Recently, we asked our Facebook friends to share their cherished Christmas traditions – you know, the ones “it just wouldn’t be Christmas without.” From heartwarming to jolly, here are some of our favorites – is yours among them?
My husband bakes stollen every Christmas eve, for breakfast on Christmas day! We look forward to it all year! – Bonnie
My grandmother always made a Christmas date roll from a recipe handed down from her mother. When my grandmother could no longer make this traditional candy, she handed me her very old handwritten recipe. I make it every year for Christmas and once made it for our state fair. It won first place in its category and best of all candies. When I won those ribbons she had been gone only a couple of months. I still miss her. – Elizabeth
We have a yule log that our boys made in Jr. High with their youth group. It has a candle for each day starting with the first Sunday of Advent up to Christmas Day. As a family we light a candle each day and have devotions. Even though our boys are grown and have families of their own my husband and I continue on with this tradition. When the grandchildren come they take part in our nightly devotions and candle lighting.This is a big part of our family traditions. – Bobbi
We had a grandson pass away 5 yrs. ago from a severe congenital heart defect. Every year at Christmas, my daughter & I and other grandsons make a huge basket of Christmas cookies for the staff of the Cardiac Care Unit at Cincinnati Children’s Medical Center where little Lincoln spent most of his life. – Linda
Growing up, my family did not have any special family traditions, so I wanted to change that when I had a family of my own. Besides baking and decorating cookies and watching Christmas programs, I think our fondest tradition was decorating the Christmas tree. Christmas music played in the background and we had all sorts of party snack foods for supper and sometimes a punch bowl too. It was fun unpacking the ornaments and remembering who made them or where they came from. (Most of ours are not store bought) Then turning off all the lights and just marveling at how beautiful the tree looked. Now that our girls are no longer at home and one has children of her own, our traditions are growing and like the Christmas tree… more beautiful year upon year because of the memories that we built together as a family. – JL
My kiddos and I make a different type of cookie every day. We then go around and pass out bags of cookies to people. It could be neighbors or family or anyone they want to share with. My mom did this with me growing up. I loved the time with her and baking items. I love seeing the smiles on people’s faces when the kiddos hand them a gift. – Carrine
A fun Christmas tradition of my family’s is the Christmas Eve phone call from Santa Claus, to all the Children in our family. Santa’s bells are ringing in the background as he tells each child by name, that they need to go to bed now, so he can bring them their presents. Santa mentions something personal to each child & of course they are all amazed by this! -Tara
One of our favorite traditions is going to a Christmas tree farm and picking out our tree, the whole family gets involved and its always fun to hear the reasons why one tree is better than another! -Anne
Starting the day after thanksgiving I wrap up all of our Christmas children’s books and each night the kids pick one to unwrap and read before bed! – Becky
We make snowman pancakes for dinner the weekend before Christmas with chocolate chip eyes and buttons and a bacon scarf with some powdered sugar snow. – Sarah
Every Christmas Eve we participate in a nativity play at church and after, share homemade tamales with church family. It’s a sweet tradition we adore! – Cynthia
Fudge and the ultimate power of doling it out one manicured plate at a time. I do it just as ruthlessly as my Grandma did. – Amy
After church on Christmas Eve, we don’t use any electric(ity) and get the candles out. – Ashley
I’m giving my grandchildren 25 books. They are the true meaning of the season, all the classic Christmas stories, and nice books about sharing and caring. They get to open one a night, starting December 1st, till the 25th. Grandpa and I wrote a special note on each wrapped book. We love that. – Kim
We have chicken noodle soup on Christmas Eve! – Gwen
