Freestyle Friday: Holiday Traditions

As you can tell from my Holiday Bucket List, I love this season.

(Although really, who doesn’t?)

Part of the reason I love it so much is the traditions. This post inspired me to think about my favorite traditions, new and old.

This year will be unusual for me–I won’t actually be spending Christmas Eve/Day with my family, but with E’s family in Washington state. (We’ll be meeting my family in Mexico for New Year’s Eve–definitely NOT a tradition! Maybe it can be a new one though 😉 ).

Not being with family and partaking in our usual traditions has inspired me and E to form our own. As I was making this list, though, I realized that in the 2 years we’ve lived together we’ve already formed a lot!

Do you have favorite holiday traditions? I would love to hear them!

1. Christmas Eve candlelight service.

• We always go to a service at my mother’s Lutheran church on Christmas Eve. I love it the most because I get in a solid hour of singing Christmas carols! My favorite. We always end with a candlelight-rendition of Silent Night. I don’t even need to tell you how magical it is, whatever you happen to believe.

2. Advent calendar.

• I’ve always had an advent calendar, as long as I can remember, even when it was one of those cheap grocery store ones with the waxy chocolate (that I secretly love). This year, E and I have been doing the 12 days of Christmas for each other and exchanging small gifts. We’ve developed little clues in each countdown day and I’ve been loving it!

3. Special Christmas Eve dinner (and opening presents!)

• Maybe it’s my mother’s German heritage, but we’ve always opened all of our gifts on Christmas Eve when it’s just our family. We attend an early candelight Christmas service, come home and eat shrimp and sourdough (always!) and open our gifts in front of the fire.

 

4. Ornament exchange.

• My aunt always buys her children a new ornament each Christmas that symbolizes the prior year in some way. I love this idea, so I borrowed it, and now E and I (and sometimes my sister and I) buy each other an ornament each year. Soon we will have enough to fill an actual size tree, maybe!

5. “Just the two of us” Christmas.

• The first several years of our relationship, E and I spent Christmas apart with our families. So we invented the tradition of re-doing Christmas when we were re-united, exchanging gifts/filling each other’s stockings, and cooking a fancy (sometimes) Christmas feast! Sometimes we just pick up a pizza, too.

6. A trip into the mountains.

• In the past, we’ve gone skiing at a friends’ cabin. This year, we’ll be going to Georgetown and Frisco here in Colorado (this Sunday!) and Leavenworth in Washington. This will hopefully last as long as we live around mountains!

7. Annual Holiday Potluck.

• Every year we open our apartment to as many friends of ours in Denver we can squeeze in! This year was so fun and busy this is the only picture I got:

8. Zoo lights.

• I went with my cousins last year and I’m hooked! We’re going with our friends here in Denver on Sunday and they insist Denver’s Zoo Lights are some of the best they’ve seen.

9. Donate a toy or a book to charity for a child.

• Although in the past we’ve found an Angel Tree, the past several years we’ve donated a book through our local Barnes and Noble for their annual Holiday Book Drive, a great local charity that provides books for children in the area. I love picking out a book I’ve loved for a kid, hoping to pass on my love of the written word!

10. Buy a meal for a family in need.

11. Watch Die Hard and Love Actually on Christmas Eve/Day.

• It’s our favorite way to watch out two favorite Christmas movies, but compromise at the same time :).

12. Go on a drive to see the lights!