Share Your Favorite Holiday Traditions

[PoetryLover]

This thread is for people of all spiritual backgrounds and faiths to share their favorite holiday traditions, either from childhood or those started as adults. I personally celebrate Christmas, but I don't want to limit this thread to Christmas, as I recognize that there other holidays celebrated that time of year for people of various faiths, and I feel there is something to be learned from everybody.

As a new stepmom and soon to be bio mom, I want to establish wholesome traditions for my family. Some of the ones that come to mind immediately are making a gingerbread house and maybe gingerbread people, baking cookies together, stringing popcorn and/or cranberries while reading a Christmas story as a family, etc. There will be stockings and we plan to give each child & each other 5 gifts (an idea I got from another thread): something we want/need/play with/read & warm winter pajamas. Basically, I love old-fashioned storybook Christmases where the focus is not on STUFF but on quality time spent as a family and appreciating simplicity.

Please share your traditions. I can't wait to read them all and maybe discover some new family traditions to adopt along the way.

Please let me know if I should Xpost this elsewhere or post it elsewhere entirely. I really had no idea where to post it. Many thanks and happy sharing!

[kangamitroo]

here are the first things that come to mind, all secular:

for thanksgiving, we wipe pine cones with peanut butter (you can use shortening), roll in bird seed, and put outdoors on tree branches. this is a way of saying thank you for the abundance we have received, and to take care of creation. this can easily be a christmas or solstice or winter vacation activity.

day after thanksgiving but good anytime: we took a walk to a nearby lake and the children fed the ducks. some families like football, we like hikes. then when you return, you doubly appreciate the hot chocolate/cider!

last year in december i practiced random acts of baking. each weekend my daughter and i would bake gifts--for neighbors, teachers, and our librarians. i love to bake but did not want to give on christmas or as an exchange exactly; i don't like the feeling of obligation, when people think they have to give in return? it was fun, lasted all month, and i wish i could have continued it all through the year!