Where do Christmas Traditions come from?
I absolutely love Christmas Traditions! Some traditions are cultural and have been around for generations and I enjoy reading how those started. But even more, I love how when two people get married they decide which traditions from their individual childhoods they want to bring to their new family and I love when they create their own new family traditions.
Recently I’ve been listening to podcasts where people have been discussing their own family traditions and I really have enjoyed hearing what other people do in their families. So now I’m curious what your family traditions are? I’d so enjoy reading it if you put your favorites in the comments.
Why are Family Traditions important?
So why do I love family traditions, Christmas or otherwise? Well the foundation of why is because family is essential to healthy individuals. God set up the nuclear family at the very beginning of time, it is a reflection of God himself as our father and us his children. Traditions give a strong sense of belonging and identity. shared jokes, activities, music, food, and practices create a strong family bond that can bring comfort and peace to our often chaotic lives. We declare what is important to us with our traditions and pass our values along to the next generation, when your family traditon is to read the Christmas story and discus Jesus’s coming to earth before opening presents on Christmas, you declare that the reason for this day is Jesus birth not presents. When you make eating together a big deal you declare people are more important than things.
Traditons can help in creating memories that last so much longer than anything you can put in a box or stocking, memories you can look back on with love, so slow down and be purposeful.
Another beautiful thing traditions can do is create connections between generations, when you have family traditions that go back to great great grandma and grandpa it can give your children a sense of connection with a family member they may have never met, we are very short sited and self focused a lot of the time, I think its an amazing thing to step back and consider where you came from, how God has worked in your family and consider the future generations and what you are setting in place for them now. Maybe you can incorporate cultural traditions into your family that remind you of your geographical origins, read a book about Christmas in Germany or (wherever your ancesstors came from) and choose a tradition to start/continue. We lived in Okinawa Japan for a few years and its a very special memory for our family so I will do a post about Christmas in Japan soon. I am also lucky enough to have a giant green book of all the people on my maternal grandfathers side dince they immigrated over from Ireland so I enjoy reading their “Christmas memories” now my children are getting older I want to start reading them to them too.
Lastly, traditions often involve everyone working on something together giving a chance for children to learn responsibility and serving others, AKA not being selfish, a lesson that is often very much needed this time of year. and beautifully reflects our savior who gave up his throne in heaven to come down to earth as a lowly servant for us.
How to Start Your Own Family Traditions
First, always remember that family traditions are to serve you NOT the other way around, if you ever feel like you are a slave to your traditions if they are not bringing you or your family joy, then drop them like a hot potato, maybe you can pick them up again another year if you want but don’t do something you hate simply because it’s tradition. if you are married, you and your spouse need to sit down and have an honest conversation about what traditions (inherited or new) are important to you and why. Try to choose 2-3 that are low stress, free or inexpensive and most important to your family to try to do every year no matter what. For us that might be reading Christmas books, having a special breakfast together, and reading the Christmas story first thing in the morning. another is going to a Christmas Eve service if at all possible even if we are traveling though obviously our first choice would be with our own church family.
Start with did your family or your spouses family have anything they did every year that you love and want to continue?
Is there anything that you’ve always wanted to do that just fills you with joy or love for your family or others around you?
Traditions don’t have to be expensive, driving around looking at lights and listening to Christmas music is almost free as long as you have a car, if you don’t consider walking around a park or downtown area looking at lights. Reading Christmas books, if you have a public library is totally free, I’ll do another post soon of our favorits. putting on some Christmas music, maybe even making some hot chocolate (two recipes for that coming soon as well) and dancing around is almost free and little kids love it!
Going to a Christmas Eve service is totally free, absolutely magical and by far the best use of your time.
Most important in any tradition is to spend time together remembering the miracle and reason for Christmas.
Our Family's Favorite Traditions
OK so what are our favorite traditions, well first pre-Christmas. The Sunday after Thanksgiving we put on Christmas music and pull out the Christmas tree and decorations. Side note, I love real trees, but we only had one one year, either the first or second Christmas my husband and I were married, then after that they were so expensive and we had just moved and someone kindly gave us their old artificial tree that only lasted two years, after that we were in Okinawa Japan for 3 Christmases and there were no real trees so we got a decent one and have been using it ever since because why buy one when I have one already, but one year we will get a real tree.
so we pull out the tree and ornaments and I do the lights and beads and fluff out all fake branches because I’m a bit picky. Then Dad puts our cross ornament at the very top, right under the star reminding the kids why we have Christmas, then its a free for all as the kids decorate the tree, we listen to music and put out any other decorations.
Our next tradition is we do advent, I have yet to find an advent series that I love so we have done a variety of things through the years, this year we are doing The Jesus Storybook Bible by Sally Loyd-Jones. This is an amazing storybook bible for littles (honestly it’s beautifully written and I enjoy it too) every story shows how Jesus fits in and how every story points to his coming, and there are 24 chapters leading up to the chapter of Jesus birth so that works out beautifully. I’m definitely open to suggestions of favorite advent series. One year my awesome sister in-law sent us an advent tea that had 25 loose leaf teas so we tried one each day while doing our advent readings. Disclaimer, if you think we stay on top of readings and never have to double or triple up on missed days or simply skip a few and pick up whatever day we are on then I have some bad news for you, we are human and life happens, don’t stress, there’s always next year.
Next we love Christmas Eve candlelight services, there is something magical about passing the candle flame from person to person in the dark church and the room slowly becoming brighter as we sing together and remember How our savior loved us enough to leave heaven and come as a helpless baby to us. I love Christmas hymns! Silent night might be my favorite but it’s hard to choose. Speaking of Christmas music, one moment let me pull out my soap box, Mary Did You Know? IS A GOOD SONG! yes, I know she already knew, but art (including musical art) is meant to make you think about something from a different point of view, or consider something deeper, or feel something. and this song does that, consider the wonder that the creator of the world came to earth in the form of his creation, Moses asked to see God’s face and was told only my back and yet Mary could kiss the face of God made flesh. There is something magical about holding your own tiny baby and listening to that song and realizing just how human our savior was. Also there are some new Christmas songs that are really good, for example; From the Squalor of a Borrowed Stable, and O Come All Ye Unfaithful. Ok putting away my soap box now.
On Christmas day, we have a special breakfast, sausage gravy, and biscuits, along with applesauce and hot chocolate or coffee to drink. We read the Christmas story from the book of Luke, then clean up dishes, and then do stockings. We call family and do other presents, then just hang out, play with the new toys or games, take naps, eat the treats from the stockings, and just generally have a relaxing day. Christmas dinner for us is what we call “shepherds feast” and it’s just a Mediterranean influenced charcuterie type spread over the whole table. we love this, it doesn’t take a lot of work and cooking, picky eaters can just take what they want, and none of us like thanksgiving type dinner enough to have it again a month later, so this works well for us. We then have a Jesus birthday cake, often a Japanese style Christmas cake because that’s how we work some Japanese traditions in.
The last tradition is our kids favorite, they get to sleep under the Christmas tree, or at least in the living room with all the Christmas lights on. But, in my listening to podcasts I heard some people do that Christmas Eve, and Dad has to sneak around to put all the presents under the tree, which I think adds to the magic of it, so I kind of want to try that this year, we’ll see.
Oh one other tradition we have with my husbands side of the family is all the siblings and spouses draw names and do a secret sibling gift exchange, it’s a lot of fun and very smart because there are nine of them plus spouses.
Other Ideas for Traditions
Lastly I want to leave you with a few more ideas for some traditions.
- Christmas Parades or markets. these are a lot of fun, check if there are good ones in your area.
- Make cookies We’ve done this most years, giving them to neighbors, friends, the post office or police station
- Pack a shoebox. My mother-in-law is a pro at this, gathering stuff thoughout the year, organizing packing parties and sending hundreds of boxes each year.
- Christmas PJs I love christmas pajamas but they can get pricy when you have a lot of kids (I only have 4 and they are still pricy
- Christmas movies I love movies and we will definitely do a few but we tend to limit screens
- Christmas Tree Hunt ah this sounds magical and fun, going out to find a tree as a family
- Special food or treats find what your family loves and make it together, ours are cookies though I want to experiment with candy. one family we know does a cookie decorating day.
- Gingerbread houses we’ve done them with graham crackers and pop tarts too. I just saw where someone did one for their chickens using seeds and fruit and peanut butter and meal worms and such and honestly that sounds like the best idea, might do that.
- Making ornaments This can be a lot of fun, you can make them with natural materials you gather outside, or recycled materials a bit of glue and paint, one year in Japan we made a bunch of origami ornaments.
- Scavenger Hunt this is one I did growing up and loved, it hasn’t really caught on yet with my kids but maybe now the older two can read, and they did it at grandparents one year. basically you hide the gifts and set up clues often involving looking up a bible verse.
- Stocking Hunt, We did this one year in Japan and it was a lot of fun but ended up being a bit expensive when multiplied by 5 people, you break into teams, captained by mom and dad then team dad takes all the stockings for team mom and visa versa and you all go to the store and fill the other teams stockings, you can do a time limit and a dollar limit. then meet back at the car or meet up and get icecream or hot chocolate and exchange stockings.
- Traditional items You can do particular items for example, growing up I always got a toothbrush in my stocking, and now my children also always get a toothbrush, they also get an orange which is very traditional but I do it because my Grandfather who grew up during the great depression would tell us how he always got an orange, a pencil, and a comb, in his stocking.
- Sibling gift exchange My kids do their own little sibling gift exchange which cuts down on the chaos and number of gifts.
- Try making gifts this can be a lot of fun and very special, get kids in on it.
So what are some of your family traditions? I love hearing other peoples ideas! I hope I have inspired you to start some traditions of your own. Merry Christmas!