Happy Holidays, friends! I'm so excited to introduce to you a festive holiday campaign that SuperMom Central and its readers (that's you!) have been invited to participate in. We're talking 5 days of awesome holiday tips, recipes, ideas, discussions and PRIZES!
It's the Nestle Family Holiday Exchange and I sincerely hope you'll join me in sharing all the best things about the holiday season - traditions, crafts, gift-giving, food & recipes, entertaining and more!
Our first holiday discussion is sponsored by Stouffer's, Ovaltine, Rainsinets and Edy's/Dreyer's - sounds like the makings of a YUMMY giveaway, right? Here's the prize and how to enter:
YOU COULD WIN: A Family Holiday Movie Night Package including “A Christmas Story” Collector’s Edition DVD, a family size dinner from Stouffer's Dreyer's/Edy's ice cream cups, 3-flavor pack of Ovaltine and Raisinets.
HOW TO ENTER: Easy-peasy! Just post a comment answering the topic of today's holiday discussion:
What are some of your favorite holiday traditions? Have any of those been passed down for generations? How about ideas for creating new family traditions?
My family's holidays have always been rich in tradition; from carolling through the neighborhood to dressing up and reenacting the Bible story to Christmas Eve pajamas - and I look forward to every single one! Here, let me show you...
This is my sister Lynsey and I, dressed respectively as Mary and an angel (yes, that's a sheet I'm wearing and yes, there's a pillow stuffed under her bathrobe!). Now flash foward about 25 years to last December, with my own two little ones, Merrick and Gabby, ready for their own pageant...
There is something truly precious to me about passing on to my children the traditions I hold most dear, in hopes that they'll feel the warmth in their hearts that these experiences give me.
I'm very excited to start new traditions with my little ones as well! There will be homemade decorations to craft and delicious new recipes to try (I'm particularly looking forward to whipping up a batch of these Brownie Bites Sundaes I found at the Nestle Family Holiday site - they've got soooo many yummy ideas!)
I'm very excited to start new traditions with my little ones as well! There will be homemade decorations to craft and delicious new recipes to try (I'm particularly looking forward to whipping up a batch of these Brownie Bites Sundaes I found at the Nestle Family Holiday site - they've got soooo many yummy ideas!)
We've also decided to countdown the 12 days 'til Christmas by traveling around the world - at our own kitchen table! Each night we'll choose a country, learn about how they celebrate the holidays and try out a few of their traditions. Here's a peak at some of the activities we'll be doing-
Holland: We'll be filling our shoes with hay and sugar for Sinterklauss's horse, in hopes that he will leave behind a special treat when he visits in the night.
Iraq: We'll be reading the Christmas story by candlelight, then building a bonfire and singing carols. When the fire dies, each person will jump over the ashes 3 times and makes a wish.
Argentina: We'll be taking an evening stroll around the neighborhood with our suitcases in tow, in hopes of bringing good luck in our travels for the new year.
Now it's your turn to share!
What are some of your favorite holiday traditions? Have any of those been passed down for generations? How about ideas for creating new family traditions?
***A little hint: There will be five sponsored Nestle Family Holiday Exchange posts/giveaways here at SuperMom Central - the last one will include a $100 Visa gift card and the only way to win is to participate in all five holiday discussions, so be sure to leave a friendly comment on each of these festive posts!
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56 comments:
I love family traditions of any kind and make a big deal out of having traditions special in our little family. Every year we make come kind of candy/chocolates together. The girls always help with the chocolate dipped pretzels...they're in charge of the sprinkles. We do a ginger bread house and get jammies on Christmas Eve. I try to give them at least one handmade gift each year. We always go see lights in some form. We have also started baking cookies for Santa the afternoon of Christmas Eve. And of course we have traditions with our extended families as well. This is making me realize that I really need to get cracking on our holiday traditions! Christmas is almost here!
I think my favorite tradition is taking Trax downtown to see the lights on Temple Square and grabbing some hot cocoa afterwards.
We are a blended family and celebrate both holidays. To avoid the gluttony of gift overload at Hanukkah we exchange christmas ornaments only. It started with my parents giving my sister and I the same ornament each year with our name and year that the ornament was given written on the bottom in silver ink. The idea was so that when we grew up, got married and moved away we would have the same xmas tree no matter where we were. When we took our ornaments we started giving ornaments to our parents as gifts each year so their tree wasn't bear. Now that my sister and I each have our own children we continue the tradition with them. My kids love unwrapping the ornaments each year and looking to see whose they are and what year they were given. It has created a wonderful holiday tradition for us.
Lady of Perpetual Chaos - Sounds so delish! And I love that your little girls get in on the sprinkles - we're definitely going to add this to our Christmas treat-making this year. Thanks for sharing!
Steph - Oh those beautiful lights. We love that too! Maybe we should go together....:)
Miss Magpie - Blended families can sometimes present challenges at the holidays - after my parents split and remarried we had to work extra hard to re-make traditions and not step on toes. Sounds like you're doing a great job!I love the ornament idea - what a sweet way to fill your tree with memories!
One thing we love doing is acting out the Christmas story as a family on Christmas Eve. This is something my family did when I was a kid and something I love doing with my kiddos.
Love your ideas Lauren!! You and Lynsey are still adorable!
We have a great tradition that is 14 years old. One year we decided to make an advent calendar–however we were broke. So we took some Christmas cards and made a calendar on poster board. Now the kids write their initials on paper & we randomly put them over the cards. Then as those days go by the kids take their papers off & on the last one it is Christmas morning–time for celebrating!
LOVE your Holidays around the world! What a neat idea.
As you know (Thanks for stopping by!), we love our Nutcracker and tree Cutting traditions. Net year my littlest will be going with us to the ballet so I'm super stoked about that. :)
No family traditions other than going to church on Xmas eve.
Flyergal82 at yahoo dot com
The kids and I make divinity and fudge together in December, just like my dad and I did when I was a kid.
bebemiqui82(at)yahoo(dot)com
What are some of your favorite holiday traditions? My father used to give each of us kids a special ornament each christmas so that our trees when we had our own families would be special. He's gone now, but I really treasure those.
Have any of those been passed down for generations? No
How about ideas for creating new family traditions? I have picked up where he left off and give my neices and nephews a special ornament every year in memory of my dad.
baazinga9 at yahoo dot com
We love going to our town's Christmas stroll, hunting for Christmas trees, and driving around town looking at the lights.
betsy_349 at hotmail dot com
I remember helping my mom decorate the christmas tree every year and hanging candy canes on the tree and leaving milk and cookies out for santa which my daughter will be doing on christmas eve to
nicolemb2010 at yahoo dot com
My nieces and I love to decorate gingerbread houses together! tracietrump@yahoo.com
One of my favorite holiday traditions is going to my grandma's with my mother and cousins and we bake alllll kinds of cookies. I like that our family still gets together for every holiday. Once I have a baby, I would like to begin adding traditions that me and the hubby can start.
vschilke at gmail dot com
Our tradition is to hide one present for each child somewhere in the house and then leave them a trail of clues to take them all around the house to find it. Even my grown son loves that one. I like it because it's usually that big present that is impossible to wrap!
I wrap up all our kids Christmas books and they take turns unwrapping one of them every night. It makes reading time a little more exciting when they don't know what book they will get to read.
Elf on the shelf! He brings christmas pop-up books on Dec 6th every year!
Growing up, our Christmas Tradition was to eat lasagna then go bowling. No $$$ for gifts, and I think it was $1 for unlimited bowling (this was a long time ago!). So for six bucks, we had hours of family fun.
susitravl(at)gmail(dot)com
Our family tradition is my daughter and I make Chocolate covered Peanut Butter Balls the week before Christmas Eve. We buy pretty containers then deliver them to our friends and neighbors.
On Christams Eve we attned the midnight mass.
tamben7996(at)aol(dot)com
we like opening a gift on Christmas eve - usually something fun to do as a family like a new game that we can play right away
Our favourite Christmas Eve tradition is a dinner of simple Shepherd's Pie and bread. Perhaps a dinner the shepherd's watching their flocks would've eaten and then Midnight Mass.
This has been our tradition since the birth of our daughter 18 years ago.
Merry Christmas!
Terri (GeorgiaMist)
outofthemist AT gmail DOT com
Some of my favorite Christmas traditions were started since I've been married. I love picking out our Christmas tree together, doing an advent calendar with the kids and participating in a cookie exchange. Something new I'd like to start this year is celebrating Jesus's birthday with a birthday party....cake, games, etc. I hope that it will help put the focus on the reason for the season in a way my little ones will understand :-)
khmorgan_00 [at] yahoo [dot] com
I am not sure if one would call this a family tradition :)...but I live out of state from my mom/sis/family
etc. Each year my husband,kids and I go home to celebrate Christmas with them...this is sooo precious to me
thanks for the giveaway
aunteegem@yahoo.com
My favorite holiday traditions are decorating the tree as a family, baking holiday cookies, and listening to Christmas songs! We always have the kids open one present on Christmas Eve, and the rest they open a little TOO early the next morning!
Cassie
cjm92995@yahoo.com
Each year, we select two children - the same age and gender of our own - and buy gifts for them. Because they can relate to these other children so much in terms of age/gender, it really makes our children think about how important it is to give to others :)
lesleymitchell52@yahoo.com
Favorite traditions: our family Christmas party. Been going as long as I can remember! Used to be on Christmas Eve, but has since been changed due to conflict of family gatherings.
The above tradition has been passed on to include my extending and growing family. There was a time I was one of the children!
We have created the new tradition of reading the Christmas story before opening any gifts on Christmas morning. In addition, we have scaled down gifts to two gifts per children.
email: christin @ joyfulmothering.net
Our family tradition is that we all get together on Christmas Eve to eat~have fun and open presents! We usually have a visit from Santa and it looks like he is going to stop again this year!
deb55106{at}gmail{dot}com
Our family tradition is that we always make some type of holiday cookie on Christmas Eve. Christmas Eve is a time for us to relax and enjoy the season. We also play games and drink eggnog. So much fun :)! As for making a new tradition, I think we will pick one new ornament for the year. We are starting this new tradition this year. The new ornament doesn't have to be "brand new"; it can be an antique. Just new to us. Thanks!
romapup at gmail dot com
Every year, we let the children open up the gifts they have purchased each other. It's a lot of fun.
rosanova_family@comcast.net
Taking part in the church's Christmas program is one. My daughter even has lines this year for the first time to say, so she is excited.
We also always make cut-out cookies and frost them with white chocolate.
We have a tradition of attending the Nutcracker Ballet every early December to kick off the holiday season, my kids look forward to it all year!
When we lived in NJ our family tradition was to go to NYC to see the Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center. We know longer live in the northeast, so we go to a local farm that offers a hayride and a holiday light display.
mami2jcn at gmail dot com
Our favorite Christmas tradition is making the frozen cherry loaf. It's the one thing we all look forward to each year!
valkayries at yahoo dot com
We always do the pajama gift on Christmas Eve and we go see the lights.
I make Pajamas for the kids that they get to open Christmas Eve. We perform the nativity with the cousins every year!
I make pajams for the kiddos every year and they open them Christmas Eve
I love our christmas program on Christmas Eve and the cinnamon rolls we eat Christmas Morning. YUM!
flutiefan(at)hotmail(dot)com
We always visit family on Christmas on eve and then attend midnight mass.
We have a tradition of lighting our Advent wreath every morning. Since we homeschool we try to learn about Christmas in different countries every year, and this year we are learning about Mexico. The kids want to make a pinata, but I think it is too late at this point to do something that messy!
ajolly1456 at gmail dot com
On the night before Dec 6 we put our socks out by our bed for Nicke Larson, a little german elf who sneaks through the keyhole and puts treats in our socks.
One of my favorite holiday traditions is to drive around a look at lights on houses.
We like to stay up late Christmas Eve drinking cocoa and playing board games... and waiting for the kids to fall asleep. :)
My favorite tradition growing up was opening gifts on Christmas Eve (and then more the next morning)--I know my mom's family did it that way, and I plan to continue the tradition!
eemoody77 at gmail dot com
We always opened our gifts on Christmas Eve after the reading of the Christmas Story from the Bible. On Christmas Day we would have a big meal. Cookie baking was also a part of our tradition and we gave cookies to everyone in the family. joycemlinek@yahoo.com
My favorite family tradition is to go pick out a Christmas tree and have the girls help me decorate it.
we dont have many Christmas traditions but we always hold hands and say a prayer before our family feast
pedidentalasst at yahoo dot com
My great grandma would enlist me to help her secretly sew bells into family member's clothing etc. Sometimes it would be days before they would figure out where the ringing was coming from LOL.
for present traditions-We usually do an advent calendar, I have made a few. contestd(at)hotmaildotcom
My favorite holiday tradition is taking the train downtown to look at the Christmas lights and window decorations!
copperbliss at hotmail dot com
Love that photo of you and Lynsey!! :) One of my favorite traditions is pj's on Christmas Eve!
skrpbkmom at yahoo dot com
I love that cute childhood photo!
One of our traditions is to put a fire in the fireplace and sing and decorate the tree all together on christmas eve.
My Favorite tradition is Matching pajamas for all the cousins. They are all so cute!
We always watch the Macys thanksgiving parade on thanksgiving and the walt disney parade on christmas and drink hot cocoa and then watch a christmas story
tbarrettno1 at gmail dot com
Our tradition is an all night cookie baking sessin and listening to Christmas Music!
lmkay630@gmail.com
When I was younger, my favorite holiday tradition was going to my parents house to celebrate. Now, that's not possible. With my kids, we enjoy decorating sugar cookies together and I also like taking them to holiday musical performances (such as Handel's "Messiah" and Trans-Siberian Orchestra's Christmas Show).
A tradition in recent years has been going to my sister's house on Christmas (where we open a few more gifts). For lunch/dinner, she usually makes some amazingly delicious vegetable soup to go along with our meal. Also, every year we usually have a huge family gathering/get-together/dinner with extended family a few days before Christmas so we can celebrate with everyone.
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