Holiday Traditions

Happy humpday, people! Thank goodness this week is just about halfway over. It’s just been a mess so far!

I think my computer issues should be a bit better today at work – plus, we have an exciting thing happening on Friday, so I can’t wait!!!

I was so excited when I was getting peanut butter out of the jar yesterday because I knew it meant I could have this today.

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Today’s mix was all about the peanut butter + apple.

  • 1/3 cup oatbran, 1 cup water, pinch salt
  • cinnamon!
  • 1 small apple, chopped and heated up for 1 minute with MORE cinnamon
  • about 1.5 Tbsp pb in the jar

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I love the big blob (ha, I wrote blog!) of pb that’s waiting at the bottom of the jar, but I think my favorite part about doing this is the little bites of melty pb that follow you down the sides of the jar.

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If you haven’t tried this, you should! It’s good with regular pb, flavored pb, almond butter, nutella…you name it.

 

While finally getting to watch the latest edition of VeggieGirl tv yesterday (my internet is too slow at home), I started thinking about my family’s traditions at Christmas.

  • We always open one present on Christmas Eve, and that present is always new pajamas
  • No one can open anything on Christmas morning until we’ve gone through everything in our stockings
  • We always go to a family friends’ house – that might as well be family – for breakfast on Christmas morning to exchange gifts with them and have breakfast casserole, fruit, juice, and coffee

Since Nick and I have been married, we’ve actually only been at his parents’ house for one Christmas so far because of schedules, but we’ll be there this year.

I do, however, remember that Nick’s parents HID all the presents that were under the tree and we had to go on a scavenger hunt to find them again. :)

 

What are your family traditions around the holidays? Specific meals? Places you go?

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29 comments

  1. Everyone comes to my home for Christmas and New Year’s – huge celebrations, and I love it!

  2. Christmas Eve we go to my grandma’s house, and Christmas Day we go to my other grandma’s house! I can’t imagine it any other way.

  3. I hear ya on the crazy week so far. Yiikes!
    Those sound like wonderful family traditions :)

  4. We always opened one little one from our stocking on Christmas Eve.
    Then on Christmas morning we had to read Luke 2 before the presents.
    Then my brother and I played elf and handed out the gifts to everyone with a little hat on.
    When we were near family we always went for dinner with my grandparents but if we weren’t we invited the “orphan” GI’s over for dinner (we were military family).

  5. My Swedish traditions are so different from that of my own family. They celebrate on Christmas eve. They open presents at night, not in the morning and santa comes to the children’s houses to bring them their gifts. Usually a neighbor dresses up as santa and the parents give the neighbor the children’s gifts in a bag and “jultomten” comes with the gifts for the kids.

  6. As time progresses with my family, our traditions seem to be fading as our family spreads further and further apart. With my husbands family, they always have dinner on Christmas followed by opening gifts and they open each gift one by one and go around the room taking turns until everyone has opened their gifts.

  7. Our traditions mostly revolve around food…cooking it, eating it, sharing it… Hanukkah for us is a lot about just being with family, and less about the gifts. We spend new years day with my mom’s best friend’s family to do “Christmas”

  8. I do the same thing with my stockings. open up the stockings first then the presents! And we always read a passage from the bible before gift opening.

  9. Im glad your computer problem is better!!! Oh xmas this year we are spending together just my son, fiance, and I at home, both our families live out of town so we arent making it home , : ( but we are excited to spend xmas together in new place , and we always open a gift from eachother on xmas eve!!!! Im excited for xmas!!! /have a great day love!! xo

  10. Our traditions used to be: Christmas Eve with my mom’s side of the family, Christmas morning with our immediate family and then a brunch at our house, Christmas afternoon with my dad’s side of the family. Unfortunately we have to modify that a little bit this year which stinks but it is what it is.

  11. Aww this post just made me so nostalgic. I am Jewish but have always spent every christmas with my best friend from when I was 11 and her family. They had a lot of traditions, including the pajama present on Christmas eve. I am going to miss celebrating Xmas this year with them! haha… does that make me a bad Jew? eek..

  12. I love hearing all about everyone’s different Christmas traditions!! My grandma and grandpa buy little gifts every year and then we play the dice game and get to steal presents from the big bag of presents just for the game–it’s hilarious!! Some of the stuff is wrapped, and some is not so it really is fun!

  13. We always open a present or two on Christmas eve, as well. We also drive arounda and look at lights in the neighborhood. Usually on the 24th we have a big buffet din din and just watch movies.. Christmas day is super chill too. Besides visting family its pretty much just eating and relaxing!

  14. I FINALLY tried oats in a jar the other day…now, i understand. enough. said. seriously.

    -for christmas, my family gets to open one gift on xmas eve. My sister just got married and moved out so now I dont know what our traditions will be.

  15. Our one present Christmas Eve is new PJ’s too! And stockings are definitely the first to be opened. We share very similar traditions :)

  16. I recently discovered how delicious apples are heated up, they’re amazing!

    Those sound like really fun traditions! We are allowed to open ONE present on Christmas Even, and we wait until all of the Santa gifts and stockings are discovered before opening presents from under the tree. We do all of this in pj’s before lunch :)

  17. Love hearing all these traditions! We always dress up and head to church first before opening any presents…then come home and have champagne to kick off the festivities! Love it…can’t imagine doing the whole thing in pj’s – but I think I’m weird because of that!

  18. our holiday tradition for the chinese new year is to have dinner all together, play table games and eat traditional meals like aduki bean porridge! :D

  19. omg omg omg! you get new pjs on christmas eve?! we have this thing in our family where the “christmas angel” comes on christmas eve to give us new pjs! so fun to think someone else does the same!

  20. Since I was little, when we’d get home from Christmas Eve mass there would be a present under the tree. You see, Santa’s Little Helper would ALWAYS bring me a present to open, and it ALWAYS was PJs! (this way I’d look nice for Christmas morning pictures). To this day (as an adult who is almost 30) Santa’s helper leave me a present on Christmas Eve (even if I end up picking out the PJs).

    :)

  21. This week has felt incredibly long, hasn’t it? Josh and I have a big date night planned for Friday night and I can hardly wait! Love your holiday traditions (especially the PJs one). We don’t have a whole lot except that my dad always hands out the presents (one by one- we all watch each other open) and he never has any idea what my mom got us haha.

  22. oh i am so curious about what you are doing friday! my family usually goes to see the lights at temple square but i have convinced them all to ditch that this year and decorate cookies instead :)

  23. Growing up we had to eat breakfast before opening a single present – it was torture! :D

    Love the pajamas tradition!

  24. omg that oatmeal looks TDF!!

    Our Christmas eve tradition is to open gifts from each other (brothers, sisters, etc.) and then open gifts from “Santa” on Christmas morning! ;)

  25. We always go to Midnight Mass and open presents either before or after mass – never on Christmas day. I actually really like it that way because I don’t look super tired in photos :)

  26. We have the same first 2 traditions (minus always getting pj’s)! But then after opening presents we then have either a waffle or pancake breakfast!

  27. We always spend Christmas holiday with my in-laws… my parents live in MA and in-laws in WV so we get to visit one set of parents only.

    Christmas eve we visit both of my husbands grandmothers and open presents with them. On Christmas day morning is just the 5 of and then his grandmother and uncle come over for the big dinner.

  28. family traditions: new PJs, ornaments, and a gingerbread man decorating contest.. I can’t wait, I’ve been practicing my decorating skills ;)

  29. We have the same tradition of opening one present on Christmas Eve and it’s always PJ’s. But since I moved out, I now make my hubby continue this and buy me PJ pants to open. Sometimes the environment or the people change a little, but that doesn’t mean the tradition has to die.

    Hope you had a wonderful day! :)

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