Inspired Christmas Post
Inspired by reading my friend Sofia's blog post about Christmas Traditions, I felt the need to share some Christmas Tradition love too.
Old Traditions:
My Personal Favorite! - When I was a kid my parents wanted to instill in us a love of books and reading. We used to read scriptures together on Sunday night as a family, once we were old enough to actually read we each took turns reading at least 1 verse and the number of verses we read got bigger as we did. So for a Christmas Tradition, my parents would go out and buy us a book and then wrap each one and tie them with a different ribbon. For the Family Home Evening before Christmas we would sit around the living room and share a book report about the book we had received the previous year, this part got more interesting as we got older, and then all kids were ushered either upstairs or into another room while mom and dad hid our books in some very inconspicuous places. When we came back we were given the ribbon to match our book and then set loose to search with only 2 rules...1-if you found someone else's book you couldn't say anything or help them find it and 2- after finding your book you had to sit patiently and wait for everyone to have found their book before opening yours. After everyone had their book we would all rip into the wrapping paper like it was Christmas morning to see what awesome book we had received this year and then we had an entire year to read it and re-read it before our next book report. This tradition has been my favorite because I feel like it gave me my love of books...and I LOVE books.
The Nativity- Early in December mom would pull out her porcelain Nativity and (again for FHE) we would all gather around dad who would have his bible in hand with the Nativity story open and ready to be read. I'm sure many of you know it's not really a consecutive story in the bible, so dad would go through before hand and mark the books and chapters he had to go to in order to read out the story from beginning to end. All of us kids would grab our favorite Nativity pieces and as dad would read our part in the scripture we would place our pieces on the fireplace. By the end of the story mom's Nativity would be displayed with love on the hearth and we had heard the true story of Christmas.
Newer Traditions:
The Tree- I can't really remember when this began but I do know it was when I was older, not sure if it was High School or after I'd gone to College. Each year on the day after Thanksgiving, now so fondly known as Black Friday, my parents would load up the truck/SUV/other large vehicle and we would drive up into the North Carolina mountains to a particular Christmas Tree Farm. Once we got there we would get our ticket for a tree (or two in the case of when I would buy a tree as well) and wait our turn to ride the hay filled, tractor drawn wagon up to the trees on the hill. And then the great search would begin! We all walked around really looking for a great tree and when we found it, we marked it and then dad would go get the guy with the chainsaw who would cut down the tree and load it up on a little cart and haul it back down to the barn. We would then either walk back or wait for the little bumpy wagon ride and go pay for the size tree we picked. This got more fun once my brother's daughter Aaliyah was old enough to come along. They offer horse rides and have a fun Christmas Sleigh you can take pictures in and so while we would wait on dad to pay for the tree Aaliyah got to ride the horse and we would take turns having our picture taken in the sleigh together and alone. It may seem like an awful long drive just to get a Christmas Tree, but I have very fond memories of driving all the way to the mountains as a family for that perfect tree.
I'm sure I could think of a few more traditions but these are three that really stand out in my mind the most and therefore are probably the only really important ones :-) lol. Christmas has never been my favorite Holiday but I have never missed a Christmas with my family and I'm so very excited to be able to go back home this year and see them. One thing I hate about growing up, is that everyone who gets married and moves away is gone come Christmas and we don't get to share in the excitement of Christmas morning together anymore. Hopefully though, a few of these family traditions are getting passed down now that everyone else has kids :-)
Old Traditions:
My Personal Favorite! - When I was a kid my parents wanted to instill in us a love of books and reading. We used to read scriptures together on Sunday night as a family, once we were old enough to actually read we each took turns reading at least 1 verse and the number of verses we read got bigger as we did. So for a Christmas Tradition, my parents would go out and buy us a book and then wrap each one and tie them with a different ribbon. For the Family Home Evening before Christmas we would sit around the living room and share a book report about the book we had received the previous year, this part got more interesting as we got older, and then all kids were ushered either upstairs or into another room while mom and dad hid our books in some very inconspicuous places. When we came back we were given the ribbon to match our book and then set loose to search with only 2 rules...1-if you found someone else's book you couldn't say anything or help them find it and 2- after finding your book you had to sit patiently and wait for everyone to have found their book before opening yours. After everyone had their book we would all rip into the wrapping paper like it was Christmas morning to see what awesome book we had received this year and then we had an entire year to read it and re-read it before our next book report. This tradition has been my favorite because I feel like it gave me my love of books...and I LOVE books.
The Nativity- Early in December mom would pull out her porcelain Nativity and (again for FHE) we would all gather around dad who would have his bible in hand with the Nativity story open and ready to be read. I'm sure many of you know it's not really a consecutive story in the bible, so dad would go through before hand and mark the books and chapters he had to go to in order to read out the story from beginning to end. All of us kids would grab our favorite Nativity pieces and as dad would read our part in the scripture we would place our pieces on the fireplace. By the end of the story mom's Nativity would be displayed with love on the hearth and we had heard the true story of Christmas.
Newer Traditions:
The Tree- I can't really remember when this began but I do know it was when I was older, not sure if it was High School or after I'd gone to College. Each year on the day after Thanksgiving, now so fondly known as Black Friday, my parents would load up the truck/SUV/other large vehicle and we would drive up into the North Carolina mountains to a particular Christmas Tree Farm. Once we got there we would get our ticket for a tree (or two in the case of when I would buy a tree as well) and wait our turn to ride the hay filled, tractor drawn wagon up to the trees on the hill. And then the great search would begin! We all walked around really looking for a great tree and when we found it, we marked it and then dad would go get the guy with the chainsaw who would cut down the tree and load it up on a little cart and haul it back down to the barn. We would then either walk back or wait for the little bumpy wagon ride and go pay for the size tree we picked. This got more fun once my brother's daughter Aaliyah was old enough to come along. They offer horse rides and have a fun Christmas Sleigh you can take pictures in and so while we would wait on dad to pay for the tree Aaliyah got to ride the horse and we would take turns having our picture taken in the sleigh together and alone. It may seem like an awful long drive just to get a Christmas Tree, but I have very fond memories of driving all the way to the mountains as a family for that perfect tree.
I'm sure I could think of a few more traditions but these are three that really stand out in my mind the most and therefore are probably the only really important ones :-) lol. Christmas has never been my favorite Holiday but I have never missed a Christmas with my family and I'm so very excited to be able to go back home this year and see them. One thing I hate about growing up, is that everyone who gets married and moves away is gone come Christmas and we don't get to share in the excitement of Christmas morning together anymore. Hopefully though, a few of these family traditions are getting passed down now that everyone else has kids :-)
1 Share The Love:
I love the nativity tradition I'll have to add that to our FHE when we read about Christ's birth
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