What's Your #1 Favorite Christams Tradition?

We love watching the marathon of A Christmas Story. We love the parades and such on TV from Disney. Christmas morning when the family is together. Christmas dinner when family is together. We also have a Santa Key since we don't have a chimney. Also we make reindeer food and spread it in the grass the night before. (it's glitter and oatmeal). Christmas Eve mass always makes it feel special. In the past we always did the angel tree and gave a gift or two to the children that need something :)

Love the lights. We decorate my parents home every year on Thanksgiving. Once the lights are on it is so peaceful and calming from everyday life.
On Christmas Eve we go up to my FIL's grave, with my Husband's mother and siblings, and place luminaries by his headstone. We do that for my Husband's grandparents also. It helps to bring memories of those who have passed on to the forefront.
Baking, baking and more baking. We give everything away to neighbors and friends.

On Christmas Eve we like to drive out to look at neighborhood light displays. Where we use to live there was a whole block that does a wonderful display every year. We'd park nearby then walk up and down the street with warm cider in a thermos. It was very pretty and picturesque if it started to snow. It was always so cozy to come back to a warm house after being out in the cold.
Now we go to see the light display at the Botanical gardens.

My very favorite is driving around on Christmas Eve and wathing in the sky for Rudolph's Red Nose. Before we get home the girls find his nose in the sky and then when we get home, they go straight to bed so Santa won't pass our house. This is a tradition that I did growing up when coming home from my grandma's house and I will never forget it. My girls love doing this and I hope my oldest enjoys it eventhough she knows the truth about Santa.

Hand made Christmas stockings!

I still have my original Christmas stocking from my very first Christmas...that my Grandmother made for me. We have 2 family patterns to choose from and we all (from my Mother's side) have them!

I had a blast making my kids theirs...I used their "coming home from the hospital outfits" and turned them into different things for the front of their stockings...like an angel, Christmas star, ornaments, snowmen, etc...Oh my goodness are they beautiful! They have their names embroidered on them, along with their birthdate and a little "Believe" button...and I did all of it, well my Mom helped with my middle child's but I am hoping he cherishes the fact that Grandma worked on his, as much I cherish it that my Grandma worked on mine!!

Hanging all of them up over the fireplace is my very favorite part!!

We always do Gingerbread houses a few weeks before.
I always get my son and daughter matching Christmas PJ's and they look forward to picking them out.

My favorite is gtting in the car on Christams Eve with hot chocolate and cookies and driving around looking at Christmas lights. always feels magical to me.

My favorite tradition is making ornaments with my kids. Well, my daughter is 24 now and she doesn't live at home anymore, but my son and I still make things every year.
We like to have the tree lit, the menorah lit, some egg nog, some latkes, Christmas or Hanukah music and away we go.
Last year, my son also sewed a stocking cut out of an old sweatshirt and used glitter glue to write his dog's name that lives at his dad's. We got the dog some treats to put in it. It turned out really cute.
We always make a little something different each year.
Those are definitely be some of my favorite memories.
We haven't decided what to do for this year yet, but we'll come up with something!

the food! my dad cooks, and it takes him all day, first he does breakfast and then dinner.

We have a candlelight family worship time where we all go around and share an answer to a particular question. We also have lasagna every christmas day. It is easy to make the day ahead and have the bread and salad . This saves having the moms in the kitchen all day on Christmas and we can enjoy the time with the family.

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We have a candlelight family worship time where we all go around and share an answer to a particular question. We also have lasagna every christmas day. It is easy to make the day ahead and have the bread and salad . This saves having the moms in the kitchen all day on Christmas and we can enjoy the time with the family.

Every Thanksgiving weekend, we go up to the mountains and cut our own Christmas Tree. We then decorate it on the Sunday after Thanksgiving.

Every year I buy &/or receive as a gift a new Christmas picture book.

I make my own Christmas cards to send out. Last year my daughter was old enough to help & so this year, she helped to decide what we're going to do & will help to make them.

This year I want to do a 24 days of Christmas with my daughter (5). She's really into crafts & I'm planning on doing one craft with her each day.

About 2 weeks before Christmas, my dad comes over & we make fudge, caramels, english toffee, and peanut brittle for our neighbors and friends.

We go "elfing" (a tradition started by my mom when I was 5). We buy a bunch of food: a turkey or ham, and all the stuff to go with it. We pick a family that we know is having a hard time financially, and we drop it off on their porch, ring the doorbell & run!

We have Christmas Eve dinner with my in-laws. It is a really fancy dinner complete with shrimp coctail, really nice steaks, salad, baked potatoes, homemade rolls, cranberry jell-o and usually trifle for dessert. She uses her best china & goblets. We have sparkling cider and she lights the candles on her German wooden spinny thing (I can't remember what it is called). The grandkids act out the Christmas story from Luke 2. Then we play the chimes & sing a few Christmas carols. We also play "Tommy Right", a game that my husband's grandma used to play with the grandkids.

Since we now have 2 kids, and our Christmas day is really filled, we have begun the tradition of opening our presents to each other & our kids, on Christmas eve after we've read the Christmas story from Luke 2. We put out milk & cookies for Santa & some carrots & celery for the reindeer. Then the kids go to bed. In the morning before we go to my in-laws, we open our presents from Santa.

We have Christmas morning breakfast with my in-laws. Muffins, juice, bacon, eggs, hashbrowns, grapefruit, milk, etc. Then we open presents at their house. It is a big production since my husband is one of 5 and there are 9 grandkids.

Christmas afternoon we go to my parent's and open presents with my brother & his family and my parents. Afterwards we have a candlelight dinner. My mom loves candles, and has close to 100. She gathers them up from all over the house and puts them on the table. She always makes clam chowder & breadbowls. We have 12 layer jell-o and cheesecake for dessert.

Every year, my mom gives us (my brother & his family, my family, and my mom & dad) some money that she would have spent on us for Christmas. She calls it "Least of these" money (see Matthew 25:40), and it varries year to year (usually $50-100). We are to use it to help someone less fortunate. We've bought food for the food bank, helped out a neighbor who lost his job, bought toys for some Angel Tree kids, etc. Then, on Christmas night, during our candlelight dinner, we tell each other what we did with our money & how it made us feel.

I love this time of year. It has such a magical & spiritual feeling. Even people who are usually grouchy seem to be touched by that feeling. We have lots of traditions (sorry I couldn't pick one, they're all my favorite) and I've loved reading about everyone else's traditions. Thanks for posting the question!

My paternal grandmother, who pasted away 10 years ago, always made hundreds of cookies every year, and I took over her role and became the Christmas time baker! I bake a few weeks before Christmas. I do it all alone on a Sunday for about 8-10 hours. I have the best time decorating them. I make about 8 different cookies, and I fill about 15 tins of all of them, and give them to all of my favorite people.
Here is a picture of last years goodies :)
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1300899523808&...#

My mom would make waffles (still does actually) every Christmas morning! I love it!! Her waffle recipe is seriously the most delicious I've ever tasted and we would have waffles, sausages, and chicken livers every Christmas morning with cocoa for us and coffee for mom and dad. In fact, they used to make us wait to open presents until they had their coffee in hand! ;) Someday I'll have to take over the waffle making tradition, but honestly for now, I'm still loving it that my mom does it!

Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve.

If you are including the seasonal traditions, not just Xmas day:
We always have a LIVE tree. We live in the south, so we can't cut our own, but we go as a family to choose the tree. We love Frasier Firs.
And I cut out and bake decorated iced sugar cookies. Trees, wreaths, stars, candy canes, stocking shapes. Everyone loves them. They are a lot of work.. but my daughter is old enough to help some now. And my mom, MIL or sisters-in-law, if they are here anytime in the 2 weeks preceding Xmas, will help me decorate them also. We stay up late at night after everyone else is in bed and stand around the kitchen island decorating and gossiping and sipping wine. :) But some years it is just me (the family all lives hours away) and I stay up late and do it alone. It can be very peaceful.

We give them to the kids' teachers, take some to church, give some to neighbors, and share amongst ourselves. :) So many people don't have time to spend on something like that.

This year I am starting a new tradition for my 5 and 7 year old boys. I think we have lost the true meaning of Christmas so I went out and bought a nativity set and a storybook that tells the Christmas story. Before I put the tree up with them this Christmas I plan on reading the Christmas story and then arranging the nativity set with them. I then plan on reading the story again on Christmas Eve. I really want them to understand why we, as a Christian family, celebrate Christmas.

Reading the "Christmas story" from the Bible before opening presents.

My daughter and I started a new tradition last year. I want her to know the meaning of sharing, so early afternooon on Christmas day she and I baked cookies and took them over to the Fire House by our home and gave them to the Firemen that were working on Christmas. We thanked them for working so we could be at home safe and sound. We have breakfast with the family and dinner too.

Getting new PJ's or blankets on Christmas Eve. In the morning we would have crepes. It's not Christmas if there are no crepes.

Chinese food. Even though I'm now married to a Catholic, we do a Christmas breakfast and still have Chinese food for dinner. Then I get the night off from cooking!