Christmas Traditions that I Love

So, every year, people ask about any unique Christmas traditions that families have, and while I know I can never compete with Qait's family (booby-trapping their entire house to see if the kids can get to the tree without waking the parents up), I think my family has some pretty great traditions.

For example, while she hasn't done it regularly, my mom has, for several years, taken the Baby Jesus figures from every single nativity scene (we have a dozen or so) on Christmas Eve and wrapped them all up in a gift that's placed prominently in or under the tree, and on Christmas morning, the first thing we do before even peeking in our stockings, is unwrap that present and redistribute the figures to their proper nativity scenes. A symbolic representation of the Savior's birth. I've always loved it because it puts the focus on the real reason that we celebrate Christmas right at the beginning of the day before we do anything else.

We also have a tradition of "treasure hunts" that consist of rhyming couplets that give us clues to follow until we discover our present in some secret or hard-to-get-to place. For a word nerd like me, composing rhyming couplets is both easy and ridiculously fun. I made a treasure hunt for my baby brother today and read the clues aloud to Mom to see if she would laugh. If she did, I considered them good enough, and moved on to the next clue. I just love the personal touch it adds to the gift-giving, especially since most of the treasure hunts contain at least a handful of inside jokes that no one else would ever understand, but they mean something to us.

Most years, we go caroling or at least homemade-bread-delivering and it's been fun to see the progressive increase in singing talent. This year we actually sounded darn good thanks to Ben finally being old enough and trained enough to offer the fourth part to our harmony. That kid has a great voice, and I was surprised at how much musical talent my family has, even though we've never been one of those families that everyone knows has ridiculous amounts of musical ability.

My mom also has this flannel-board story about the Littlest Star that she's told us every Christmas since I was a little girl. Sadly, I think the flannel board finally died, so I'm not sure the story will ever be quite the same, but I know the story by heart anyways. Remind me to tell it sometime.

So there you are. Our Christmas traditions. I look forward to adding homemade eggnog to the list of Christmas traditions, and I kind of want to make our secret family recipe (Love Rolls -- which are heavenly) a Christmas thing too. At least for me and my future family. Conditional on my mastering the recipe, of course. Mom's going to teach me sometime during break. :)