Family Christmas Traditions
I have a friend who is a homeschooling mother of five boys who is always totally on top of things. She comes up with all kinds of neat projects and ideas to engage her children and teach them all kinds of life lessons. I really admire her. I have never felt like I am THAT kind of mom.
It was my friend who inspired me to develop some unique Christmas traditions for my family. Here are some of my favorites.
1) On December 6, we celebrate St.Nicholas Day. St. Nicholas is the actual person in history who our Santa Claus is loosely based on.
A lot of families wonder if they should “do Santa” or not “do Santa”. All of our Santa stuff happens on St. Nicholas Day.
St. Nicholas brings fills our Christmas stockings on December 6th. I try to include a wooden toy like St. Nicholas might have made for the children in his village (this year Jojo will get a small wooden pop gun I found for $2.95 at the book store). I also try to include some “gold”, usually chocolate covered gold coins.
I also bought a simple children’s book about St. Nicholas that we read on this day, and talk about who St. Nicholas was (very basic, like 6 pages long). It is a fun thing to do and I get excited just about the small gifts in the stockings!
This is another St. Nicholas book I want to get in the next year or so:The Legend of St. Nicholas: A Story of Christmas Giving
I love spreading out the gifts over the entire advent season so that each one is appreciated individually.
2)
I have a child-friendly nativity set made by Playmobile that the boys can actually touch and manipulate. (Warning! Choking Hazard Alert!) I have a “don’t touch” nativity set as well. Actually I have 3 toy versions and one “display” version.
I use the nativity set to tell the Christmas story. First, I display the empty stable. About a week before Christmas, Joseph and Mary appear in the room somewhere. You have to find them! Every day they are moved closer to the stable, until Christmas Eve, when they make it to their destination. Of course I add the baby Jesus and angels on Christmas morning. I mean, he wasn’t born yet before Christmas morning, right?
After Christmas, the wise men appear in the room and make their journey to the stable, until they finally arrive on Epiphany. And don’t you know, the wise men brought gifts? It’s a good reason to save some of the Christmas loot for a few extra days! Or, you could hit the after Christmas sales and score some “wise men gifts” at “wise mama” prices.
I am debating doing all of our gifts on Epiphany. Christmas Day and Christmas Eve are busy visiting grandparents. Things get a little crazy. Epiphany can be our special family day.
How do you deal with dividing time between various relatives and your immediate family on the holidays?
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13 November 2008, 4:04 pm
Love the St. Nicholas day idea–I’ll have to look into that more! Thanks!
13 November 2008, 4:07 pm
Wow, I didn’t know about that! Thanks for the info! Here’s My Day 2! I put Mr. Linky in there, too, so leave your link!
Julie@Cool Mom Guides last blog post..Mom Dot Christmas of Dreams Day 1
13 November 2008, 4:15 pm
Your Christmas sounds so fun! I like how you have Santa fill stockings on St. Nicholas Day. Thank you for sharing this part of your family life with us readers.
knittingmomof3 (AT) gmail (DOT) com
13 November 2008, 4:18 pm
I think you would enjoy my Advent Activity Calendar Alternative article. It is a great way to celebrate an advent calendar, and it helps to plan out all activities, games, food, and fun and then fit it all in!
Jen
http://www.100DaystoChristmas.com
Jennifers last blog post..‘Tis the Season to Give Thanks!
13 November 2008, 4:47 pm
I love your nativity set! So cute and a great way to show children the story of Christmas.
13 November 2008, 4:54 pm
My family lives a few states away, so we rotate the holidays. One year we spend Thanksgiving with my family and Christmas with his, then the next year we switch. My husband saves most of his time off work for this, so we can stay and visit my family for at least a week.
13 November 2008, 5:15 pm
Thanks for all the great ideas!
13 November 2008, 5:23 pm
I love the St. Nicholas Day and the Playmobile that they can touch. What creative and fun ideas!!
Shastas last blog post..Holiday Traditions!
13 November 2008, 6:49 pm
I love your traditions. Those are such good ideas. I want a Playmobile Nativity set. That is so cool.
As far as for us splitting up time between our immediate family and extended, we’re a military family and we’re states away from our families. So it’s just our little family for now, but I’ll be interested to see what we do next year when we should be closer to extended family *hopefully*.
Joannes last blog post..Christmas of Dreams: Day 2
13 November 2008, 7:31 pm
What a wonderful idea with the nativity. Last year, my son took off with my mom’s baby Jesus, and it was lost for days. I should definitely invest in a play version of it.
We live close to all of our family, so we do Christmas at our house, than lunch and gifts at my parents, and dinner and gifts at the in-laws. It is a crazy day!
13 November 2008, 7:44 pm
You have wonderful tradtions!! My kids have the Fisher Price Little People Navity Set!
Tenas last blog post..BP #2: My Family Traditions
13 November 2008, 7:46 pm
You have some wonderful holiday traditions
Nancy J.s last blog post..Momdot~Blog Party Day 1
13 November 2008, 8:26 pm
We did St Nicholas too when i was growing up!
13 November 2008, 8:48 pm
I want to get a nativity scene, great family traditions.
Louises last blog post..Attitude
13 November 2008, 11:00 pm
I adore your traditions… Love that you celebrate St Nick Day… I’ll have to look for the books you’ve referenced! thank you!
13 November 2008, 11:09 pm
St.Nicholas Day has scarred me. Seriously. I went to a Catholic School but I was Lutheran. All the kids there celebrated St. Nicholas Day but we did not. I remember slumping down in my seat as the class got to share wonderful stories about what they got and I had nothing. Shudder. On a happier note, we do the nativity scene too. Morgan’s is a Veggie Tales one.
14 November 2008, 1:12 am
i like the st. nick tradition done early! my prob with xmas is that is so busy with kids, family, in laws, presents, and big meals. getting one thing out of the way early so you can savor it is a great idea.
jennas last blog post..Family traditions-it’s not my hand in the bird.
14 November 2008, 1:56 am
Those are awesome ideas!
Thanks for sharing.
14 November 2008, 2:08 am
That is a really cool approach to the season!
Natalies last blog post..What Twilight female are you?
14 November 2008, 3:24 am
My family celebrates Epiphany aka the 12th Day of Christmas, also! Each year we learn about how it is celebrated in another country and add in one of their traditions if it works for us.
You should link this post into the American Homemakers Holiday Show & Share on Tuesday. http://theamericanhomemaker.blogspot.com/2008/10/american-homemakers-holiday-show-share.html
Elizabeths last blog post..VTT: Thanksgiving Postcards
14 November 2008, 4:06 am
I love Playmobile! I really want an advent this year! Love your blog! I am doing the Blog Party too!
14 November 2008, 5:14 am
cute idea with the nativity tradition. I really like it.
Alishas last blog post..Christmas of Dreams Blog Party Day 2
14 November 2008, 6:16 am
wow grate giveaway and well familty traditions well we love to make cookies and we always hang a star on the tree and well lots more too
15 November 2008, 4:56 am
I really like your traditions. You might want to share your traditions on Cafe Traditions, http://www.cafetraditions.com. The site is all about traditions and has a lot of unique ideas for families, holidays and more.
15 November 2008, 7:10 pm
I love how you add to the nativity scene as time goes on. There’s a little people nativity set that I almost bought for my kids, but now they’re getting a little old for the Little People sets now. I’ll have to see about the Playmobil set.
16 November 2008, 4:17 pm
I think those are great ideas! Love to read all the traditions and get ideas for mine. I feel like we have two families of traditions… one with my older three kids (who are now in their teens) and one with my younger kids, we are always changing things up.
~hugs~
Suzanne B. (Crunchy Green Mom)s last blog post..Best Christmas EVER!
17 November 2008, 6:12 pm
I really love that you guys do something that gets to the true meaning of Christmas.
06 December 2008, 3:20 pm
I definitly like the idea of adding into the nativity set a day at a time…very cute.
My family always jokes about doing gifts on new years…so we can get the better prices…but we never do.
13 December 2008, 1:56 am
we like to read books at Christmas too,
This year we are reading A Child’s Life at Christmas Time
14 November 2009, 4:03 am
[...] the past two years, I have given stockings to the boys on St. Nicholas Day, December 6th. This is a way to spread out the gifts so that there isn’t a big “crash and burn” [...]