Family Christmas Holiday Tradition gives us freedom and guidance in a period that’s otherwise hectic and stressful, and often unorganized. Tradition gives us a blueprint of how our family anticipates and loves the holiday season, what they expect, how they love to celebrate.
Tradition gives us the opportunity to construct our Christmas holiday activities well in advance. We are able to prepare an idea of action, and organize our holiday events utilizing a true and proven site map. That will take off stress from eleventh hour activities, e.g., the frantic search for needed holiday decor, or the headache of discovering the best holiday menu.
But what shall we do, if our family does not need a Christmas holiday tradition yet? Simply, we create our personal tradition. Let’s open the music box of our personal childhood memories. That which was it that made Christmas holidays so special? Was it the heavenly scent of cinnamon, orange and fir, all woven in to the air in a potpourri of Christmas promise? Or do we remember mother’s Christmas story at candlelight? Was it the holiday music that touched our heart? With our personal Christmas holiday memories in mind, let’s manifest our personal family Christmas tradition! Listed below are twelve ways!
1. Build the excitement and joy up in your and your family’s heart. Start by decorating your home to invite Christmas promise into your family’s life. My mother used to decorate every picture inside our home with a little fresh and wonderfully smelling fir twig. Whenever we saw that mother was get yourself ready for christmas, excitement developed inside our lives.
2. On December 1st, we brought in a fir wreath with four candles. Often three of those candles were purple what you need to know about the Christmas holidays, but one was pink. Living through the initial fourteen days, we children were eagerly looking towards the 3rd Sunday when the pink candle of Joy and anticipation was lit.
3. Needless to say, we’d an Advent calendar and among us was allowed to open a window each day. This meant that people children visited great length to ensure that we were good kids – clearing up our rooms, removing the trash, washing the dishes, etc. – so each of us got a turn to open a window.
4. It had been custom that the Madonna statue was carried from house to accommodate in memory of Maria’s search well for a place to provide birth to her child. So when it absolutely was our turn to open our family door and heart to Maria, our mother would bathe the room in warm, gentle candle light. We sang the old carols and prayed. It had been an honor to support the statue for one night, and every family tried to prepare a special welcome.
5. On the 4th of December, mom would make St. Barbara twigs from the garden. These cherry twigs, now brown and barren, will open their blossoms in the holy night. We watched the Barbara twigs carefully everyday with excitement and wonder. Because out of the seemingly dead brown twigs, soon little green leaves would develop in the warm family room.
6. The 6th of December was St. Nicolas Day. That was each day of joy for children. In the window we’d look for a red crackling plastic sack with apples, mandarins, nuts and chocolate. In our family it absolutely was also tradition that St. Nicolas would visit in person. I recall one special visit, when St. Nicolas admonished my little brother who had been very bad in my experience at the time. The little guy did not know that anyone would know – especially not St. Nicolas, the old wise man with the sparkling eyes and the long white beard, who supposedly came directly from heaven into our home. From that day one, my little brother did not bother me ever again. I suppose he learned his lesson.
This ends Part I of our Family Christmas Holiday Traditions. Make sure you read Part II also. We’ll discuss the traditional Christmas celebration, share a lovely and moving Christmas story, and much more.
When Christmas holiday draws near, don’t let yourself be burdened by stressful eleventh hour holiday preparations. Follow your own time proven family holiday tradition – and if you don’t have a vacation tradition yet, manifest your own personal! Utilize a number of the suggestions I shared with you from our personal family Christmas holiday tradition.