We love to go to Zoolights as a family. We also bundle up for neighborhood walks to see all the Xmas lights.
hi barbara,
when i was younger my dad was in the military and he would pick an airman he worked with to come over for dinner on christmas and thanksgiving. he knew so many that could not go home for the holidays and had no family around so they came to our house for a home cooked meal. this year we are calling the chaplin over at luke air force base in order to help us find someone to come to dinner.
I love everyone's ideas! I would also suggest the APS Festival of Lights parade and the Santa's World at Firebird Raceway both are awesome, we have gone for the last three years and both are a blast.
Hi Barbara,
In my family we let the kids open up only one gift on Christmas Eve. It is always new jammies. We adults get new ones too. Then we put on our jammies and watch some of those old fashioned Christmas movies. You know "Santa Claus is Coming to Town." The old ones from the 50's. Another tradition is that we buy each of our kids an ornament that shows something they did or liked in the last year. We get it personalized with their name and the year.
Good luck finding traditions that you love!
Charlene
The best one I can think of is teaching your children to give to others. Try sending some of your homemade cookies (even if they are cut and bake Pillsbury cookies) to the soldiers overseas or to a local homeless shelter. Your daughter may be a little young for these ideas but keep a scrapbook and build on the ideas. They will love it.
Ever since I was little my mom would pick each of my siblings & me a christmas angel off the tree in wal mart or the fire station to buy toys for. It helped to teach us christmas isnt just what we get but what we give. I have contunied that tradition with my daughter it makes her feel special to get to "help santa". Also we decorate gingerbread houses toghter. I like the kits you can buy at the stores have everything you need to make a great house.
We also make decorating the house & tree a family event. Everyone helps while drinking hot chocolate & having carols in the back ground.
When my son (now 18!) came home from kindergarten with a tree for Theanksgiving, we started an anual tradition. His was a small branch in a plaster of paris base, with leaves glued on and on each was written things he was thankful for. Now, each year we choose a branch from a tree in our yard. We make an event of cutting out leaves and gluing on floral wire. I use 3-5 to decorate each place setting, and drop a few extras decoratively around the table. We set a few nice glasses out with fancy pens, and everyone writes what they are thankful for, and wires it to the 'tree'. When you are finished, you are left with a beautiful custom centerpiece.
We like to leave the tree on the table until Yule, when we put it in the Yule fire, sending our thanks again as we look over the year that is passng, and our prayers for the comming year.
My husband and I take our daughters out driving around to look at Christmas lights. We especially enjoy doing this as a way to calm things down on Christmas Eve. I wrote an article about it that you can read here if you are interested: http://www.helium.com/tm/720698/meaningful-family-tradition-family