Fun Christmas Traditions and Recipes

We have a manger (you can use a box or whatever you have) and we put one piece of straw or raffia in it for each good deed we do for another. This is done without recognition. When you do the deed, you put a piece in and it can remain anonymous. The goal is to have the manger full by Christmas Eve so it is ready to put the baby Jesus in. It's a good way to teach children service, and remind them of the reason for the season throughout the whole month. We also have each member choose and ornament that was significant of the year. We eat chili and corn bread on Christmas Eve, and a build your own crepe bar for Christmas breakfast.My husband's family has a Bethlehem Dinner a few weeks before Christmas. They reenact the dinner in robes with typical foods of the time, figs, unleavened bread, fish..., and a narrative. I could get it to you if you want. Again a great teaching tool for the kids. Merry Christmas!

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One of the fun things we do every year is we have 25 christmas books I wrap each one separetly and then put them in a big basket. Each night before bed I have one of the kids pick one and unwrap it then we read it. The kids love it!

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Hi L.! We have tons of Christmas traditions in our family, they are all a culmination of things my husbands and my family did when we were growing up. Last year we also started the tradition of "adopting" a family with children for the holidays. We contacted our Social Service department and they gave us a family with their childrens Santa lists and we bought them some things. I know this can be financially straining and this year it was hard for us to do this, so instead we went to the store and had our daughters pick out 2 toys each to give to the toy drive. They loved giving the gifts and they picked some things that they wanted themselves to offer to others, which I thought was fantastic.
The other traditions start on Christmas Eve. We each open two presents, one is an ornament that is symbolic of the year we just experienced and the other is a nice set of new jammies. Afterward, we load the kids up in the car, in jammies of course,with a thermos of hot chocolate and go look at lights. Christmas morning we all gather first in the kitchen first, no peeking, and make our snacks for the day. We do a sour cream coffee cake, melted brie with honey and almonds, and some meat and bread snacks. Christmas lasts all day, each present that is opened is played with before we move on to the next gift. The evening is again a gathering in the kitchen to help mommy cook.
If you would like the coffee cake or brie recipe contact me through mama source and I will give them to you. Merry Christmas to you and your family!!!

Every year we: Choose a couple kids in need to help with sub for santa programs and purchase gifts for them. On Christmas Eve we have a "birthday party for Jesus" so we can help our family focus on the reason for the holiday. We eat cake and we each give him gifts (which are like new year's resolutions, but to be more Christlike or help others). For example, last year my son's gift to Jesus was to help Mom set the table every night-and then he did, without complaining most of the time, because it was his "present." We read Luke 2 and sometimes act it out. We eat turkey for a late afternoon meal, then junk food in the evening. Makes for a lovely holiday.

Every year my family would open one present Christmas Eve & it was usually a pair of PJ's. Then we'd all wear our pajamas & sit around the tree with a cup of hot chocolate. That's one I will continue with my own family :)

One of the greatest & most selfless things I've heard is done each year is a family that spends most of December making jam for others. Every Christmas, they take all the money they would have used on their own Christmas & give it to those in need. Then they go Christmas caroling & deliver the jam to friends & families on Christmas Eve. I don't know if that will happen with little kids around, but I hope to do that one day.

Merry Christmas!!!

I have a great egg bake recipe. It takes a lot of eggs and cheese. You brown sausage, or bacon, and put it to the side. Break 12 eggs into a 9 by 13 pan put a pound of mazzeralla, a 16 oz of chottage cheese, one small can of sliced olives, onions and a pound of chedder cheese in with the eggs. Stir until mixed. Cook for 1/2 hour at 375. Keep checking it. sprinkle with some of the chedder cheese before serving.
It should be a little brown on top. Check it like you do a cake. I always use small curd cottage cheese but whole cheese for the cheddar and Mazzeralla. Good luck!!!

this year, my daughter is 4 and really able to understand things. While I hope to portray the true meaning of christmas, we also have Santa in our home.
Last year we made a gingerbread house, this will be a tradition in my home now.
Pj's on Christmas eve will be a tradition.
One we will start this year will be Majic Reindeer Dust. You mix oatmeal with glitter and put it on your driveway each year. "sprinkle this majic reindeer dust on your driveway christmas eve. this special dust is made of glitter and oatmeal. The glitter, sparkling in the moonlight, and the smell of the oats will help to guide Rudolph right to your house." (this will be part of my neighbor christmas gifts this year!)

We have this every year on Christmas morning. We make it the night before and put it in the oven in the morning. It is really good.

INGREDIENTS
1 pound ground pork breakfast sausage
2 cups shredded Cheddar cheese
2 cups milk
2 eggs
2 pounds tater tots

DIRECTIONS
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
Place sausage in a large, deep skillet. Cook over medium-high heat until evenly brown.
Drain, and spread evenly in the bottom of a 9x13 inch pan. Spread cheese over sausage.
In large bowl, beat together milk and eggs. Pour over cheese.
(May be refrigerated overnight at this point).Top with tater tots.
Bake in preheated oven for 35 to 45 minutes. Cool for 5 to 10 minutes before serving.

I have fund lots of fun things when I google Christmas. You can google Christmas programs coloring pages and things like that. Have fun Also try family fun.com and Ben and Jerry's(yes the ice cream) Hershey kisses .com may have things to

French Toast Casserole

12 Slices bread (Texas Toast or whole grain are good) cubed
8 oz. cream cheese
1 cup berries
12 eggs
1 c milk
1/2 c honey

grease 9x13 pan, spread 1/2 the bread on the bottom. Scatter berries and chunks of the cream cheese over bread. Top with remaining bread.
In a large bowl, beat eggs, milk , and honey. Pour over the bread. Cover and refrigerate overnight.
Pull in out and warm about 10 minutes, then bake, covered in 350 oven for 25 minutes.

1c sugar
2T cornstarch
1c water
1 cup berries
1T butter

Mix sugar and corn starch. Stir in water, heat to boiling, stirring constantly. when thickened, add berries, simmer 10 minutes. Remove from heat and stir in butter. Serve warm or cold over casserole.

My favorite tradition is we get a few new ornaments every year with the dates and names on it, sometimes at Hallmark other times I special order one with our names on it, other times I let the kids just pick out one at Target each one and put the date on the back. It is fun to pull them out every year and remember the time we got it and I have a lot even before my kids were born. I have my daughters first one, my son's, our family ones all with the dates on them. Every ornament with the exception of the balls has really special meaning. I even tell my mother in law now since my kids don't need a lot of toys to get us one to add to them and order us a new one. She thinks it is cool and easy to order from some place like Abbey Press or Personalized websites.

Then every year I go to Hobby Lobby and buy a ornament kit and we make a few each year to add to the collection. I figure when my kids are grown and have their own trees they will have a full set already and all the memories to go with it!!

Lastly a day or two before Christmas we get all the cookie stuff out, decorate and cut cookies and bake them for Santa (with a few missing obviously by children!!). We put out cookies and milk and carrots for Santa every year too.

Hi!

When the kids were small, my husband and I had sooo much fun on Christmas Eve. Before bed, I would put a candle in a container of play doh and read the Chrismas passage from Luke's gospel. We'd leave reindeer food and a plate for Santa. Santa puts the tinsel on the tree. Dad hid a pickle ornament in the tree and the kids would try to find it. Our nativity set has a "removable" baby Jesus. The girls would hide it on Christmas Eve for Santa to find and put in the manger (this got interesting as they got older and were "testing" the Santa theory). One year my husband left "reindeer tracks".

Christmas morning is usually quiche, fruit tart/pizza, quick breads ...

Merry Christmas!!!

L.

PS We still hide the pickle and every year we still attend a Christmas performance of some kind (Nutcracker, Scrooge, etc.) during the season. Also, now we stay up on Christmas Eve and watch multiple versions of A Christmas Carol.

L.,

My mom always makes this wonderful yummy holiday breakfast Quiche every year. If you're interested I will email you the recipe! I know not everyone likes Quiche though.

Another thing she makes is my Grandma's coffeecake! Coffee cakes are always a nice touch too & can be made a day or two before even!

Good Luck with your holiday season!
Merry Xmas!

I know you already replied but I LOVE Christmas! and I had to read these posts! I am gleaning as well.
some of the things we do for the season
Every year we all write down our feelings of Jesus and his love for us and it is framed and hung in the halway through out the year. Last years pages go in our Christmas book. It is so fun to go back through and read them and feel the love Jesus has for all of us.
We also make ornaments every year. most of our ornaments are home made.
We buy an ornament for each child and one for the family and make the rest, our host kids love that they get to keep their ornament and take it home with them since most don't come from places with Christmas as we have it.
The idea like others is to give our children a set of ornaments when they get married to start off their own tree if they want them. My dh has one ornament from when he was a child and I love that we have that.
we spend a few nights making between 12-20 ornaments and add them to the tree, finishing making ours just before thanksgiving so that on Friday after thanksgiving we can put up the tree with the new ornaments. (this year it went up a week early though I couldn't wait for a late thanksgiving!!)
we open all our presents on christmas eve except the santa gift and socks. then christmas morning is easy we have cinnamon rolls and eggnog (rich I know but it's once a year!!) and then we go visit grandparents and spend the day focused on families.
on Christmas eve we do a nice big ham dinner before we do our christmas program and open gifts. the first one opened is pajamas and everyone changes then we do the program and open our other presnts.

One of our Christmas traditions are to buy an ornament for each child each year and engrave or write with a permanent marker on the back their names and years then when they grow up and get married, they can have all of those Christmas ornaments.

I try to pick something they are into this year. For instance, my one daughter likes Tinkerbell, the other likes Hannah Montana, and it's our baby's first Christmas so we are going on that.

In my family my mom would make us pancakes Christmas morning and we would eat in our pj's after opening gifts. For Christmas Eve my mom makes her famous chili and we eat it at my grandfather's house. My husband's family does Chinese on Christmas Eve and cinnamon rolls Christmas morning (from the tube :) ). My MIL says it is to save time and energy for the big meal on Christmas Day. I love the new tradition!

Christmas morning breakfast for us is sweetrolls and Orange Smoothies

I buy the refrigerated sweet rolls, like Pillsbury (usually I get the store brand).

Orange Smoothies:
1 can frozen OJ
1/3 cup sugar
1/3 milk
1/2 cup water
1 T vanilla (more or less to taste)
about 8 icecubes

put everything but the ice in the blender and mix it up. Then add the ice and use the pulse or chop option to get the ice broken up nicely (or if you have a smoothie maker its even easier).

We serve the drink in tall thin glasses, just 'cause its so fun!

It is always fun to bake-- it is my tradition that i let the kids hang the ornaments where ever they want to (on the tree) -- then we try to watch the animated version of how the grinch stole christmas and the charlie brown christmas. It is important that we spend time together . Last year we adopted a family in need with the help of our church . They all pitched in and i put it all together and delivered it to the family . My older kids were kind of jealous that i put so much time and consideration to make sure each person in the family felt special. At the time of delivery they changed their minds and felt the goodness of giving to others. We also have a few elderly neighbors that we help w / christmas dinner . Good luck and god bless

my husband and i decided to take one of each of our own family traditions to keep and also come up with a new one to start ourselves. so, my hubby really liked taking drives with his family on xmas eve to look at lights, nice way to put them to sleep too! i really liked that each of us kids got to pick out a toy to give to a less fortunate child. so we do that. and, seeing that my huuby is a chef, we decided that we would all make cookies for santa together on xmas eve.
good luck and merry christmas