Christmas Eve is finally here and many of us have been getting things ready for the holiday over the past few weeks. My holiday preparations start immediately after Thanksgiving and for the most part are done a few days before Christmas.
I love the Christmas holiday so I’m always excited to plan out a dinner menu with family favorites, design a new holiday tablescape, decorate the inside and outside of my home, work on various holiday craft projects, etc. As the holiday approaches I get really excited!
Today I wanted to talk about Christmas Eve traditions! Do you have any and what are they? How long have you been doing them?
When our daughter was little we started our family holiday traditions and now that we’re grandparents…they continue! On Christmas Eve my husband reads 2 Christmas books to the grandchildren which they enjoy. Every year on Christmas Eve we give them one small wrapped gift and 2 new Christmas Tree ornaments. I buy each of them 1 ornament that reminds me of something they like or did that past year and I make each of them a homemade ornament to go along with it. We sit down to watch the Night Before Christmas on DVD (TV) and snack on homemade cookies and hot cocoa. Right before they leave our home for the night we sprinkle homemade Reindeer Food out in the front yard for Santa’s reindeer. We send them home with a plate of homemade cookies to put out for Santa before they head to bed. Wow, that’s a lot!
Once everything is done I try to get into bed no later than 11 PM so that I have enough energy to attend sunrise Mass at church in the morning and get through the long Christmas day.
So let’s hear it! What kind of Christmas Eve traditions do you have? Did you have any as a child that you continue now as an adult? I would love to hear about them! Merry Christmas Eve to everyone!!!
You have great traditions. When my kids were young we would finish decorating the Christmas tree and the kids could open one small gift.
Around our house, Christmas Eve meant going to our Grandparents’ house. I usually got whatever the hot new doll was, lol. My brother almost always wanted something related to toy cars.
When my brothers kids were little we all arrived at his home to spend christmas eve together.We opened gifts, ate and laughed a lot. We still go to my brothers home but his girls are grown with kids of their own.
I love your traditions Shelly! We also spend weeks building up to the Christmas season. Christmas Eve for us is just as special as Christmas Day itself. We always take the time to have dinner with my mother, just my husband my mother and myself. It is a wonderful tradition and although it is a small thing, it is something very special to us.