Christmas Traditions - Freehold,NJ

Daddy has a cookie baking day with the kids. They do sugar cut outs and butter cookies. The kids love it.

Every christmas eve the kids get to open pj's from mom and dad. They look so cute soming down in them on christmas morning.

We have an adult tradition here. My sisters (and spouses) and two very good friends come on christmas eve. We do cocktails and hor doerves. I try to make the house as magical as i can. Every year they tell me how magical and it is all worth it :)

These are a couple off of the top of my head. I love traditions :)

We gather the cousins (and maybe some friends if we have room) and put on our Christmas pajamas and hats, go through a drive-thru and get some hot chocolate, and then pop in a holiday cd, drive around and look at the best Christmas lights in the area.

Last year for the first time, we did not have any family at all living in our area. So we were alone on Christmas Eve, just the 4 of us. We decided that instead of making a big dinner, we would have fondue night! So we went to Whole Foods together, chose a whole bunch of fancy cheeses, got some chocolate for the dessert portion of the evening, bought a bunch of items that we could dip into our fondue, and had our first annual fondue night! We also tracked Santa's progress online on the Norad website. We had so much fun and we're looking forward to doing it again.

We had a big family, so we weren't able to have a lot of presents... One thing my dad used to do to make it memorable was to rent a tank of helium, and buy a LOT of balloons. We would wake up christmas morning and the living room would be filled with them. :) It was always fun for us, and we had more fun playing with the balloons than we did with presents... and it was surprisingly inexpensive.

When I was a kid we always cooked steaks on the grill and had a candlelight Christmas Eve dinner. Mom would bring out the "good" china and crystal steam glasses. She would go all-out to make it special. I looked forward to it all year. I have carried on this tradition with my family. We have my parents and brother and my husbands parents and his brother all over to our house and cook steaks and have a great time laughing and visiting. My son will be 2 this Christmas and I'm really looking forward to him getting into our traditions.

Oh yeah, when I got a little older (middle school) we moved to a house with a pool and started the tradition that every Christmas Day my brothers and I would jump in the pool and swim to the other end to get out. It was freezing cold, but it's just what we did!!

The tradition that I love got lost over the years. I am starting it back up now that I have a family. We make ginger bread houses a few weeks before Christmas, and use them as a centerpiece. =)

We like to do old fashioned things around the holidays!!! We like to make popcorn and cranberry garlands, or red/green construction paper ring garlands, or decorate pine cones like mini Christmas trees with sequins/beads. Our 2yo really likes the hands on stuffs.

When we all get together all of the women head to the kitchen to bake cookies, sweet breads, and the like. We are all old enough now that we also crack open a bottle of wine or make up some margaritas. Not much is baked in the oven anymore but we certainly have a lot of fun getting baked. The guys aren't allowed to participate either so it's even more fun when we really live it up!

We sit down together and do our Christmas cards. They all get signed different ways and have different messages. At least if you happen to get the same card from us it's unlikely that you have the exact same handwritten message.

We love Christmas movies and cartoons and have tons. We like to camp out on the floor in the living room, pop-in a movie, and have some popcorn and hot cocoa.

These are just a few of our traditions. Hope it's enough to get your creative juices flowing!

Play White Elephant instead of buying every single person their own gift. It's fun and you can put any dollar limit on the gifts that you guys agree on.

One of our simplest ones is every time we leave the house we take different routes to and from our house to look at everyone's holiday lights. Unless we're pressed for time of course or it's late at night.
We have annual passes for Disneyland so a lot of our traditions revolve around going there as much as possible.
We leave cookies for Santa in the refrigerator with a note to remind him, we've got cats that will eat them if we leave them out.
Before going to bed we leave out our large felt reusable gift bags, Santa doesn't wrap presents unless it's a special big something and even then not all the time. Instead of stockings they have those birthday present gift bags. It's kind of funny as it was never meant to happen, one year we could not find the stockings and the kids now think the Thomas the tank bags aree better and don't want stockings now LOL

I have taken some traditions from my own childhood and added some. My parents used to buy/make ornaments to go along with that year. For example, the year I got my nursing license, Mom gave me a Precious Moments nurse. The year I took skating lessons, a little skater ornament. I do this with my kids and they love picking out their ornaments for the year.

We also do the Elf On A Shelf. They really get in to it. Sometimes the elf forgets to move around, though. LOL!!!

The kids get pj's for Christmas Eve, so that they have new ones for photos the next morning. We also make cookies for Santa and throw out birdseed or carrots for the reindeer. There's usually a egg dish and cinnamon rolls for Christmas morning.

The school does a Santa Shop, so that kids can bring in money to purchase gifts from local vendors and craft tables. The kids love it. However, with my oldest no longer attending the elementary school (with a couple more leaving in the next few years) we will start a shopping tradition. My kids love buying for others in the family so much. We'll be setting aside some time for them to buy for each other, as well as having a couple hours of mom/dad one-on-one time.

Here's something else that I haven't decided if I enjoy or not (LOL!!) When I was in high school, my youngest brother was still at an age where he believed in Santa. I would help my Mom put out the "Santa" gifts. Well, my oldest is 11 and no longer believes. This year, since he helped me with the "leprechauns" on St Patty's Day, he may help us with Santa. I remember very fondly, helping my mom when I was past the age of believing. However, since my son is 11 and not 16, I don't know if I'm over the fact that he no longer believes in Santa. We'll see. I have a hard time even typing the words "No longer believes".......LOL!!!!! Just a thought. It could become a great tradition in our family, since we have a toddler and many more years of Santa's helpers in our future.

I will be checking in to see what others are saying. Great question! It's never too late to start traditions!!! Thank you.

Putting out special decorations. Adding a special ornament every year, that the kids pick out. Having an advent calendar, especially. Having each person open their presents one at a time, while everyone else watches, not a present-grabbing free-for-all. Christmas music. Huge, elaborate stockings that overflow on Christmas morning. Cookies and milk for Santa.

We spend Thanksgiving weekend preparing for Christmas. We play Christmas music all weekend. We decorate the house. We make our own Christmas cards.

We used to have the big Christmas dinner, but one year it turned into a nightmare (another story). So now we keep it very simple, some type of roast, baked potatoes, veggie, a salad (prepared ahead of time). That way no one is spending the day in the kitchen and we all get to enjoy family time.

We always go to the movies on Christmas day while the turkey is roasting.

You'd think there wouldn't be a crowd at the movies but every year, it seems more crowded. I guess a lot of people like it. We've been doing it for 25 yrs.

I go to my grandma's and i have Christmas dinner at her house then go home and stay out of the cold