Christmas Traditions

Because both of us work during the week up until the last possible day before Christmas Eve, it's sort of hard for us to get Christmas-y since we're more concerned with the end of the semester at school (any teachers or parents with school-aged kids could probably tell you the same).  Since this is the case, a few years back we decided to do Sunday Christmas traditions.  This means we take one or two Christmas activities that we want to make sure we do and try to squeeze them in on a Sunday during the month of December.  Since it seems that it's the only time that we have time, it works out great!

Since this was Christmas #3 for us as a married couple, we have a pretty good idea of what activity goes on which weekend.  Normally we try to add a tradition each year, but it's been getting kind of full lately!  Luckily, Thanksgiving was early this year, so we had an extra Sunday for traditions.  Here's what we did this year:

1. First Sunday after Thanksgiving (no matter if it's still in November!) we decorate the house for Christmas.  This year we decorated on November 25th!  We really do love having out our Christmas/winter decorations and seeing the house in all its Christmas splendor.  It doesn't hurt that we have a ton of Christmas decorations, so we can vary the details from year to year.  We always put on Christ-centered Christmas music while we work, too.
2. We always try to go to the Nativity open-house and Luminary walk, which is always the first weekend in December.  Check out my birthday post for more details on this one.  This was December 1st.
3. The Sunday after the nativity/luminary walk is Christmas card writing.  This year (December 2nd) it didn't take long at all!  I had them done in just one or two hours!  The hardest part is compiling all the addresses from relatives that have moved, etc.  I smartened up and saved our list this year.  I don't know why I didn't do that before!  I like sending the card early because I feel like I'll forget if we send them later in the month.  Like I mentioned in the last post...the closer it gets to Christmas, the busier it seems to be, so the more likely I am to neglect the cards!

   

   Writing out Christmas cards...

   

   Kyle always draws a picture and sends a funny message in the card for his childhood friend, Zach.  I don't usually get the humor, but if it makes both of them happy, then great!  I think most of the pictures/quotes are from a TV show they watched when they were kids together.  I could be wrong, though. 

4. The next Sunday (December 9th) we tried to bake Christmas cookies.  I say tried because for the third year in a row, we failed.  Three years ago we had good sugar cookies but our icing flopped.  Last year we bought the icing ahead of time, prepared to not have the same mistake happen twice.  Then we ended up somehow making sugar crackers instead of sugar cookies.  This year we tried a completely different recipe from my mother-in-law.  The mint cookies didn't work, either.  I'm not sure what's going on!  I've made perfectly good cookies before, but over the last year all my cookies have been a complete failure.  I'm pretty sure we'll try the mint cookies next year, but if it's another fail, we're going to nix this tradition.
5. December 16th was the day we watched Christmas movies.  We've got plenty to choose from, but the one I remember that we had to watch twice this year was The Nightmare Before Christmas.  I don't even really like that movie that much, but Kyle does, so we watched it twice.  I guess he doesn't beg to drag it out the rest of the year, so I can put up with it twice during the Christmas season.

Usually this takes us right up to the Sunday before Christmas, but we had an extra week in there, which worked out great since we spent the last weekend before Christmas in Indy with Kyle's family. 

We decided early on in our marriage that we'd spend Christmas Day at home.  Pretty much with family spread out in two separate directions, it'd be pretty easy to not be home on Christmas Day.  Especially when we have kids, I don't want this to happen!  As of right now, we sleep in as late as we want on Christmas, make an awesome breakfast (usually expensive bacon and cinnamon rolls with orange juice) and open our presents to each other and for our kitties.  It's a great day to spend with those who matter most :)

Once we have kids, I'm sure we'll figure out plenty more traditions to do, too!  Anyone have any they'd like to share?