12 Days of Christmas Memories

One tradition my family started at some point during my childhood was a tree decorating party. We didn't invite anyone else but ourselves, but always had fun food that my mom didn't normally buy. She'd even break out the punch bowl and we'd make some punch. We're not exactly a fancy cheese sort of family; our traditional foods lean towards chips and salsa and Lil' Smokies with barbecue sauce. Yum. Last night my parents had our party and the kids got to help decorate the tree. Actually, Little Dude worked on seeing if he could eat more Lil' Smokies than my dad, and S-Boogie helped decorate the tree. It was a lot of fun. I haven't had Christmas at my home for a while and it's fun to do some of the old traditions, even if none of my siblings were here.

Also, I love our Christmas tree. I like the fancier trees with matching ornaments and a theme, but I'll admit that I still think my family's is the best. We have ornaments that are over thirty years old on there, and it's so fun to reminisce about each one as we put them up. The foam ornament my second grade teacher gave me that has a big bite from our dog in it. The corduroy gingerbread men with rickrack trim that my mom made so the kids could have soft things to play with on the tree. The paper plate angel my little brother made that sits on top. It's so fun to have the memories. I think I would like to start a tradition for my family of buying a Christmas ornament every place we travel. We've been to a lot of cool places already, but it's not too late to start, right?

Comments

Samantha said…
It's never too late to start--that's the beauty of traditions.

We've given our kids an ornament each year for Christmas and we let them decorate the tree each year. When they're done, I go through and add any of my own ornaments--but at this point there's no room for mine--the kids have too many!

The cool thing is that each ornament is associated with a memory and when my kids leave home they'll have a really nice collection of different ornament. And Darrin and I will get to use our own again. :)
12/15/2007 8:21 AM
Courtney said…
My mom used to decorate her tree with all the old, sentimental ornaments. Now she decorates it with really beautiful ones. Even though the tree looks so lovely, I'll admit I really miss the old hodge-podge looking tree.
12/15/2007 9:40 AM
M said…
I'm off to Gran's to decorate her tree and bake cookies...we still use all the hodgepodge ones. Thank goodness for Gran! At least some things in my life don't change. :-)
12/15/2007 9:50 AM
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