Well, we don’t have a lot of Christmas traditions at the Dunbar household quite yet. We are usually traveling to and from my family in PA to Reid’s family in Texas. So I am thinking next year we may have to stay home and have everyone come to us. Then we can have start having some legitimate holiday traditions.
One thing Reid and I have done since we were dating is to give each other an ornament that signified something we did that year. One year we went on a sailing trip in Australia and so he got a sailboat themed ornament. Hopefully, this way we will have a tree full of ornaments one day that we can then reminisce about our more adventurous days. Oh, and we always put the date on it somewhere so when we get old (like now ☺) we can remember when we were doing all these fun things. We also do this for the boys.
This year, thanks to Ashley’s suggestion, we actually went out and did the choose and cut your tree. We drove to Vale, NC and it was a nice little trip to the tree farm. It was only about an hour and fifteen minutes. The only problem was that there weren’t any of your traditional Christmas trees left. The people there were as nice as could be though. It was probably more our fault since we went a bit late. So our tree is a little bit Charlie Brown and none of my heavier ornaments will stay on there. Oh well, the boys loved going with Daddy to go cut down a tree! So we’ll have to see if this will become a family tradition.
Other than that we just hang out with our families and listen to Christmas music. My family always does a big Christmas Eve party and everyone gets to open one gift that evening. We usually eat big, drink lots and be merry! No seriously, we are so fortunate this year to have family nearby that will make traveling much less stressful. Reid and I also like to make some mean cappuccinos for us on Christmas morning in our Christmas cappuccino bowls.
Previously, the boys have been a little too young to do a lot but this year has been so much fun. We have taken them to see lights and drive around singing Christmas music. We saw the live Nativity at Quail Hollow Presbyterian Church which is a must-do every year from now on. We will see the Bears this week. We did see Santa at Black Lion on Saturday which will definitely be a must do every year – way better than a mall santa. They really did a fabulous job. We plan to go to McAdenville and that will probably be about it for us this year. We would love to hear about your family traditions. Happy Holidays!
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Dana, my twin boys are similar age and we LOVED the lights and activites at Daniel Stowe Bontanical Garden. Will be a tradition for us for sure. We also liked Santa Train in Spencer, NC and the lights and santa at the Sherwood Forest neighborhood (we’ve been driving by each night).
Thanks for the suggestions Heather! I actually forgot about Daniel Stowe Gardens so we may head out this week to do that. We love it during the summer so I would really like to see what they have done for the holidays. Hope to see you around. I actually met your husband and your adorable boys at SB park one day. We are right behind you in Beverly Woods. Have a great weekend!
Does anyone have any traditions that emphasize the true meaning of Christmas? I really want to help my children understand there is so much more to celebrate than just Santa and toys. Would love new ideas!
We started a new tradition TODAY actually that I think is going to stick. Instead of making cookies for Santa, we made some Christmas confetti cupcakes (red and green sprinkles in the batter; made by Pillsbury) and then decorated them with a green iciing and sprinkles kit (also made by Pillsbury) and sparkle gel. The speical part, however, is that we’re going to leave one for Santa and we’re going to use the rest to have a Happy Birthday Jesus party when we’ll read The Christmas Story and my children will follow-along by playing with their Playmobil Nativity kit as the story is being read. My children (ages 4 and 2) have been practicing singing the Happy Birthday song all week long. Also, another thing is that our family (whoever is in town that particular year) has dressed up and performed a Live Nativity in the past (sometimes we even have a real baby for Jesus; it’s very make-shift but half the fun is trying to come up with the props and costumes; for example, we use a toy rocking horse as the donkey)….now my four year old loves trying to figure out which “part” he wants to play each year. Finally, I did have a “Happy Birthday Jesus” party last year for my then 3 yr. old and we had cupcakes and read the Christmas Story and each guest got to choose the figurine of the character they wanted to be so that when their part was up, they added their figurine to the Nativity scene. Hopefully these couple of ideas might help you emphasize the real meaning of Christmas.