Holiday Traditions

This will mark Dustin's and my FIFTH Christmas together, but our first as a married couple! Over the years, between his family and mine, we have gathered several holiday traditions. Thought I would share with the blog world some of our favorite Christmas traditions (old and new)...and see what other holiday traditions you have with your families!

1. Giving trays of Christmas cookies to friends and family - Since my mom and I love to bake, no Christmas season would be complete without an insane amount of Christmas cookies. To keep myself from growing out of my clothes over the holiday season, I have to make sure I give away a lot of the cookies - but they make the perfect gift for coworkers, faraway family members, and friends. Here was my cookie assortment from a couple years ago.

2. Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve - Every year that Dustin and I have spent Christmas Eve in Georgia, we have gone to midnight mass with my family at our home parish, Saint Monica's Catholic Church. I love the anticipation of everyone waiting for church to start, the fancy, glitzy outfits, and the fact that there are usually few, if any kids (I believe that can NOT make me a terrible person, they are my job!) I don't know that we could continue this tradition once we have little ones waiting for Santa someday though.

3. Snowman Ornament to add to our collection - Every year Dustin gets me an ornament for Christmas, and they have just always happened to follow the same snowman theme that my Christmas tree does

4. Photo by the Christmas tree - We haven't done this one faithfully yet - I only have two photos that I can find by a Christmas tree, but this is definitely a family tradition I want to keep throughout our marriage. Wouldn't it make a cute cocktail book someday?

5. New pajamas to wear Christmas Eve - I have heard of other people doing this for Christmas eve, so I told Dustin we should join in the fun! My family always takes photos of each other opening presents on Christmas morning, so it would be great to have a new set of pajamas to celebrate the occasion.

6. Giving a gift for how many years we have been together (a la 12 days of Christmas, kind of) - I read about someone doing this somewhere on the Internet, and thought it could be cheesy, dorky cute. Like get a gift that there is one of this year, then next year two (like 2 tickets to a concert, or 2 wine goblets), etc. That could get kind of hard and random as the numbers get larger though!

7. Write a letter to yourself for next Christmas - Obviously, since I blog, it must mean I like to write. I am going to force Dustin to sit down and we are going to each write a letter to ourselves the following year. I think these would be neat to package up and re-read every year once we have a family to share them with! And it could be tradition that little kids could get really into as well.

8. Watch It's A Wonderful Life - This is by far my favorite Christmas movie, and the season would not be complete if I missed watching this classic film. If you haven't seen it, be sure to watch it this holiday season - such a great message about the impact of one kind, generous person!

What Christmas traditions do you have that you love the most?