1. Advent: Due to my German heritage, my family celebrates a tradition called advent. On each of the four Sundays proceeding Christmas, we meet as a family. We drink hot chocolate or cider, read Christmas stories, and eat lots of yummy treats. On the first Sunday we light one candle, 2 on the 2nd, etc. On Sunday we will light all four. That is always my favorite advent! (Oh, and Elder Uchdorf talked about celebrating advent as a child in the First Presidency Message. That was pretty cool.)
2. This is when Scot and the kids break out the book "The Grinch that Stole Christmas." It is definently a family favorite. Scot loves to read it to the kids. He does a special Grinch voice that the kids just love. Even Lucy loves to read the story.
3. St. Nicholaus Day. In Germany on December 5th the children leave out their shoes and St. Nicholaus fills them with candy and toys. We love to celebrate this tradtion at our house, only with a few variations. We leave our shoes out on the sixth, because it takes him that much longer to get to the U.S. and he usually leaves some sort of presents having to do with feet, such as snow boots, socks, or slippers.
4. MOlly Mouse. Emma was able to participate in her ballet studios Christmas performance for the first time this year. It is so cute! They all wear mouse heads, and it is a shorter mouse version of the Nutcracker. Emma was a Gingersnap. (She is one of the girls that come out from underneath the big ladys skirt.) She did such a cute job, and loved every minute!
5. Dress Shopping. Every year since I can remember my mom has taken my sisters and I to buy a special dress for the Sunday before Christmas. Now it has exploded into quite the event! All the sister in laws, sisters, neices, and daughters go and pick out dresses. It is crazy trying to get everyone something they like, but it is always fun. I love getting everyone's opinions on dresses, and seeing everyone else's choices. Then we go out to dinner. It makes for a very late night, especially for the kids, but I figure it is only once a year. This year I found matching dresses for Emma and Lucy. I am so excited! (Emma is a little upset, because it wasn't her first choice, but I just had to have them.) Thanks Mom for a great tradtion!So that is a little of what is going on... More to come later.
5 comments:
Oh, I love, love, love the dress tradition! I'll start that one with myself....
Great post!
What fun traditions....I found some German candy, but still need a little something. Let me know if any other ideas come to you.
That all sounds so fun!
i LOVE all the traditions-I like your idea of tieing the shoe gift into the shoes-very cute! We LOVE the grinch story too-especially BRee-she is kindof obsessed with the grinch! I wish we could have seen Emma in her ballet!
I love reading about your favorite traditions and I love being involved in most of them. It was fun to hear Scot read the story at advent. I feel really blest to have so many wonderful traditions in our family. Last night was one of my favorite traditions...Thanks for your thoughts!
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