Holiday Traditions
I think the thing that makes the holiday season so special is tradition and the opportunity to make new ones year after year. This will be the first Christmas I don’t spend in my childhood home in Connecticut in 30 years. I really can’t believe it and while it makes me incredibly sad, I am also looking forward to taking the things I love about holidays past and making them new.
Most of our traditions are pretty standard, but that’s okay. Traditions don’t have to be grand or highly individual to be special. I will miss our beach walk this year and I will so deeply miss lining our street with luminarias. That’s probably my favorite tradition and memory of all time. But I’d like to find some way to honor the tradition until we live in a neighborhood where I can continue it here!
Gingerbread Houses
My best friend from high school theatre and I usually do this together each year, but she moved to the UK! We’re gonna try and do something virtual this year but I also got some for Nick and I to build. We usually put on the claymation movies to have in the background.
Festive Coffee and Driving Around to Look at Lights
We started this tradition in 2020 and it became one of my favorite date nights. We don’t do it as frequently as we did that fateful year, but we do make time for it one evening in December now. I love getting a decaf peppermint mocha and Nick usually gets a pumpkin spice latte!
Visiting the Tree Farm
I didn’t grow up going to a tree farm but Nick did and now we go to the one where he went as a kid! It’s so cute and I just love the smell. We don’t do a real tree since we’re still renting, but hopefully next year will be the year!
Grilled Cheese and Tomato Soup for Christmas Eve Lunch
This has been a tradition as long as I can remember. My mom used to send us outside to help the dads do the “bags” aka paper bags with sand and an 18 hour candle for the luminarias. Some years, it was so good that we couldn’t feel our fingers and we’d come back inside to warm up with mugs of tomato soup and grilled cheese. As an adult, I realize this was probably because it was easy to through together and keep us out from under foot. But we kept doing it and now it’s not Christmas without this lunch!
Christmas Morning Walk
This started as a way to clean up the luminarias from the night before but now it’s a nice and fresh way to start a quiet day. And now we have Beasley, who loves all the attention she gets from fellow walkers.
Jolabokaflod
The Icelandic tradition to give books on Christmas Eve! I started doing for my family last year but Nick’s family always had a book gifted to them on Christmas Eve with their new pajamas. The tradition is to give everyone a book and some kind of chocolate. Then you spend the rest of the night reading and enjoying your sweet treat, falling asleep in the coziest way with the twinkle lights and warm blankets.
Wrapping Presents with White Christmas
When I was a kid, my parents would go to a big Christmas party one Friday in December every year. I’d use that night to wrap all my presents! I always put on White Christmas and I’ve kept it up. Nick takes a business trip in December every year now and that is my present wrapping night!
Watching It’s a Wonderful Life
I remember this movie feeling like it was 20 hours long as a kid and now, it’s so special to me. It’s my dad’s favorite movie but when I moved in NYC, my first job as in “It’s a Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play” so it’s extra special to me now.
Rewatching the Christmas Episodes of The Office
They are just the best. I also usually watch the Lizzie McGuire ones, Even Stevens, and That’s So Raven, and Boy Meets World.
Send Christmas Cards
I have a basket by our front door where I collect all the Christmas cards we get and I love to go through them on the 23rd. We also send out our own!
Some Kind of Homemade Gift
Giving gifts can be stressful, especially if your budget is tight, so i always like to have some kind of thoughtful affordable gift to bring with us as hostess gifts to holiday parties and give to friends. This year i’m thinking of doing homemade simmer pot ingredients and instructions or mini gingerbread house mug huggers.
I would LOVE to know your favorite traditions! I’m always looking for more to add to our season.