Share Your Holiday Traditions to Win

During the holidays my family loves sharing a good meal, cookies and cocoa and spending time together. My favorite holiday dish is a traditional Albanian Cheese Lakror (a lot like a greek spinach pie... but oh so much better.) It's made in a filo crust with a cottage cheese and egg filling. There are variations with leeks and spinach and also a meat version. But my favorite is still the plain cheese. It's a tradition to serve the lakror on New Years Day. There is a quarter hidden in the pie and the person who gets the piece with the quarter in it is supposed to have good luck in the new year. My great grandmother always made sure that she slipped a coin into each of the children's pieces. She's been gone for nearly 20 years... but when we make the pies now we still slip coins into it, only now it's for my son and nephews. I'm thankful for the tradition that she gave us and for showing us all that we were always lucky.

Ohhh I lo ve this time of year... One of our favorite Family traditions ususally just involves me and the kids and that is all the cookies, cakes, pies and Christmas candy we make. We start about 2 weeks before Christmas on some and I bake sometimes for eternity or it feels that way. Once we get all that we can get made we wrap a few of each kind in plastic sran wrap and tie with bows and then we give them to Grandparents and adults for Christmas gifts. We don't have the money to buy everybody something so we take the time to make edible goodies and share! My hubby helps with the tradition when it comes time to EAT them.

My grandchildren and I get together and make peanut butter covered mini bagels covered in bird seed to feed the animals through the winter.we freeze them and hang a couple each week

We hang our stockings early December. Then each of us takes a turn placing a gift into each other person's stocking as a surprise before Christmas. Only one gift is given each night so it's a surprise who will be getting one and who will be the giver. With the four of us it takes 12 days to complete, so we call it our own version of "The Twelve Days of Christmas". Everyone looks forward to peaking into their stocking each night to see if they have a surprise and love buying the small little gifts to surprise their family members. It makes the final week two weeks leading up to Christmas fun for all!

There are so many wonderful traditions from cutting our tree down, to baking 10-14 different kinds of cookies, to the movies my husband and I enjoy watching throughout the holiday season: Elf, Christmas Vacation, and White Christmas.

My favorite holiday tradition with my girls is making gingerbread cookies with all of the woman in the family, sisters, aunts, moms, grandmas, etc, all get together and bake bake bake. We also make a gingerbread house together with all the kids.

I have three daughters and when they were growing up we each made a new and different Christmas ornament every year and hung them on the tree.. When they married I gave them their ornaments that they had made to start their own Christmas tree ornament collection. We are still making ornaments and the boys now sometimes join in.

Our tradition is making cut out cookies that I have been making since I was very young.

Our tradition has always been to read a Christmas storybook. Taking a walk around the neighborhood and look at all the houses. Then we arrange a plate of treats for Santa and carrots and apples for the reindeers.

We have the original string of lights that were on my Dad's first tree. Each yhear we would light thme up on christmas Eve just long enough to get the old bubble lights bubbling and then turn them off. the strand has been repaired but all of the lights are 80 years old. My dad has passed but still every year we get together on christmas Eve and light the lights. now we send up ballons to honor my Dad and Mom and Sister. Still a beautiful and well loved tradition Ihope to pass on to my kids. My son does the lights now and he will get them when I pass

our tradition is watching all the classics like Santa is coming to town, Rudolf and Frosty together then making cookies. Then decorating watching Elf. Elf is my favorite and love Buddy

One tradition we have is every year we head a coat drive. We collect coats for the homeless.

I have so many reasons that i love this time of year, but now that i have children it has become even more exciting for me. My mother and i would always bake dozens of cookies and different treats to share with our family and friends, when i was a little girl. Now that i have a daughter of my own it is one thing that we have already started to enjoy doing together. I am also looking forward to a car ride around the neighborhood to see all of the lovely decorations!

msfriendly That is really cool :) We love to make peanut butter balls. aka buckeys. It's our favorite candy. We also make homemade pizza & french fries. YUMMY

My mom and I used to make spritz cookies for the whole family, we used a cookie press from her mom and my whole life I got to help decorated and then as I grew older I was able to do more and more of the cookie making. Now that I am off on my own I always think of my mom when I bake spritz cookies at Christmas. These cookies are special treats for the holiday season full of memories. I plan to do this with my kids (when I have them someday). :)