Share Your Holiday Traditions to Win

Our family tradition is to drive through the winter wonderland light fantasia display in our local park and when the tree is up just watch the christmas lights twinkle in the dark with soft christmas music in the background :)

There are so many great things about this time of year so it's really difficult to pick just one favorite tradition so I'll throw a couple out there. My husband and I cuddle up and watch a holiday movie every Sunday from Thanksgiving until Christmas and also catch the ABC Family holiday line up as often as possible. One Friday or Saturday night in December, we also go out to eat and then grab a hot cider, hot chocolate or yummy coffee drink, put on the Christmas music in our car and drive around looking at all of the Christmas lights in the area. One home sets up a wonderland so we take a stroll through their property and then head home after. It always puts us in the Christmas mood.

My favorite Christmas movie is National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation. I have to watch it at least once every Christmas season. My husband, sister, and best friend are equally obsessed with it. We are known to randomly quote it throughout the year, and probably have the whole movie memorized by now. It is ridiculously funny!

I started my own tradition about 20 years ago; I wear pajamas, silly holiday ones, all day. I've even gone to the airport to pick someone up in the reindeer one piece with feet while wearing the matching antlers! :-)

On Christmas Eve we always open presents from our immediate family. We open with the True Story of Christmas which the youngest member of the family that can read reads from Luke 2. Then we open presents, play games and have soup and a big plate of relishes and sometimes homemade cinnamon rolls. We've been doing this since I was in like 7th grade (I'm in my 40's now).

We make cookies on Christmas Eve and throughout the week before Christmas we help the kids make ornaments which makes the tree look that much more personal. It was one of the things I really enjoyed doing as a kid and have kept going. That and reading The Night Before Christmas every Christmas Eve. Opening a present on Christmas Eve...it's pajamas so we don't have to have our old pjs taken pics of. Lol.

A Holiday tradition in my family was receiving an ornament from my parents each year. Once I was old enough I helped decorate the tree with my ornaments, and when I moved out of the house I had quite a collection to begin decorating my own tree. This year is my son's first Christmas and I plan to start the tradition with him as well!

My most loved Christmas Tradition has to be our Christmas Eve book. My parents started when I was about 5 years old trying to instill a love of book into all 4 of us kids and they would buy us a book and wrap each of our books with a different ribbon. Each year we would have to give a brief report of the book we'd received the year before and after we'd all finished we were ushered upstairs while mom and dad hid our new books around the living room. Then when we came back we'd get a piece of the ribbon on our book and have to search for it like hide and seek! The only rules were if you found someone else's book you couldn't say anything and once you had your book you had to wait for the others to find theirs before you could open it. To this day I LOVE books and reading and attribute it to my parents awesome Christmas Tradition they started when we were all so young :-)

lighting my family menorah and remembering relatives who are gone has always been my tradition .. in the last few years , watching ELF at least 3x has been added to the holiday rituals. as well as remembering the wild critters outside - i always make birdseed wreaths ... for myself and bird and squirrel loving friends . to hang outdoors during the holidays ... and all winter long..friends have looked forward to receiving them .... that brings me joy!

Since my kids were young, my mom, siblings & our kids would get together on Christmas Eve to see the "early gifts" Santa brought, we all baked and shared cookies and loved to watch "The Christmas Story". Sadly, my mom is no longer with us, but my kids and grands still carry on this Christmas Eve tradition with me. It is soo great to see the little ones faces light up when they see what Santa brought to Mom-Mom's house for them, then watch them go to bed to await Santa's visit to their house!

So many traditions! My Dad and I watch the "A Christmas Story" marathon on TV, we all have a seafood dinner on Christmas Eve and open one gift, and all of us make a snowman on Christmas Day!

My favorite tradition is to have the car loaded up when hubby gets home from work on Christmas eve, we drive up to my parents house, have oyster stew for dinner that night. Mom and I stay up late cooking, baking, wrapping and getting a chance to really visit. We spend the night and have the whole family out for "dinner" about 2. It is a lot of work for the two of us to cook it all but it is also so much fun, working together. Spending the day with all the family- nieces, nephews, cousins, sisters, and of course my parents. I love the time until it is time to load the car back up and head home. I never am ready to go home.

Our tradition is making Chocolate Chip Cookies and Sugar Cookies and decorating the Sugar Cookies together as a family. Then we distribute the cookies to our friends and neighbors. We love seeing the looks on their faces when we show up bearing cookies!

We spend the weeks of advent preparing for Christmas. Then on Christmas eve we get up early and gt a tree. We eat a big breakfast and break out the christmas music. We spend all day decorating the tree together and decorating the house. We invite all the family and have a nice afternoon dinner and enjoy the fruits of our labor! The kids really get excited about decorating the tree and putting up our decor. We also enjoy the christmas cookies and a bit of mulled wine ( the adults only obviously)

We like to go on drives, as it gets closer to x-mas, and look at all the lights. There are a few streets that are really nicely decorated and we drive through and then walk around at night. The kids get hot chocolate at the end of the night.