Today I have an adorable LO to share with you that Julie created using the November monthly kit. :-) Christmas Traditions. What are your Christmas traditions? Unfortunately since moving away from my family 8 1/2 years ago I haven't established any traditions with my family yet. My kids have been just a little too young to truly understand. But before I guess the only traditions we really had were Christmas on my dad's side of the family was always the Saturday before Christmas, that way we knew we could all get together. All my cousins, aunts, uncles, and my grandma. I LOVED it!! Then Christmas Eve was always spent at my dad's with my grandma, we played this card game and I can't for life of me remember the name. THEN Christmas day was spent at my mom's house. I sure do miss my family. And unfortunately this holiday season we will not get to spend it together again. It has been over 9 years since I spent a holiday with my family. :-( Enough of that sadness, I have my kids and Tony and we will start our own traditions!!! :-)
Ya know what, let's have a little giveaway. Leave me a comment telling me your family traditions, whether it's Christmas, Thanksgiving, Hanukkah, etc....just how do you spend your holidays. Leave me a comment for your chance to win a prize. I haven't figured out what it is going to be yet but if you have been a reader for a while you will know my prizes are pretty fun. Maybe a variety of papers, a stamp set, some embellishments.....I'm just not sure yet, but it will be good. :-) So leave me a comment and you will be entered to win. I will leave this open until Wednesday, November 23rd.
JULIE
Fabulous LO and adorable photos. For more details and inspiration please visit Julie's blog! Be sure to stop by tomorrow for more inspiration! :-)
My family celebrates Thanksgiving at my house every year and boy do we put on a spread! 2 turkeys (1 fried and 1 oven), my sister's sweet potato pie, my brothers spinach dip ... Its a lot of work, but I love not having to go to 2 places. My family and my husband's family (plus some friends) come to us instead.
ReplyDeleteWe go to my mother in laws house for Thanksgiving and we have her famous stuffing she makes. The boys watching football and veggie out and us girls talk about if bingo is open.
ReplyDeletefor christmas i always spend it with my mom and dad's house. We have a turkey dinner and open gifts in the morning. I love spending time with my kids on both holidays and i'm thankful for both of them
Thanks for the chance for a great giveaway.
ReplyDeleteGoing to church on Christmas eve and then coming home to dinner that has been cooking on auto and then opening one gift that night.
DIANA L.
http://dianamlarson.blogspot.com
My kids love to be read to-so instead of an advent calendar we wrap Christmas themed books, then every night they open 1 book and we read it. They love the extra story at bedtime and it helps them keep track of when Santa is coming!
ReplyDeletei must say Leanne that creating new traditions is always fun. One tradition that my family had for years was to have a big party at my granma's house on Christmas Eve with all the extended family...usually about 50 or so strong! She would go all out and decorate her place to the nines, complete with her own little christmas town which I loved as a kid. Sadly, we lost my granma 3 years ago and it hasn't been the same since. we now have a smaller gathering on christmas eve at my parent's house, and the only thing that really brings my granparents back into the tradition is making some of her signature recipes that have been passed on. Also, after the party, my dad would always drive my sis and cousins around to look at all the pretty christmas lights. he would make us ride with all the windows down and call it 'freeze out' game. we loved it! Now my fiance and I are carrying on that tradtion by looking at lights on christmas eve late night all over town. I hope your family has a wonderful holiday this year.
ReplyDeleteBeautiful page! Christhmas is my favorite season! We always made "tamales" and Christhmas cake. My favorite tradition is the tree decoration with my kids! It´s a pizza night and lots of fun!
ReplyDeleteOur family tradition is that all of the extended family gets together every second year. That includes from great grandma down to the great grandchildren. What a happy busy time.
ReplyDeleteI always miss my extended family so at Christmas - but we try to have our own traditions - decorating the tree, stockings, games etc. Our daughter loves Christmas crafting too!
ReplyDeleteMy Christmas addition we spend it at my mom and dads house we open presents as soon as we get there. Sometimes we get a call to hurry up lol. We have a christmas dinner mmm, just love my moms christmas dinner. and than we lay around and movies.
ReplyDeleteWe spend Thanksgiving at my mother in laws. she makes the best stuffing.
We don't live near my family either and I miss them terribly over the holidays. One tradition my husband and started our first Thanksgiving alone is instead of turkey, buying and enjoying two huge lobster tails for dinner. We are not big fans of turkey so this works for us. If we have out of town family or friends we go traditional. This Thanksgiving we will be having lobster...yum!
ReplyDeleteFabulous page Julie! :)
ReplyDeleteOne of our traditions is opening one gift on Christmas Eve. It's always the same thing...new jammies...but my girls both love it!
- April
Beautiful LO! I would have to say my fav. tradition is putting up the tree, because big or little everyone has a job to do... my son usually runs around in his underwear ( hey he is only 3 hehehe ) with the beading around his neck, my hubby does the lights, and I do the ornaments, this year we have out little girl to add in and I can't wait to see what job she is "drawn" to. Thank you!
ReplyDeleteLisa
Aww. Julie's page is cute!
ReplyDeleteOne of my favorite Christmas traditions is eating shepherd's pie with my family!! thanks for a chance to win! :-)
wonderful layout, like the mix of tradional and non-traditional colors. great layering. thank you for sharing and a chance to win. We all gather at my mother inlaws for Christmas Eve for the kids in the family, then everyone comes to my house Christmas Day to eat and play all day and night.
ReplyDeleteJulie's photos are always adorable! Love her page! My Mom's birthday is Christmas Day. So our favorite tradition is making sure her birthday doesn't get "lost" in Christmas. After we open Christmas gifts, we clean up, and pull out some quick and easy birthday decorations and a cake. And we have to make sure all gifts are wrapped in bday paper too!
ReplyDeleteGreat layout from Julie, its nice to see your designers in the pictures. Good to hear that your test was turned in too and that you had time to craft! Yippee! No need to enter me into the giveaway since I'm still marveling at a prize I won from you before (yes they are THAT good!) but we always sing Happy Birthday on Christmas Eve. Yep, because it is my oldest's birthday~
ReplyDeleteGreat layout Julie!!!! Hope you had some crafty time today Leeanne. We have a tradition in my family that started when I was little, baking Christmas cookies. My mom found a recipe in a magazine (she still has the original recipe). Every year my family gathers together to partake in cookie baking. A tradition I hope my children will carry on.
ReplyDeleteMy favorite Christmas tradition is making padaha with my mom and my aunt for Christmas dinner. It's pretty much the Ukranian name for pierogies. It's traditionally a Christmas dish. We make two kinds: Cheesy potato and Saurkraut. My favorite is saurkraut and my husband's is cheesy potato...makes it pretty easy to eat the leftovers without fighting over them. :)
ReplyDeleteWow! Fab LO and those photos are really nice.
ReplyDeleteIn the Philippines, when the -BER months begin, you start to here Christmas songs played on the radio. In our family, we bring out the tree and start putting up Christmas decorations. Now that I am far away from home (I've relocated to Singapore with my Hubby), I also try to bring this tradition to my own home. Sigh, I miss being home with my family especially during this time of year.
Cheers,
Jenny (Wifey Cookie)
http://cookieadventures.blogspot.com/
Living in Canada, I too, am away from my extended family (they all live in England).
ReplyDeleteOne tradition that we have is that all four of us have new PJ's on Christmas Eve ready for Santa coming. The girls want to look their best just in case they wake up when Santa is here!
We don't put any pressure on ourselves on Christmas Day. We can stay in those new PJ's all day if we choose.
We just make sure we enjoy all our new family games that Santa knows we love to play as a family.
great layout.. my fam has all sorts of traditions for different holidays.. I mainly remember decorating the tree.. making sugar cookies & opening one present on Chirstmas Eve night and the rest on Christmas morning (i have started doing all of these with my family.. my 2 baby girls and husband). Of course my fam still does some of these but its not the same as it was when I was lil since my grandma is no longer with us. thanks for sharing and the chance to win.
ReplyDelete-jamie
babyblueangel_30@yahoo.com
Yayyyyyyyyyyyyy for the tests being over!! And I just gotta say *i love u* :):):):):):):):):):):):):):)
ReplyDeleteWe tried last year to revive an old tradition of going on Christmas evening to look at Christmas lights but we had our first white Christmas ever! So we had to put it off a couple of days and by then most were turned off. So we are going to try again this year.
ReplyDeleteFor the last few years, our Christmas tradition has been to go spend Christmas at my brother's house. He has 2 little girls and it is just magical to see their excited faces on Christmas morning. Having no kids of my own, let's just say that i am very proud of my nieces and any Christmas spent with them is most special!
ReplyDeleteWe have several different traditions but my favorite is the cutting of the tree! We always have a "live" tree (growing up on a tree farm means that you just can't have a fake tree!) we load the 3 boys up in my DH's truck (which they LOVE) and make the hour trip to the tree farm to pick out "the bestest tree ever". There has only been ONE year in the past 6 yrs that the weather has been half way nice. But that does not stop us! Once we have the tree home and set up, we leave it undecorated for one week...not sure why other than the first year we got a tree as a family I simply did not have time to dig out all the decorations until the following weekend...so now it is one of those crazy "why do we do it this way" traditions!
ReplyDeleteHave a wonderful Holiday Season!
Stacey
shalbgewachs at sbcglobal dot net
p.s. the only way I am able to leave a comment is under Anonymous... do you know why??
My fav christmas tradition is going with our children to pick a tree. They love it...we try to do it as close to the 1st Dec as we can but it is normally the first sat. We get all the decs down out of the loft and spend the day getting into the festive spirit. I can't wait!
ReplyDeleteI love Julie's page!! My favorite Christmas tradition is the baking with my kiddos!
ReplyDeleteJulie's pages are never a disappointment!! My favorite tradition is spending the weekend after Thanksgving decorating inside and out and if I am realy on top of it... writing all of my x-mas cards. And then a newer tradition we started with the kids is NEW JAMMIES every x-mas eve.
ReplyDeleteNo need to enter me in the drawing since I will be receiving your November Kit soon that I just won!! Can't wait! I still need to play more with your Ocotber kit.
every year dh and the kids give me a 1000+ piece jigsaw puzzle. The following year starting DEC 1st we all start working on the previous years puzzle - takes up till Christmas to do it.
ReplyDeleteWe also have a treasure hunt. Every day the kids get a clue to find their little gift - could be chocolate, trip to the book store, homemade gingerbread, flashlight - something small.