City–always breath-taking.
Can I pick only one? Christmas Eve candle light service, new ornaments, cinnamon rolls on Christmas morning…nope can’t =)
Everyone sneaks down to the living room before going to bed on Christmas Eve to stuff family members stockings that are hanging on the mantle. We all have to avoid seeing each other. On Christmas Day we all get our stockings down, sit down together, pull one item out of our stocking and then go to the next person. We keep going round the circle until there are no more items in the stocking. It’s usually just pieces of candy or small gift items but it’s fun to take our time, laugh and share.
My favorite tradition is, putting up the Christmas tree and all the decorations. My sister and I always help my mom set everything up. And just about every year, my sister will fall asleep super early, and my mom and I finish the decorating. It’s always fun to reminisce about all the past ornaments we have.
My favorite holiday tradition is that my sister and I get together every year and make cookies and candy for two days and then find creative ways to package them up to give away at Christmas time.
Oh, it would have to be decorating my yard for the holidays.
Having a walk in the evening in the neighbourhood and watching all the beautifull decorated christmastrees,inside and outside the houses. My husband and Ihave doen this for nearly 19 years now.
I love the Bermudian tradition of making Cassava Pie! It is a tradition for my husband and sons to make it Christmas Eve. Then the family gathers around Christmas morning to eat and enjoy it for breakfast, as well as all day long!!! I love that Christmas is the time for family togetherness.
I love gathering with family and friends on Christmas Eve. We all bring a dish to pass, and say one thing we are thankful for. We do Secret Santa and all open a gift, then go visit Santa with the kids at our local church.
Trimming the tree! I’ve gotten each child an ornament every year since their birth, and we all love unveiling them each year.
Setting up the tree and putting lights up. It is so festive!
Having all the family together and decorating for Christmas inside and out.
Watching “The Muppets Christmas Carol” on Christmas morning as presents are opened 🙂
Spending quality time together, lighting lots of candles and having Christmas music in the background.
Every year my family goes on our annual Christmas shopping trip. We always have a blast, enjoy a great lunch, and just have fun hanging out together.
Trimming the tree for sure. I put on holiday music and after the tree is all finished we dance around it!
Christmas Eve is when all our extended family get together to celebrate. That is my most favorite day.
The holiday tradition that I look forward to every year is Lunar Mid-Autumn Festival where the kids will play lanterns and candles while the adults will enjoy Chinese tea with mooncakes! It is the best gathering of the year!
My family gathers at Thanksgiving and draws names for shoes. We can spend only $15 on silly, cheap, dollar store type gifts and they have to fit in all the wooden shoes we have collected over the years. The shoes are lined up along the hearth on Christmas Day and all the tiny wrapped gifts spill out all over the floor. We have more fun opening all that “junk” than we do opening our “big” presents.
I look forward to opening gifts Christmas eve with just my husband and no one else
Christmas stockings are my favorite part of the gift giving of Christmas. We use the stockings my mother knit for three generations of family. They have been mended a few times, but still stretch to fit in lots of goodies.
Singing in the choir or playing in the orchestra at our Christmas Eve service is the best. Helps keep me focused.
Getting to see my family of course,…..and my mom’s Christmas dinner….yum!!
I look forward to putting the tree up as a family! It’s fun to pull out all the ornaments and reminisce.
Who ever finds the hidden “pickle” ornament on the tree, gets to open the first gift! Hugs.
Decorating the tree of course! I love, love, love pulling all the decorations out of their age old boxes, unwrapping the well worn tissue paper and revealing the wonderful ornament that I haven’t seen all year! The comforting smells of the holidays filling the house and the underlying excitement that keeps building each day in anticipation of Santa…these are my favorite holiday traditions.
Making my list and checking it twice! Being naughty and it’s nice…LOL. This is an awesome Christmas release and I’ve loved everything!
Every year, we put up a tabletop silver tree and top it with a photo of our youngest – who turns 33 today! It’s a funny tradition that started many years ago .. and HE started it!
Our house is where the entire family comes and celebrates. It is wonderful to have all the kids, grandkids and their spouses all in one place.
We slow down for the holidays , make cookies and cards for people. Try to do things at home.
I look forward to decorating my tree and spending time with family.
Wonderful release, once again, and I am also eager to see more details of Post & Parcel from Betsy! We always make Cinnabon clones for breakfast on Christmas morning, and that’s the only time we eat them all year, since they are definitely NOT healthy!!
It’s so hard during the year to get everyone together, the grandchildren are grown, everyone works, everyone has a significant other and their families. Christmas is the one time that you are not allowed to not show up – we don’t always hold Christmas on Christmas but the feelings of family are still the same whether it’s in January or November.
Making latkes from scratch and lighting the menorah, which I inherited; it’s the one I used growing up.
It all starts with Thanksgiving for me! Expressing thanks and graditude to family and friends and especially to our heavenly Father usher in a joyful Christmas celebration!
I love decorating my home and sending Christmas cards. As always I will be mailing my hand made cards! I am looking forward to the Holiday Make It Market Kit!!
Family get together on Christmas day – always a good time
I love baking and decorating cut out cookies with my mom!
It’s hard to pick one favorite tradition but if I had to choose, I look forward to my daughter’s and their families skyping with us on Christmas morning. Our 4 children live in different parts of the country so on Christmas morning we’re still able to share in the fun and excitement of everyone opening their gifts together, in our pajamas. Then my husband makes his fried dough treats that he had as a boy called “Pizza Freeks”.
Christmas morning breakfast, we sit on the couch by the light of the tree and my DD excitedly chatters on about her goodies 😀 love that!
My Dad’s birthday is Christmas Eve. We always gather together to celebrate that & Christmas. He is known for making his famous oyster stew.
Getting together with family–decorating the Christmas Tree–making cookies and watching Christmas Vacation!!!!
Ok, I apologize I posted a comment twice. I didn’t see this first comment and thought I commented on the wrong page.
I love the holiday season because it gives me the opportunity to reconnect with my siblings ( there are 11 of us). And while we live all over the country, we always at least connect by phone or email.
I look forward to playing Christmas music every year – while decorating the tree, while cooking, even while cleaning. Just puts my mind in the mood for Christmas!
I always create some sort of handmade item for family and friends for Christmas. It could be jelly, baked goods or something sewn. Of course greeting cards are on that list as well!
So many things I look forward to- decorating the tree and house, stringing the lights outside, family finally being home together again, my sister coming for her once a year visit and hitting all the stamping stores for 3 days and just enjoying the season!!
Going to the Christmas Tree Farm and picking out our tree with the family!!!
I look forward to trimming the tree; my Mother would buy me a dated ornament every year since I was a teenager and each one brings back memories of all the happy Christmases my family shared. My parents are gone now, so the memories are all we have.
I look forward to opening the boxes of ornaments and reminiscing with my husband about where we bought each one. Such special memories rekindled each year.
Decorating our tree is always fun! Seems each ornament I pick up brings back memories of where I was, what was happening @ the time I purchased or made it, or the person who gifted it. Love it!
The night before Christmas with all the family, also putting up the tree and decorating
The tradition of our three adult children gathering together at our house on Christmas Day.
Christmas dinner with extended family every year. Turkey, dressing, mac & cheese, potatoes, rolls, pumpkin pie!
First the Christmas Eve service, then we always have a “picnic” in front of the fireplace with a “meal” of everyone’s favorite appetizers. It’s just our family and it’s small and intimate and lovely.
I love so much about Christmas, from decorating together as a family to church services, watching movie classics, and having my husband read Christmas stories to us. If I had to pick, though, it would probably be the togetherness we have with baking and crafts days, where we hand make everything from 5 types of cookies to homemade gifts and cards. So much fun!
My favourite tradition is going to the midnight mass on Christmas eve and then going out for warm drinks with friends and family!
My favorite holiday tradition is Christmas morning breakfast at my parents’ house. My mom makes the best quiche, and last year she added an overnight french toast casserole to the menu. Yum!
Family getting together and the reading of Luke 2 as a reminder of what the season is all about
I love doing an Advent Calendar with my son. He loves opening each box everyday & finding a little treat inside and knowing that we are one day closer to Christmas.
I love eating turkey at Thanksgiving… I also love decorating the Christmas tree with the kids. We also started a Jesse Tree last year, so I am looking forward to doing that again.
Decorating the tree and making fudge, cookies, and red Christmas cake!
My favorite tradition is getting out the Christmas tree the day after Thanksgiving and putting up all the holiday decorations. Baking cookies is also high on my list!
Decorating & spending time with family.
My favorite tradition is opening the ornaments prepared to adorn the tree! All the memories and stories are so wonderful and such a nice thing to share with my nine year old. So exciting!!!
Outdoor Christmas lights! So festive as the days grow shorter.
I look forward to Christmas Eve. My family comes to our house we have our favorite holiday food. We gather round the tree an open presents. The best is watching our grandkids. It’s always so much fun!
My German brother-in-law introduced us to one of his annual traditions, Feuerzangenbowle. Translated literally, it means fire, tongue, bowl. You mull 2 bottles of red wine with mulling spices and orange and lemon slices on the stove top. Then, place a metal tongue across the pot and place a cone of compressed sugar on top. Soak the sugar cone in 150 proof rum and light it on fire. Continue to bathe the sugar cone in rum to keep the flames going until fully melted/dissolved. It’s a toss up whether making it or drinking it is more fun. Enjoy!
Trimming the tree….
I love to pick out the tree in the snowy tree lot, bring it home, and unwrapping all the ornaments to decorate it.
When I was a child, my dad made our Christmas cards, and I liked to make my own too, when I was out on my own in my 20’s and 30’s. Life got in the way over the next 20 or so years until I started papercrafting (with a vengeance) about 10 years ago! I also started making holiday cards with my parents again. Now my Dad has passed away and my Mom and I are making her holiday cards each year. I thoroughly enjoy “vetting” card designs with her and then we have a marathon session making the “winner”. She always gets lots of compliments on her handmade holiday cards!
I look forward to our Yankee swap every year. It’s a fun way for the adults (and the older kids) to enjoy gift giving without spending too much money. It’s fun watching how families strategize to try and get the items they want. It’s always fun and unexpected.
I love it all, from decorating our home, cookie baking with the girls, Christmas Eve service, and most of all being together with family! Great release this month PTI…loved it all!! :0)
I look forward to putting up my Dept 56 North Pole Village every year. Once all the elves are out in the display, it feels like Christmas.
Thanks.
Our family is spread out all over the country, but we all try to make it home on Christmas. We sit up all night and talk and drink wine and laugh! It’s the happiest time of the year!
Beautiful inspiration today!
Take Care!
Michele
Christmas Eve with my whole extended family. It’s often the only time we all get together all year.
Thanksgiving because our tradition is to rotate which home it is to be held and everyone else brings different side dishes. This year we are allowing the children 7+ to help make a small dish to bring of their favorite.
So hard to choose! But decorating my mantle with old and new treasures is probably my very favorite.
Picking out a Christmas tree with my little man! This year our church gets to be a selling location for the the #BuyATreeSaveALife tree location and we can’t wait to get out there and SELL trees this real too 🙂
Sharing the beauty of Christmas Eve service at church, with our family, followed a family meal (most always homemade Mexican food)!
I always look forward to the lights appearing all over, everywhere I go!
I love decorating for the holidays, and putting up the tree signals the festive season in my house. I enjoy going through and unwrapping all the special ornaments collected over the years and then sitting by the glow of the tree in the evenings and drinking hot tea.
Bringing in the tree a few days before Christmas and decorating it sets me in the mood. That is when Christmas begins for me. All the preparations before the actual holidays like making cards, planning the menu and decorating are usually more exciting than the holiday itself.
We always spend Christmas Eve morning with our grown children and grandchild. My favorite day of the year–hands down!!! I always turn on my favorite Christmas music while we open gifts.
I look forward to just family getting together. I come from a small family and, over the years, just the few of us actually slowing down from life and just enjoying time with each other has come to mean so much to me! As we all get older, the time spent with each other means more than the presents. I kind of think Christmas has evolved into something more meaningful as I have gotten older.
I love wrapping up the toys and treats I get for my dogs (including any foster dogs I might have!) and watching them open them. The best dogs are the ones that don’t hesitate and start eating the treats before the paper is even off them. I always get such a huge laugh and that’s a great way to start any day.
I love decorating the house, wrapping the gifts, celebrating with family and friends and most of all…Going to midnight Mass. It is always so beautiful, makes me remember what Christmas is really about!
I love to get out the Christmas tablecloth to set the table for Christas lunch. I dress the table with handmade place cards and Christmas china too. The very best part is getting together with friends and family though.
II always look forward to Christmas Eve. On Christmas Eve day we have a really nice dinner at my house with my family (children, spouses and grandchildren.) We have a Christmas Eve service at my church and then we all gather back to my home to eat dessert and open presents. i love the anticipation of the grandchildren as they open their presents. Then everyone goes home so Santa can come to their homes to deliver gifts from him.
Without a doubt, my favorite holiday tradition is cutting down, bringing home and decorating a fresh evergreen spruce!
I most enjoy our candlelight service at church on Christmas Eve!
We love decorating our tree. Each of my kids has a collection of ornaments and they love getting it out each year and choosing what to display.
We go to candlelight service on Christmas Eve. The moment when the candle flame is passed along as we sing Silent Night just makes my heart soar! I always feel like the Grinch when his heart grows three sizes bigger in one moment!
I am so thrilled with all the faith-based sets this year!
Christmas Eve church with my mom is my highlight tradition; I’m so lucky to have her in my life! Of course, enjoying the joys of the season – opening gifts, skating, sledding – with my niece and nephew (6 and 4) is mighty wonderful, too!
~carol
I believe my favorite thing is the Christmas “feast” and it’s preparation. The wonderful smells, the tree is lit,christmas music is playing and the whole family is together. Who could ask for anything more.
The start of our holidays begin on the day before Thanksgiving with the purchase of our wreath at the local farm. After picking out our wreath, we get to feed the animals (my favorite part) that they have brought in for the holidays. They used to have reindeer there but recently it’s been baby goats and I think llamas, but still awful cute 🙂
I enjoy decorating the house and inviting family and a few friends over for a cookout. After everyone has left I get cozy on the couch and watch my favorite Christmas movies.
Decorating the tree. I love remembering the where, when, and who of each ornament as it goes on the tree. Wonderful memories of childhood, family, even vacations…
Love decorating- putting up the tree and bringing out all the ornaments-reminiscing. And, of course family time!!
I like decorating, getting everything out, we put on Christmas music and have fun looking at all the things we have collected over the years. Have some hot chocolate. It is a fun family time.
We have always had Christmas Day at our home, we always thought it was crazy to have a child wake to what Santa has left then wisk them away for the day, so we have spent the last 24 years at home. Of course that also means dinner for about 20 people but it’s become our tradition and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
My favorite used to be putting the tree up on my birthday but now it’s adding new little dwellings to my village using the stinkin’ cute tiny town dies. Keep up the good work PTI!
When my sisters and I were little, my Mom started buying us a new ornament every year. I still have all of them. I kept that tradition when I got married, and now with our son. It’s so much fun to find an ornament that is special for him.
I love our tradition of Christmas jammies. The kids love it! Even my teenagers. They request footie pajamas. Thanks for a Great holiday release ladies!
I look forward to putting up the Christmas tree. It signals the beginning of the holiday season.
We listen to the old radio program, “The Cinnamon Bear” every day in December and from the 15th to the 24th my husband hides a little cinnamon colored Beanie Baby bear for the kids to find.
Christmas starts when I start making the cards…It’s the first holiday ‘project’ I do every year and that’s when allbegins for me. While creating, I listen to Christmas music…and that puts me in the right frame of mind to conquer what craziness the season brings!
My husband and I put out the nativity set together. We have a beautiful manger and figures that my husbands relatives made so I unwrap and he places the figures. He does such a wonderful job.
We get the entire family together at my MIL house on Christmas Eve and have a nice dinner. It is great
I am so excited for the Woven Hearts Die. I am in love!
What I enjoy most about the holidays is getting together for dinner with family and friends on Christmas Eve & Christmas Day.
I love having my family all together to play bingo! My mom always has a ton of prizes for the winners.
I think decorating the Christmas tree is my favorite. I have old and nostalgic ornaments that bring back years of holiday memories.
Decorating the tree and seeing ornaments the kids have made through the years. Oh such memories!
Watching White Christmas with our whole family – lots of fun singing all the songs 🙂
It is so hard to pick just one but I think my favorite is gathering together with our extended family on Christmas Eve and exchanging gifts with them.
There are so many. From decorating the tree to Christmas morning, I love it all. But my favorite is a special Christmas Eve tradition of opening an early present. It’s always new pj’s and slippers.
If you are an adult with no children, Christmas is not so important. But I think it’s nice to stroll through the many Christmas markets here in Germany. And being with parents and grandparents is special.
Baking and gifting Christmas cookies!!!
Making Christmas cookies! It’s a tradition that goes back as far as I can remember – starting with making them with my grandmother.
Do I have to pick just one? There are so many that make the holiday the best part of the year. Has to be the gifting around the tree, Christmas morning. Family gathered, the grandchildren out of control, everyone I love in one room. All the decorating, shopping, planning and surprises about to begin. The heart can’t contain the joy!
I always look forward to walking around our neighborhood to view the colorful holiday lights.
Christmas Day at my parents. We take hours to leisurely open presents. We stop frequently to enjoy yummy snacks and treats. The house is warm and filled with love for baby Jesus!
We have several traditions here so it would be hard to pick just one…decorating the tree the day after Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve church service, watching the movie Christmas Vacation, serving dinner on my late mother-in-law’s china. As I get older I seed to cherish them even more.
My favorite tradition is having homemade lasagna on Christmas Eve and watching It’s A Wonderful life.
So many traditions to choose from, but I so look forward to having craft parties with my “Paper Dolls” club. We begin working on Christmas in August (for four months). We craft, laugh, enjoy time together and get ready for the holidays together. And, through the workshops I’ve introduced the Paper Dolls to all the wonderful Papertrey products. All the holiday traditions are meaningful but time with my crafting buddies is high on the list.
The sparkling lights on the Christmas eve tree behind everyone in their new jammies, all prepared for the morning Christmas pics! Just love having the family around, cousins playing with cousins, games galore, hugs and kisses, and wonderful food dishes!
I love the lighting of the candles during the singing of “Silent Night” at the Christmas Eve service each year. It’s always so beautiful!
Every year the family gathers on Christmas morning to read the Christmas story from the Bible before opening gifts. We end up just sitting there in a group for a while, laughing and joking and enjoying spending time together. Then we eat home-made cinnamon rolls to tide us over till a big mid-afternoon meal. Our only (so far) grandchild will be 19 months old this Christmas, so it should be lots of fun!
I celebrate Hanukkah and I look forward to lighting the menorah at temple with my community every year. Imagine all of the light from all those menorahs!
To me Christmas means family and I look forward to spending time with them.
Christmas Eve with my family is my favorite! We go to church, then once we are home we fill our plates with appetizers, drinks and treats and gather to open presents. This is a several hour production since we go around the circle with each person opening a gift, and the kids always go first, but it’s a tradition I love!
Every year I throw a family Christmas party with food and games. Everyone looks forward to it and I spend all year trying to find new fun things to do at the party! This is the only time we get to see my sister and niece for the Christmas holidays and don’t get to see them again until the spring because of travel and weather issues.
My husband and I have started going all out at Christmas. I love it all! We will start decorating the outside of the house right after Halloween and then begin the inside on the weekend after Thanksgiving. That is the weekend all the lights go on outside and we light them every night until Christmas. I love wrapping all the gifts, which amounts to more than a hundred! We have five children, their significant other and seven grandkids! Everyone gathers at our house Christmas Eve for food and gifts! Such a fun time!
I love the Sunday that we put up the tree. Putting a pot of homemade soup on the stove, and all the delicious fragrance in the air. Bringing up the ornaments and lights from storage and then unpacking each ornament from it’s tissue. We have ornaments from before we were married – so they span more than 45 years, and each one has a memory that is unwrapped with the tissue. Vacations, births, loved ones now gone. It is the time when the real presence of Christmas comes home in my heart.
Making Christmas cookies.
Christmas morning at the pajama buffet. Everything beautiful, hot cider, freshly brewed coffee wafting through the air, yummy homemade food to eat all morning, quiet noises of peaceful and joyous anticipation and seeing those you love open and appreciate gifts and each other.
It’s most fun to unwrap and hang all of the ornaments we’ve collected over the years and to unbox the Christmas books that were stowed away for a year, and if I could, I would find a way to leave that tree twinkling on all year long.
My adult sons and I still love to make the old Betty Crocker Candy Cane Cookies and even though they don’t live here anymore, when they arrive for the holidays, it is one of the things we work into the schedule.
I look forward to decorating the tree together. There’s so many memories in the ornaments. Stories are told, the fire is going, and it’s just cozy and fun.
Aha-mazing release! I look forward to decorating our tree each year. I’ve purchased special ornaments every year we’ve been together and had a family. It’s always fun to unwrap them and tell the story of where they came from.
All of my family sitting down together in my home to Christmas lunch and spending the evening together.
This has been a recent tradition, but I love having the elf come visit my boys. The elf does such a great job of keeping them guessing where he’s going to show up every morning.
I love seeing the Christmas Lights people put up on their homes.
Decorating the Christmas tree always brings so much joy now that I get to do it with my children. I love listening to Christmas carols while we work and drinking hot chocolate once we are finished.
We sing Happy Birthday to Baby Jesus on Christmas and now our Grandchildren enjoy this family custom ❤️
Your stamps and dies are just to die for…you guys are awesome. Hope I can win something. Have some friends over for stamping and would love to tell them about Papertrey
Making handmade Christmas gifts
Christmas Eve Mass with my kids
That’s a hard question since I like Thanksgiving and Christmas. Thanksgiving is about being with family and friends and setting the tone for the upcoming Christmas. Christmas has always been special and now with a granddaughter it’s even more so. Love the excitement she exhibits when opening presents and her love for tradition.
Putting up the tree is my favorite thing. There is something about Christmas lights that fills me with joy.
Welcoming non Christian friends over for a visit & serving them traditional cake, fudge and more.
Gathering with family on Christmas Eve to open gifts and reading the Biblical story of our Savior’s birth.
I love summer vacations and basking in the sun all day doing nothing!
Cookies, cookies, cookies! We hold a large cookie baking day with many relatives on both sides of our family participating. Also, making my children, nieces and nephews a yearly ornament – they love this even though they now range in age from 27 to 10. They will be getting some lovely felt vintage ornaments this year thanks to Erin and PTI!
My children are all grown and we set up our own tradition several years ago, so our grandchildren could have Christmas at their respective homes. At 2:00 p.m. the Sunday before Christmas, all the kids and grandchildren come for dinner, presents and spending the wonderful day together!
I love celebrating Advent in anticipation of Christmas.
Christmas stockings…although I’m a bit old to receive one now so have to watch the kids open theirs!
Bringing home the tree to trim & decorate – ALWAYS done while Christmas carols are playing on my CD player 🙂
We don’t celebrate Christmas ,our Holidays are for Diwali,Festival of lights .we look forward to family reunion,delicious sweets n savories ,decorating home with earthen lights and paper lantern ,rangolis..lots of traditions to follow !
Holiday baking and being with extended family. I also love the spicy crisp aromas of the autumn and winter season, and all the pretty foliage and decorations.
Putting up my trees! 🙂
I get so excited I always put them up the first Saturday in November but with my first one off to college…
she wants to be here when they go up so I guess I’m going to start a new tradition this year of waiting for all my kiddos to be home.
When I was a very little girl, my grandfather showed me how to spin a dreidle upside down. Every year since then I always try to see if I can still do it. The best is taking a handful of dreidles and spinning all of them upside down at the same time, to have a tabletop of them!
The tradition that I most look forward to is trimming our Christmas tree with our kids. Although they are now in their late 20’s and early 30’s they have trimmed the tree almost every year since they were old enough to hang ornaments on the bottom branches. I hand them their ornaments … I still have every homemade one (even the toilet paper roll reindeer who is missing an antler), and every year they would get a special ornament that had something to do with what their year was all about. As they put these on the tree we reminisce. Their favorites of course are the Hallmark ornaments that have batteries and do things. It’s hilarious watching them play with them now. And then together they place the angel on top. She’s been with us since the beginning and I have photos of them doing this way back to the times Daddy had to hold them up or we had a ladder to reach. Then, after they go back to their homes my husband and I get to enjoy the tree and all the memories those ornaments hold near and dear to us.
We have wonderful traditions passed down from our families, but my true favorite is the cards and holiday party invitations we create each year. Our friends, family and co-workers, they seem to look forward to it, and I’ve kept them all, even the “practice ones” and the prototypes! Papertrey has been an essential part, from stamps, dies, paper and design ideas. Thanks PTI!
We always go to the candlelight Christmas Eve Church service. I love it when the turn out the lights and see everyone’s candle shining bright … It warms my heart!
I think mine is a tradition that is no longer. My oldest nephew would dress up as Santa for my crafty sisters young boys. To see the wonder in their eyes.
But, now, it is remembering the reason that we celebrate the season.
I look forward to decorating the tree- we usually put up the tree early December so that we have all month to enjoy it. Thank you for the chance to win!
I always love going to Christmas Eve service with my family!
Sending out our Christmas cards, of course! These are my most prized messages I send out to our family and friends each year. My design for this year’s card is set and I am now in the supply gathering mode. Looking forward to begin making them soon!
My husband and I spend Christmas Eve together. First by going to church, we usually play a special selection. We then we spend the remainder of the evening reflecting the blessings of the year. Grandchildren will arrive on Christmas!
Christmas Eve in San Francisco having lunch at Lefty’s on Union Square with my family. We all bring lots of toys to donate.
Spending time with family. We usually all attend Christmas Eve mass together and then return to my home for a big family dinner. Last year my husband was going thru cancer treatment and a bone marrow transplant so we weren’t able to be a part of the family festivities. This year will be extra special as we celebrate the miracle of the remission of his cancer.
I love decorating for Christmas and getting together with kids and grandkids.
Our family gathers every year at my parents house. At the end of day after all the food, opening gifts and visiting the blankets and pillows come out and a new video starts and it is quiet time.
The highlight every year is Christmas morning. Before we open presents or stockings we pause to unwrap the baby Jesus and place Him in the manger. We take turns being the one to do this each year.
Since my mother died, I host my family Christmas each year and the date we choose is earlier than Dec 25. I look forward to decorating the house early and having our lights up a month in advance. Everything is so pretty at that time of year.
I look forward to baking a special dessert for Christmas day dinner.
Spending a day baking cookies with my girls, then we package some up and bring them to our neighbors.
Going to church on Christmas Eve with my sweet family for the wild and wooly impromptu Nativity and delivering cookies on Christmas Eve to people who have to work. And watching “The Holiday” while I wrap presents!
I look forward to Midnight Mass and a late supper when we get home from church. We have food that we never make any other time of the year, and finish with a plateful of Christmas cookies. Now that everyone is “older” we sleep in and open presents late morning, enjoying a glass or two of Buck Fizz (mimosas).
I love decorating with my kids. They enjoy it as much as I do so it’s the best!
My favourite tradition is putting up my gorgeous nativity scene and placing my reindeer mugs (from Pottery barn) on my display shelves…that means Christmas is coming!
Family Time! I love having my family home to celebrate. Our Christmas begins with the annual children’s Christmas Eve service at church followed by a Christmas a party with aunts, uncles, and cousins. Christmas Day is spent with my immediate family. A family tradition starting with my Great Grandparents!
There are so many reasons to enjoy the holiday season….listening to Christmas music, baking a ton of cookies, decorating the house…but most of all, just seeing my grand babies and their faces filled with excitement!!!
Christmas is my most favorite Holiday! I love all the lights, decorations and family coming under one roof! Celebrating the birth of our Savior together – nothing is better than that!
We always opened one gift on Christmas Eve with our kids, and now we do this with our grandsons. I look forward to this every year.
My family gets together the Saturday before Christmas for dinner and then we have an ornament exchange. Ornaments must be handmade, nothing store bought. They are all different with varying levels of expertise, but they all provide loving memories every year on our Christmas trees.
In keeping with our German heritage, we put real candles on our tree — in holders we bought in Austria. On Christmas Eve, my husband reads the Christmas story from the 2nd chapter of Luke, by the light of the real candles on our tree. His grandfather used to have 100 candles on his tree!
Placing ornaments on the tree that were made by our boys when they were little (and now our grandchildren’s).
I like the tradition to gather together with some tasty food and to celebrate each other when it’s 00:00 on the clock, and then to call our parents for the first minutes of the new year (even is they live next to us).
Decorating the tree is my most favorite Christmas tradition at home!
I love baking Christmas cookies with my kids–so much fun!
Decorating the tree, Christmas morning is everything & Christmas dinner!
Trimming the tree is my favorite family tradition! All of our ornaments are gifts from friends and family over the years. We have my husband’s delicate, glass ornaments from his childhood tree. Over the years, my family, friends and students have given me so many beautiful ornaments. Several ornaments were handmade by loved ones. All of the ornaments are tagged with the name and date (although I can remember each person, without even peeking at the tags). So, it is truly a walk down ‘memory lane’ each year when we add them to the tree, remembering a special time together. Our Christmas tree is truly a ‘scrapbook’ of my life! Just thinking about trimming the tree warms my heart! ♡
It has to be “the tree”; from going to cut it down, then bringing it home, getting out all the decorations for it (which takes awhile since many hold special memories from those my parents had, special ones that I made for my children or were given or purchased on travels). I do a lot of reminiscing. Then it’s the moment the angel goes on top and we light it! Truly special!
Carol b (cl crs)
Watching my grandchildren on Christmas morning
Decorating the tree while listening to holiday songs and having hot cocoa and cookies.
I love being together with family all day from Christmas morning breakfast and presents to the big dinner at my brother and sister-in-law’s!
I love EVERYTHING about the holidays but my favorite “tradition” (which is somewhat new to us!) is delivering gifts to our adopted family. A couple of years ago my extended family decided that instead of exchanging gifts with each other we would pool our money together and adopt a family in need through a local organization. I would encourage others to look into similar programs where they live. It’s been such a wonderful and rewarding experience!
Everything!!! Going to church on Christmas Eve and Christmas morning. Then getting everything over to my daughter’s house (used to be we went to my parents house, then my house and now we travel to her house) and then the festivities begin with everything delicious and present openings and just plain happiness and love at being together. Phone calls through the day to family living across the country. Everything!!!
I look forward to our Birthday Party for Jesus before we head to the candle light service at our church on Christmas Eve.
Once the house is decorated, I love sitting with the fireplace and the lights glowing. It’s such a warm feeling. My husband and I will turn on Christmas music and enjoy it together.
It’s not a typical tradition, but I really enjoy getting together with just my immediate family on Christmas Eve. We have a low-key evening of finger food and maybe a movie and a board game. It’s just a nice way to enjoy time together before the full madness of the extended family festivities start!
I love getting together and decoration for the holidays, being with family!
I love our home when it is decorated for Christmas, the sounds and smells of the season, and getting together with family and friends. It’s my favorite time of the year!
Oh my, there are so many to look forward too. Walking outside on a snowy night, making popcorn balls, gathering with family. It’s a beautiful time of year!
Each year the cousins get together for a Gingerbread decorating party. Invitations go out, houses are made then the cousins (ages 2-24) decorate them. It is a blast and we have so much fun!
baking cookies with my family and exchanging homemade ornaments with my in-laws.
My favorite tradition for the Holidays actually begins each January as I stamp, sew, and create gifts, cards, and tags for all my family. Can’t believe it takes the whole year to be ready, but it does! I enjoy feeling that Christmas excitement for 12 months this way 🙂
Making Christmas cookies. Certain cookies are only made during Christmas time and are from our ethnic background. We can remember how these cookies were part of celebrating Christmas for generations of our relatives.
I look forward to our family Christmas Eve dinner. We have lots of yummy food with family recipes that we’ve been eating for years, but only make at special holidays. And we finish out the evening reading Luke 2. It something we’ve always done, and I love it.
What I absolutely love the most is after all the excitement, I’m alone while my family goes to visit their other family. I put on Christmas music, get a yummy hot drink and a couple cookies, sit in the quiet, and look at the lights on my Christmas tree. It floods me with memories of the season from the morning and many other previous mornings with family and friends. I LOVE that warm hug from the past and feel so peaceful. (The icing on the cake would be to smell some fresh evergreen, too.)
Every year we make all kinds of chocolate covered pretzels to share with our friends and neighbors and every year I love it.
My sisters famous pinwheel cookies. I can’t bake worth a darn and her cookies are something I look forward to every year!!!
I have a huge extended family and we always get together for our annual Christmas party, it is so fun to see everyone all dressed up and Santa comes for the little kids and their faces as he gives out presents is wonderful!
receiving Xmas cards….
Having all the family together on Christmas Day seeing all the delight in the grandchildren’s eyes, and enjoying a nice hot meal. I also love the tradition of the cookie platter of homemade goodies that we deliver just before Christmas Day to family and friends, it is so enjoyable to see the faces light up to see all the different goodies that were done for the year.
I love decorating the tree with my children. We have very special ornaments that we get whenever we go on vacation and it’s great to reminisce about these wonderful memories each time we put up the tree.
Thanks for acting with caring hearts!
Reading “the night before Christmas”. It used to be read to my son as he cuddled up on my lap, but now he’s 16 and 6 foot we just huddle up together and take turns. We can do most of it from memory but my husband holds the book just in case.
I love pulling out the ornaments when decorating the tree. There is one for every year & places traveled.
We always have a Christmas Eve party with friends and family…lots of good food, drinks and fun for all
Getting together with family and sharing our day together. I have 4 sisters and we switch off who is hosting.
My favorite holiday tradition is decorating for the season.
Although it just wouldn’t be Christmas without the 11:00 Christmas Eve carol & scripture service at our church, the most important tradition is gathering with family (usually over several days) & certainly that is what I most look forward to.
The smell of a fresh Christmas tree and getting together with family. 🙂
I make my Christmas cards right after Christmas of the previous year. I’m still in the mood for the holidays in January. I start writing in those cards on Thanksgiving weekend to send out the second weekend of December. It’s become a tradition to help make the holidays last.
My whole family gathering at my Mom & Dad’s for Christmas Eve. The traditional Swedish food that we share.
I love Christmas and everything that goes along with it…family, church, baking, cooking, decorating, etc. When it is all over I always wish I had a few more weeks to enjoy the season. Such a joyful time. Thanks PTI for another amazing release!
Christmas cookie baking! The whole family (husband, 3 adult children, and myself) get together for a day or two and make lots of cookies to share with friends and neighbors. Christmas music is playing in the background and lots of laughs to be heard too. I always look forward to this each year.
The best part of Christmas is faith and family…time to remember what is really important in life and to celebrate it with those who are nearest and dearest.
Just watching my grandkids faces, as they see all the familiar favorite decorations come out! The excitement and joy! Family times!
Not to many traditions are kept now that the family has grown and moved all over the US. Those that I still enjoy as an empty nester… making,sending, and receiving cards, Christmas Eve service, and being together as a whole family whenever that day happens. We read Luke’s account of Christ’s birth sometime during the day’s events.
Putting up my 10 foot tree that I cover in lights and red & gold ornaments!
My favorite is the gathering of all the people I love in the world at our house on the day after Christmas. That way, no one is traveling on Christmas Day, and the next generations are building traditions in their own homes.
Going to go play in the snow with my family.
Christmas Card making with the family!! This is the only time of the year that others help make the cards:))
I love going out into a the neighborhood, taking a stroll with my family and admiring all the wonderful Christmas lights/decorations on the streets
Just love getting together with our extended family as we don’t often get to see everyone all at one time. So fun.
I love decorating the house for Christmas. The glitter and sparkle and glow just make me feel all warm inside, no matter what it’s doing outside. My husband will play carols on the piano while I trim the tree and then we share a glass of wine when the work is done. It’s funny how plain the house looks when all the twinkly stuff gets put away.
I love the decorating! I’m in charge of the indoor stuff, and my husband has been collecting lights every year to go full-on Griswold outside. We’ve been in our home for 5 years, and it gets crazier every year!
decorating the tree (or sometimes trees!) right after thanksgiving is one of my favorites. but getting together for Christmas dinner with my family is my favorite!
Our favorite holiday tradition is that we we bake together…it’s always so much fun eating all those yummy goodies afterwards!
There is a neighborhood in our city, mostly one street, that goes all out for Christmas decorations. Totally lit up, every house, with decorations crossing the street overhead and everything. We like to drive through there, then go shopping for a tree at a nearby lot that is a frozen custard place in the summer. Such wonderful tree smells!
The holiday tradition I look forward to each year is cooking the dinner! My mom, sister , 2 aunts and myself get together and cook…. we always have a good time laughing and joking around – reminiscing about different things. It allows us to spend some good quality time together.
Oh I love the holidays and seeing/spending time with the family, eating lots of great food and just chatting around talking. Love this tradition.
Baking and eating the special goodies that I make only at Christmastime and attending our festive Christmas church service.
Getting together as a family at my brother’s house watching the excitement on the children’s faces!
Awww!!!! I’m definitely in love for this new release!
Baking biscuits and the Pandoro (a traditional Italian Christmas cake), decorating my house and making Christmas cards make my holidays absolutely magic! For this reason, Christmas is the most sweet period of the year!!! And I can’t wait it comes soon!!! <3
Gathering family together and enjoying each other first and foremost but specifically, unpacking and tasting the salt cured country ham after it has been scrubbed, soaked, cooked and wrapped in blankets and newspapers for 24 hours. The old fashioned prep and cooking process takes about three days but it wouldn’t seem like Christmas if we didn’t have that old ham!
Strangely enough,it is our family nerf battle on Christmas Eve day that brings us all back to our memories of the kids’s youth, how fast time flies and how much fun can be had without getting hurt. It’s the un-traditional events that I cherish the most.
Christmas Eve candlelight service at church!
Making Christmas sugar cookies with my boys.
Cookie and candy making with my sister. We have been getting together for years, what used to take us one day of baking, now takes three. Either we watch too many Christmas movies in between or we are just getting old.
Decorating the tree is what I think of most. My kids love to decorate, and get so excited. After a while, they get bored and I have to help them finish so I can put all the boxes away. But I love it, because it’s the same every year and it’ll be a priceless memory for me.
It’s such a happy time of year! I love decorating and making the house all festive. Love the time spent with family.
Every year my grandkids and I decorate gingerbread houses. They start about a year old. Amy is 16, so she has made 15 houses! Youngest is Gianna. She is 2 1/2 and this year will be her third house. 8 kids gather around the kitchen table. I put the houses together ahead of time.
Frosting, candies, sprinkles are everywhere and it is so much fun!
I take lots of pictures and each year I make a book. They love looking back at past years!
Family togetherness is my favorite part of the holidays.
Love the review of everything! So many fabulous cards and so much holiday creating inspiration!
The holiday tradition I look forward to most is baking several kinds of cookies, packaging them up and then delivering them to friends and neighbors!
I really enjoy decorating for the holidays but my favorite holiday traditions is Christmas crepes. After we open our gifts on Christmas morning my husband makes crepes and we eat them with strawberries and whip cream. My oldest son once said that it wouldn’t be so bad if we didn’t have gifts under the tree but he would be very disappointed if there were no Christmas crepes for breakfast
The I enjoy visiting with family and friends. I love baking,everyone gets Christmas cookies to take with them.
Putting up the Christmas lights on the house. I love coming home to them on after work (thank you automatic timers). It is a joy for me. I really miss them when they come down in January.
I love being with my family at the beach celebrating a “sunny” christmas.
Oh my the products in this release are so wonderful. My favorite tradition is decorating the tree and making the Christmas cards I will send out. I’m looking forward to adding to my Christmas stamp collection!
I don’t decorate extensively, but I love bringing the holiday decorations out and with each one, reminiscing with my husband about past holidays.
I look forward to making Christmas cards and decorations for the house, cool nights, and a glass of wine by the fireplace with my hubby while we play a game of Yahtzee. ?
One of my favorite memories as a child was always spending Christmas Eve with my Aunt, Uncle, and 3 cousins. Every year we would alternate either going to their house or them coming to ours. My Aunt made a carrot pudding that had a delicious sauce.
Christmas Eve service and time with family.
Every year we rent a van and 7 of us spend the evening (usually 7-8 hrs) driving around looking at Christmas decorations. My daughter sets up a schedule for us, picking out homes that have been highlighted in the local papers. It always includes homemade Christmas snacks, a stop for coffee and food, and canned food for houses that are collecting!
I look forward to displaying our Santa collection every year – usually the first holiday decor to come out and the last to be put away!
Our Christmas tradition is to go to the movies and eat Chinese food. We do it every year….it’s a Jewish thing. And, then wait for the after Christmas sales, of course.
I love hanging my vintage ornaments onto my Goose feather trees.
Making snowball cookies with my mom every year is what I look forward to! It’s become a tradition I treasure!
spending time with my family!
My favorite holiday tradition is decorating the tree. I love remembering the stories for each of the ornaments.
Love the decorating of the tree with all my ornaments collected from travels but my fave is seeing the family in new pjs! We always get new pjs under our tree!
My favorite holiday tradition goes back as far as I can remember. My family is Polish and every Christmas Eve, when my extended family usually celebrates Christmas, we would do one simple thing before we ate dinner. We would take Oplatki wafers and go around the room and exchange bits of our wafer with each and every family member. At this time we would hug and tell each family member that we love them and wish them a happy and healthy new year. My husband, when he first came to celebrate holidays with my family in tenth grade, thought it was really odd at first. But now, since we have been together over 26 years, really enjoys this tradition. It is something even my ten year old daughter really enjoys now too.
Decorating for the holidays and spending time with family and friends.
We like to put the tree up the day after Thanksgiving, and get all the decorations out. It usually takes 3 or 4 days to get everything just right!
Christmas time is the most special time of the year. I love all the preparations and a chance to do some special things for some very special people. Papertrey Ink’s holiday releases make me squeal with delight!
Our family take it in turns making Christmas eve a very magical night, last year I managed to acquire a snow machine!
I have a collection of Snow Village houses. I love putting them out as they add a soft glow of light in the our house at night.
I love having the grandkids for the afternoon to bake and decorate sugar cookies – makes for wonderful memories!
I think the most important thing is being with family. and decorating the house for all of us.
My grandmother, mother, and I get together to make Christmas cards every year and watch our favorite Christmas movies. The results aren’t always perfect, but we have a blast together laughing at some of the resulting cards. It’s our special tradition every year and is the true start of Christmas for our family.
I love decorating every room in the house. But also love the feeling of getting as much of the family as possible all together for a great day
Decorating the tree, seems like no matter how many times i open the boxes of ornaments, the tears trickle down from memories of years past.
Making Christmas cookies is my favorite tradition. It brings back many wonderful memories each year along with making new ones.
We like to go out and go through different neighborhoods and look at the light displays. Try to pick a clear night.
I have started a new Christmas tradition (past three years now) of crafting Christmas ornaments for each of my four children and their families. It brings great joy to me to create! I hope my children feel the same joy when they receive their ornaments and place them on their trees. Thanks to PTI, I have a wonderful source with which to create my ornaments each year! ?
My favourite holiday tradition is reading my children “The Night Before Christmas” before they go to bed on Christmas Eve. I love it.
Spending time with family!!
Thank you for the chance to win : )
Patti
Opening the presents ofcourse on Christmas day ofcourse. Or mostly watching my nephews destroying the pile of presents while digging to find theirs. And secretly enjoying their innocence
I am so excited about this new release!!! My family rents a house at a fun location and then our whole family joins us!! So much fun:)
Mostly just getting together with my whole family. It’s always a good time with a lot of laughter!
I look forward to the fall and the change in the weather. So every September-November, I bake lots of pumpkin bread! I give away some, but most we eat here at home. I love the smell of pumpkin bread baking in the oven!
Love your new release! I love making gingerbread cookies with my grandkids:)
Decorating my house and spending time with my family. I also love all of the cheesy Hallmark Christmas movies and pretty much watch them every night!
Oh such a fabulous new release of goodies!! My favorite tradition is decorating our Christmas tree with our whole family getting involved!
The traditional food – turkey, potatoes, stuffing etc
Going to church on Christmas Eve with the family and then coming home afterwards for the “snacks” (shrimp cocktail and party mix being the most anticipated delights)!
Attending our candlelight church service on Christmas Eve is my favorite Christmas tradition. No matter how busy we have been or how much I have left to finish, this service never fails to refocus my mind and my heart on the greatest gift of all.
I really look forward to watching my family opening their gifts. It’s fun to see their reactions to the gifts I picked out.
I have a couple of quilts that always come out at Christmas. They are special and remind me how special the Christmas season is.
Family dinner on Christmas Day
Since my daughter was little, I’ve done an advent calendar with little daily goodies. She’s in college now but still looks forward to it so I send half to her dorm and the rest she opens at home. We both have fun with this tradition!
Getting our tree. For years we’ve gone to a place called Charlie Brown Christmas Tree Farm. It’s always such a nice experience to choose our own tree and cut it down ourselves.
I definitely look forward to filling the hanging stockings! This year starts a very special time as we now have a grandson!
Beautiful release…again!
Trimming the tree with my family and the Christmas music playing in the background is my favorite holiday tradition. Once it’s done, I just love to sit and look at the lit tree. I love it!
My family is scattered everywhere so our tradition is to go out to LA and spend the Christmas and New Year’s holiday week with my sister and her family. The most important thing is spending time with my niece and making sure we have lots of laughs and fun with her!
I would have said Christmas cookies, but now I’m gluten-free, it is probably the beautiful music and being with people I love.
Love this new release and such inspired wonderful ideas! My favorite tradition is baking cookies!
I love to make cookies for Santa! One year we made 8 different cookies. We had cookies galore and shared with neighbors and co-workers.
one of my favorite christmas traditions is baking cookies while watching “white christmas”. i’ve been watching that movie for almost 50 years and it never gets old.
I look forward to the Yankee Swap every year. It is always a lot of even if you don’t get what you want.
New catnip toys in the kitties stockings. They get all doped up and act crazy. It is funny!
I love spending time with our grown kids and their kiddos! I absolutely adore putting up our Christmas tree and getting out our ornaments that I started collecting when I was a little girl, and now our family adds to my collection every year, as well.
Christmas morning! We have an Open House breakfast for friends and family. I love cooking for it! I love having visitors coming and going and sharing this very special day with us.
I love having the family together for a meal – both Thanksgiving and Christmas.
I think my favorite holiday tradition is baking and decorating cut-out cookies in all the holiday shapes with my son and whomever joins in each year! It just makes the holiday so special! And then we get to share them with family and friends which brings joy to all!
Having the family over for breakfast on Christmas morning and later watching our grandchildren open their gifts.
Cookie baking. Love making cookies to share!
Decorating the tree! I love getting out the decorations each year and going to pick out the tree, we always have a festive dinner while we decorate. And then, let the Christmas baking begin!
I love putting up our tree and getting out all of our decorations. I just love “Decking the Halls” and seeing all the special ornaments that designate milestone events.
Linda
Attending church… remembering the true meaning of the holiday.
Shopping with our family for gifts for the Angel Tree Project! it is a ministry for children of parents in prison. It brings us such grace and joy to be allowed the privalige to do this one task to honor His birthday!
Decorating the Tree! It’s the start of the festive season and the smell of pine is just delicious…
Mine is our day after Christmas tradition…we take our kids and head to our cabin in Central Oregon and spend some good quality family time together. It’s always the calm after the storm and with our oldest away at college this year it will be extra special.
Spending time with my family and having oyster stew on Christmas Eve.
Being with my family…creating new fun memories.
What I love most is being with family; I love the music; I love the “from scratch” monkey bread we have every Christmas morning; I love the kids and now grandkids examining their stockings….so much to love. ( I also love Thanksgiving!)
I love our Christmas Eve party, Christmas morning with the kids faces!
It would have to be Christmas Eve. My entire family gathers at my house for dinner and dessert. Then we open presents. In my family Christmas Eve is our big celebration.
So hard to decide my favorite. It is all such a magical time. The family time and the reason for the season is so special. I’d say my favorite though is getting together Christmas Eve, going to church celebration, and spending the evening anticipating the marvelous day of Christmas.
About the only thing we do every year is a tree. I love white lots (and a ton of them) with all the ornaments sparkling. Most of our ornaments have memories attached and reliving those when I pull each ornament out is my favorite thing.
Going to my parents’ for dinner & spending the day w/ my whole family.
Holiday music in the background, tree lights twinkling in a corner, and sipping a hot drink in my PJ’s with my dog next to me. That’s my absolute favorite moment.
Love reading “The Night Before Christmas” from the book I had as a child.
Going to our Christmas eve service as a family and letting the kids open one present when we return home.
I love everything about Christmas—being with family and friends, the Christmas concert at our church, Church service on Christmas morning, decorating, making, buying and giving presents, listening to Christmas music, baking and so much more! Every Christmas there are special unexpected treasured moments that happen, too! We kick off the season with the parade and tree lighting downtown and a pizza party at our house with friends afterward!
After Thanksgiving, my sister and I would always be in charge of decorating underneath my grandma’s tree with her ceramic Department 56 houses. I just inherited them this year, as she’s moving into an apartment. I’m planning to have my sister over to help me decorate my own tree this year so we can continue the tradition!
Oh boy – our favourite tradition is heading to our daughter’s home Christmas morning and watching the grand kiddos opening their gifts!! Breakfast is next – with all the family showing up. Champagne and orange juice is always included – a wonderful morning for sure!
Cutting a fresh fir tree on our property and decorating it with our (over the years) handmade ornaments. Children-(grand and great grand) always ask as they hang each decoration–“who made this one”?
I love putting out all my glittery little houses and making fun paper crafts with the grandchildren. They love coming to Granny’s house for craft projects,
The best part of Christmas is seeing the joy on my 6 grandkids’ faces as they open their gifts. Our tradition is to eat noon dinner then open gifts and they don’t eat much in anticipation!
Decorating the Christmas tree. Many of the ornaments have memories attached and it’s kind of like reconnecting with old friends. Plus the family loves to come sit by the tree.
Baking Christmas cookies is a close 2nd to making Holiday cards and gift tags.
Beautiful new release and great projects! A favorite tradition is singing Silent Night by candlelight on Christmas Eve at the evening service at the church my parents go to.
I love decorating the house and pulling out all the tree ornaments! I love when the grandchildren come to help and we reminisce with the special ornaments!
Decorating the christmas tree is my favorite tradition during the holiday.The family goes together to pick it out and then everyone adds an ornament to the tree.Can’t wait to order the felt ornament dies.
I adore my Christmas tree!! Every ornament is either handmade or a collection of ornaments I received over the years as a preschool teacher. I gaze into that tree knowing there is so much love and thoughtfulness throughout each and every branch.
I just love decorating my house for Christmas and making it homey!
I also love making all the tags for my gifts!
On Christmas we don´t just open the presents. We role the dice. If one has a 6 or a 1 he can choose a present to give it for somebody of the family. Now everybody lokks waht the person gets. If there is an 4 you have to sing a christmas song or recite a poetry. Thats a lot of fun and it´s not just a wild opening of packages.
I love it all — the shopping, decorating, the cooking, the baking, and spendng time with family.
Our Christmas Open House where family, friends and neighbors stop by and enjoy the festivities, food and fellowship.
Hands down it would have to be cutting the tree!!! Sometimes with snow on the ground, sometimes in mud, always taking longer than is actually necessary (“What about this one?”) but a good family tradition.
I look forward to our Christmas cookie tradition – the baking, decorating, eating (of course), and sharing with friends and family. It is JUST not Christmas without our special treats.
I love driving around to see the Christmas lights. An area of Victorian homes in my town uses all white lights & it’s so beautiful.
I mostly look forward to Carol Singing at Christmas. The traditional melodies either around the tree or at my local church just capture the Christmas spirit. Even better with snow as well!
I love the delight of unwrapping each precious Christmas ornament!
Spending Christmas Eve and Christmas Day with my family–the calm after the storm.
Breakfast with my family on Christmas morning is my favorite tradition.
Trimming the tree!! The kids each get a new ornament to add to their collection; and the smell! and the entire process of getting the tree! It really starts the holiday season for me!! LOVE LOVE LOVE!!
My favourite thing is getting together with the whole family at my Mum’s for Christmas dinner! Though it will be sad this year as my Aunt, who was a huge part of our lives died last month, so we will miss her terribly. I reckon we’ll all be needing the kids there with their toys and games!
Christmas Eve movie night. Sitting on the couch in our pajamas snacking and watching a movie together. Even as adults we try to spend the night at one of our homes so we all wake up together. It’s like a family slumber party with tons of fun from Christmas Eve to the end of the day on Christmas day.
We always make Christmas cookies with my grandma. It’s so much fun. She’s always made so many kinds of cookies around the holidays and it’s always something that I look forward to 🙂
Christmas Eve Mass and then our Christmas breakfast with our egg casserole and many more goodies! Also just being with family and extended family for the day.
Decorating the tree and house to the accompaniment of all the cheesy Christmas song So!
Elf on the shelf – my kids love him. They can’t wait for Buddy to arrive and see what mischief he will get into. It’s not Christmas until our elf arrives.
Christmas is a wonderful time for my family. A few of the traditions I love is celebrating Christ on Christmas Eve, decorating the Christmas tree the day after Thanksgiving, and the second weekend in December is always reserved for Christmas baking with my mom!!! Really looking forward to spending time with the family this year.
I very much enjoy the building sense of anticipation that surrounds the holiday.
Thanks for the chance to win!
The holiday tradition I always look forward to is on Thanksgiving Day after dinner we all gather in the living room so that we can set up and decorate the Christmas tree. We turn on Christmas music and take hours just pulling out all the branches on the tree and then hours more in decorating. It takes a long time but it’s all totally worth it because we are together. This tradition has been passed on for generations using the same tree which makes it even more special.
Christmas Eve service, then loading everyone in the car to drive around and look at Christmas lights. Then home for hot chocolate and snacks.
Having a big family gathering on Christmas Eve is my favorite tradition during the holidays.
There are really so many things about Christmas that make it wonderful! The first thing is getting the house decorated with favorite things collected over the years- my husband never want s to have them taken down afterwards.
Hosting Christmas dinner with all my children and grandchildren!
I’m not terribly original, as seen in many other posts here, but my favorite tradition is spending the time with my family, celebrating the reason for the holy day, and seeing the kids enjoy their gifts (though times change, and they tend to ask for gift cards now.)
One of my favorite that has become a tradition for the past six or so years is a giant Euchre party with the family on Christmas Eve. Don’t know how much longer it will continue, but right now, the kids are grown and don’t have kids of their own yet. Sometimes we have upwards of 16 people. It is a great time and there are prizes for the top three scorers. Most of us would just be sitting home on Christmas Eve, so this way we all get together.
I love hearing from all my friends and relatives thru their Christmas cards. It it the only time I hear from many of them and it’s good to renew that connection. I also hope they all enjoy my homemade card to them. Everyone gets a unique card that I have worked to create throughout the year.
I LOVE everything about the holidays…but my favorite tradition is making gingerbread houses with my grandsons! It truly makes the season feel magical!
I love the dinner where we are all together. Decorating is fun too!
I love our Christmas Eve church service – lit candles and Christmas carols with family and friends. Plus cooked afterwards.
Christmas eve with family and friends is always a memorable time for us!!! Love how christmas means more surrounded by your love ones. Amazing release!!!!!
Filling the stockings and watching my girls open them is the best!!!
Being together with family is the best part of the holidays for me. Decorating the Christmas tree is always special, too, as we revisit cherished ornaments while we hang them. So many of them have special memories.
Entire family being together – such a special time!
Family time on Christmas Eve with a children’s service at church and then a special
meal with all the grandkids able to open one gift before bed.
Too many Christmas traditions to pick from! Walking through the tree farm to pick a tree, setting up the Christmas village, driving through town in the peace & quiet of Christmas morning, seeing Santa drive through town on a firetruck, buying presents, wrapping, having the quiet of Boxing Day with leftovers! Things have certainly changed over the years. Loved ones have passed on, but we make an absolute point to keep them an integral part of the celebrations today as they are in the memories they helped build.
Just that it is the commemoration of our Lord’s birth. My son is older now but we used to read the advent calendar and hang an ornament on the tree for each day leading up to Christmas. Then there’s the pickle in a jar ornament hidden somewhere and elf on a shelf somewhere but…Being with family though is the most precious.
I look forward to decorating the house for Christmas, enjoying all the times with family and friends and this year starting new traditions with our family as we are no longer traveling out of state for Christmas. Having little grandchildren adds so much to the Christmas excitement and celebration of Jesus birthday!
This will be the third Christmas in our Dream Home so each year is a new experience. We live in Pennsylvania ans the first year we got a small Norway Spruce so I’ve kept ‘her’ alive and she is our Traditional Christmas Tree 🙂
My favorite Holiday tradition is definitely carrying on my parents’ Christmas Eve events. Now that they have both passed, my family looks to me to bring it all back and it is a special feeling. We can definitely feel my parents with us on this special night.
The holiday tradition I enjoy the most is giving an ornament to each member of my daughter’s family – her, my son-in-law and three grandchildren. Sometimes I make the ornaments, sometimes I buy them. The grandchildren will each have a collection of ornaments to take with them when they start a home of their own!
I love sharing gift opening with family. Which we always combine with food. Usually now days means several places and days.
Decorating our tree and house for Christmas is my favorite tradition. I save a few ornaments for our grandkids to hang when they come over.
My Dads Birthday is on the 24th so we ALWAYS Celebrate our Family Christmas on that day!! I LOVE the Tradition and being with my Family on that day!! THANKS for sharing and for the chance to WIN!! Have a FABULOUS WEEK!! =)
I love ALL traditions around Christmas but my favourite is going to a local coffee shop for breakfast on Christmas Eve with my beautiful DD. It’s a lovely calm moment in the bustle and excitement.
Thanks for the opportunity!!
My most favorite tradition is putting up my snowman room with all the things i have collected over the years. My tree, ornaments, lots of snowflakes and snowmen glistens and sparkles everywhere, it’s amazing. We don’t have snow here in California so this is my little piece of a Winter Wonderland during the holidays!!.
I enjoy decorating the tree and filling the advent calendar for my kids. Love the glow of the tree lights throughout the season.
I love to decorate our home but I can’t really think of any traditions. I just love my family and any time we spend together creating memories is amazing.
Every Christmas Eve, we spend the day at my dads house. Now that my brother, sister, and Mother are all deceased, there is just my Father and myself left. He also has cancer, so I just don’t know how much time he has left. This is why I will cherish the time I have left with him.
I know it sounds crazy, but I love wrapping gifts and trying to make them look beautiful.
Christmas Eve with my family at my grandmother’s. It’s a tradition and never to be missed!! Always a great time and so many wonderful memories throughout the years!!!!
My favorite holiday tradition is decorating the tree. I do a different “theme” every year using different colors or kinds of ornaments. Speaking of ornaments, I love Kay’s card of the water-colored ornaments!
I don’t purchase gifts at Christmas time, but I do look forward to making my Christmas cards more than anything. And, my family and friends look forward to what I’ll send them each holiday season!
My favorite tradition is also one I kind of dread each year. I make ornaments for each of my family members which was fine when there were only 10 of them. Now there are about 25, so I annually panic that: 1.) I won’t get them done in time and 2.) that the ornaments won’t be as good as I want them to be. So far, I’m a bit less stressed because instead of making a unique one for each, I make multiples of 5-6 designs. PTI is always part of the designs. Once I get past making the ornaments, my favorite part is my sister’s cooking! 🙂
I love any part of Christmas that involves the grandchildren! And any decorations that are centered on the reason for the season – Jesus.
Going to the tree farm to pick out our tree, then bringing it home and decorating it as a family!
I look forward to spending time with family. Especially since we are spread throughout this beautiful country of ours.
Christmas Eve get together with family, having finger food, hot spiced wine, singing Christmas carols and opening just one gift each.
Love the Christmas Eve Service at our church, we end with everyone lighting a candle and singing Silent Night together.
I love making nuts and bolts every Christmas- it’s an old fashioned variation of a Chex mix. My grandmother used to send us a butter tub or cookie tin filled with it from Canada every year and we would look forward to it, there was never enough for our family of 5 to get our fill. Grandma passed when I was 8 so I got the recipe when I was a teen and have been making it every year for 27 years. Now I make it and share it with my kids.?
The thing I look forward to most is spending time with family. We are spread across this great country of ours now so anytime we get together is special.
One of my favorite traditions starts long before Christmas. I make all of the Christmas cards that my parents, aunt and uncle, and grandma send to their friends. I start in May by sending them 5 samples to choose from. They pick which design they want and how many they need. Then I start in August creating for them.
I always looked forward to having Christmas Eve at my grandma’s house with all of our relatives.
We have so many holiday traditions that it is difficult to choose just one. I love the decorating the tree, baking Christmas cookies with my children and grandchildren…family and friends for Christmas…
I love being nestle in the house w/ the decorations up!
Favorite tradition: each family member selects an additional stocking theme and the rest of us put something in that stocking that relates, i.e. bespoke, bollywood,ocean,favorite pet, sew historical. We always have some outrageous and funny stockings. One year my husband wrote poems for each theme and it was hilarious!
I love decorating our home for Christmas and putting up the tree. I enjoy listening to the reminiscing my kids do when we do this together: “Remember that time when…” It’s so good!
I love to cook for the Christmas dinner with my family. We have ham, sweet potatoes, green beans, corn, apple pie, and my signature chocolate cake with chocolate frosting. The grandkids can hardly wait to check their stockings!!
Our tradition is to go the the mountains to cut our own Christmas tree. We have SO many wonderful memories of our tree cutting experiences. There were a few years that we actually went out in the early fall and located a few Christmas tree possibilities since finding them in the cold (with young kids) can take a long time. We “GPS’ed” the trees so we could find them later. It was a good thing because it was snowing very hard and the trees were very full of snow when we actually went out to cut them. We would have never found them without the GPS. It was so much fun. 🙂
Being the oldest at our family gatherings my personal favorite holiday tradition is sitting quietly off to the side while four generations gather around the tree. As the child selected to be Santa’s helper passes out the presents, I sit and reminisce about how our traditions started and by whom. Traditions carry our memories forward through the years.
Being with our families!
Getting together with family and watching the kids open their gifts! I always look forward to seeing their faces light up during this time!
Decorating the Trees. I have ornaments from different places I’ve traveled to so as I unpack it is like taking a walk down memory lane. I also have a tree devoted to Penguin ornaments I’ve collected and add to every year.
Also always looking forward to getting together with my stamping friends for our annual Christmas card swap
Definitely the decorating of the tree and arranging the ever expanding Christmas village. Already stressing over the placement of the tree this year due to some new additions to the room. I’ll figure it out though.
I love attending the Christmas candlelight service at my church with its beautiful music and recounting of Christ’s birth.
I love making ornaments for my nieces and nephews each year. That way when they move out, they have ornaments for their own trees! The felt ornament dies in this release would be perfect!
Christmas is my favorite Holiday.
I love decorating our house with all little things: our Christmas tree, lots of candles, cinnamon & apple tea, gingerbread cookies …….Christmas is just magic.
I enjoy all the preparations that lead up to the holiday as much as Christmas Day itself. Love making cards, wrapping gifts and holiday baking. I particularly like the day the 24 hour Christmas music starts on our local radio station! Yep, I’m that person!
I look forward to Christmas Eve service!
I love making and sending Christmas cards. It’s my favorite time of the year to craft 🙂
I look forward to the special Christmas programs at church.
Christmas hands down !!! I love Halloween and thanksgiving too but my two year old granddaughter is so much fun !
Hanging out with family is my favorite tradition. Another great release.
I look forward to decorating cookies with all my children at my house. This year we will have a granddaughter to join in the fun!
I look forward to decorating the house in all things Christmas, especially with my Advent wreath and Advent calendar! And I loooooooove baking a variety of cookies to share throughout the Christmas holiday!
I look forward to baking and gifting my goodies! I only make these yummy things at Christmas, so they are things we look forward to all year!
I am looking forward to have all my sons home!!
The procession through town where the children re-enact the journey of Mary and Joseph to Bethlehem … followed by Christmas Eve mass … it’s a joy … and the reason for the season! Anita 🙂
I love everything about Christmas but probably my favorite tradition is trimming the tree. I come from a large family and over the years we given ornaments to each other. Getting them out every year brings back memories of all those Christmases gone by.
I love everything about Christmas but probably my favorite activity is trimming the tree. I come from a large family and every Christmas we’ve given each other ornaments. Getting them out every year brings back memories of all the Christmases gone by.
I most look forward to the holiday jigsaw puzzles that we do during the month of December and on Christmas Eve.
I always look forward to decorating the house with Christmas music playing in the background.
I’m looking forward to decorating the Christmas tree! It’s a family activity, it is fun and fills the air with positive energy and holiday spirit!!
Meeting up with family who live overseas – it doesn’t happen every year but this year I will be spending Christmas with them and am so excited to see my niece.
Being together around the dinner table fir Christmas dinner is the highlight since that’s when we get to reflect on the past year and all the other Christmas’ we shared.
The paper doll series is a real “grabber”. The kids can’t wait until the next set comes out.
celebrating with family of course but if I don’t bake at least a few different kinds of Christmas cookies, it never seems like the season. I look forward to this every year.
We have soooo many traditions…I love most going to a Christmas Eve church service each year (and making our secret family recipe caramels)!
Spending time with family decorating, cooking , and having a good time.
Every year on the weekend before Thanksgiving, I host a holiday brunch for my crafty friends, and after brunch, we all make our Christmas cards or gift tags, or some other holiday craft. We look forward to it every year, and I get a jump start on my cards for the holidays! I usually have the card designed, and all of my prep work done so it is like an assembly line after brunch. This ensures I will have them all ready when I need to get them in the mail which I try to do the weekend after Thanksgiving.
I look forward to the children’s pageant, singing the Christmas hymns, and celebrating the true meaning of Christmas with our church family.
We have a beautiful hand-painted nativity made by my husband’s grandmother. It’s not Christmas until we pull this out and set it up on our mantel.
Our family comes together on this special day to eat, drink, and be merry! The main course of the dinner is alway the same: standing rib roast, crispy roast potatoes, and Yorkshire pudding. Those who didn’t cook the main course that year brings a special dish to complete the meal.
My favorite holiday tradition is attending our Carol and Candlelight service at church. It’s so beautiful to sing Christmas hymns and end with Silent Night while everyone is holding candles.
Getting the tree all decorated then lighting it up the first night. We like to sit and have hot chocolate in pj’s and just admire it and love the cozy feeling.
Gathering the family together. It’s the one time of year where everyone tries really hard to ‘meet in the middle’ since we are scattered across the U.S. Just being together is so wonderful!
I love making and decorating holiday cookies with my girls.
putting up the tree and decorating it with the kids, baking Christmas cookies and gingerbread lattes from starbucks 🙂
I love our Xmas Morning tradition of the family gathering for breakfast after all gifts are open. We start with the youngest and Mom is last to open gifts, then we all sit down to an awesome breakfast and just talk and reminisce, hug and enjoy each others company