I’m sure you have certain traditions in your family that you just do at certain times of the year. Our family is no different. Christmas has become a time of traditions for our family.
Here is a small sampling of our traditions:
- Make Christmas cookies
- Put up the Christmas tree and stockings the weekend of American Thanksgiving.
- Drink hot chocolate with straws while enjoying the lights of the Christmas tree.
- St. Nicholas Day..kids clean their shoes and we put fruit and candy in them.
- Open presents from our German family members on Christmas Eve.
- Open presents from our American family members on Christmas Day.
The kids pretty much remember them, so we have kept them. Except for this year…
- We didn’t get our tree up until mid-week after Thanksgiving.
- We forgot St. Nicholas Day! That morning we told the kids that we’d do it “tomorrow.” Well, that didn’t happen either (and probably will not happen this year).
- Haven’t made ANY Christmas cookies, yet.
I think about beating myself up with all that I’ve NOT gotten done, but then I think about what we are doing and what we are going to do. And more importantly, what Christmas is all about in the first place.
- We started reading from the Jesse Tree Advent devotional. Something I have really enjoyed. I hope to sew together this tree and ornaments to go along with our readings for next year. A new tradition in the making…
- We are going to make cookies together this weekend and during the first week of vacation. There is still time.
- Christmas Eve will be shared with some dear friends of ours. We will have our traditional Christmas Eve meal…brauts, baked potato salad, red cabbage, and Christmas cookies!
- Christmas Day will come and we’ll hear the wrapping paper rip, the shrills of delight from the girls, and watch our three little blessings enjoy being blessed.
I may not have accomplished all that I have wanted to this year in regards to traditions, but I’m enjoying the simplicity of things because of it. Maybe that was how it was intended to be in the first place.
Simple.
Simply a Babe born. Simply laid in a manager.
Simple.
I like that.
What are your family traditions during the holiday season? Have you dropped some of those traditions or started new ones? Please share below.
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raisingTCKs 
Our Christmas traditions are also being broken this year. For the past few years my ds and I used to put a big X’mas puzzle together so it would hang throughout the whole holiday season, we used to make a BIG Advent calendar together with many goodies for kids to discover each day, we used to decorate our balconies and the tree outside with lots of lights, we used to make ginger bread cookies, the list goes on and on … And this year? We are leaving Taiwan before Christmas and spending the holidays with relatives that most of us have never met before. Hopefully it will be a white X’mas full of joy, warmth and new friendships.
(I also forgot about St.Nicholas Day! Horrible, horrible mom! And the cookies on your photo – are they called Linzer cookies made with hazenuts, cloves, cinnamon? if yes – I’ve got the recipe, but never made them in Taiwan as I don’t have hazelnuts.)
I think that is the name of the cookies…Uwe’s mom sends them every year, so I’m thankful for that. If you could email me that recipe and your gingerbread one (I’m looking for a more European tasting one) I’d be thrilled. mdmaurer135(at)gmail(dot)com
We have done the Christmas thing with family in the past a few times. It is fun and awkward at the same time. I’m sure you understand. Hope you have a great time and I’m sure the kids will LOVE the snow. I know mine enjoyed it a few years back when we were in the US visiting over the holidays.
Merry Christmas!
What beautiful Christmas traditions! Growing up in my TCK family, we never had any traditions except going out to eat at a fancy hotel restaurant for Christmas dinner and New Year’s Eve. That was the thing to do in Asia. Living in the States now for the past 10 years, and every Holiday season, I seem to be doing something different. Since 2005, I’ve hosted a Straggler’s Thanksgiving for others who are not going back to their families for US Thanksgiving. That’s a tradition I’ve created and have tried to do every year with the exception of a tragedy in my boyfriend’s family last year. Christmas is also my boyfriends’ birthday so we try to do a separate celebration of Christmas and Birthday with his mom and brother. I’m making quite a number of my gifts this year so I’ve been baking quite a lot: Triple Chocolate pandan cookies, Chocolate peanut butter fudge, “puppy chow” or some call it “muddy buddies”, rice crispy treats, Chocolate peppermint bark, chocolate peppermint fudge – who doesn’t love the holiday sweets?!?!?!
Your list of sweets sound so good…I think I just gained a few kgs just reading the list! I like your idea of Straggler’s Thanksgiving. I know of a few others that do that, too, but I’ve never heard that name. Something to stick in my back pocket to remember if we move to the US or somewhere else where there may be stragglers during that holiday. I just wrote about something like that, but for Christmas. I’ve planned to publish it in a few days.
Thanks for stopping by! Merry Christmas!
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