As we approach Christmas, we thought we would share some of our Christmas traditions with you, as well as an interesting dynamic we had to go through when we had our first Christmas together.
Last year as we were all three coming together for our first Christmas together, we had to decide what to do. We realized that all three of us had different Christmas traditions, and extended families and we can’t all be in three different places at once. Tami & Colton, since being married, would just take turns with their holidays with each family…but now what do we do with 3? Would we only see our extended families around the holidays once every 3 years? That seemed silly. We realized that we had to talk through it and we decided to merge our Christmas traditions into one, and figure out what we would do moving forward.
We started talking and reflecting over the Christmas memories we had growing up, and shared the traditions that were most important to us, so that we could use those things and build new Christmas traditions together.
Some of Sophie’s traditions:
On Christmas Eve, my family always used to spend time together at home, and watch a movie together, or play games together, and/or finish wrapping gifts and putting together Christmas stockings. We always had a calm and quiet (unless silly games were being played) evening together. Then on Christmas day we would have Christmas dinner, and just have a relaxing day, playing with our new toys and spending time together as a family.
Last year, we hadn’t figured out exactly what we were doing, but since it was Colton’s year to spend it with his extended family, we went ahead and followed his Christmas traditions. However, we knew we wanted to figure out what we could do in the future together, so that we could honor each other in the things that were special to us, and create a new family tradition with them all combined.
Some of Tami’s favorite traditions-
Christmas day was always spent with everyone getting the house ready. My whole extended family always comes in the evening to enjoy some delicious corn chowder, wassail, cheese balls and crackers, and Christmas candy! Christmas was always crowded and bustling with aunts and uncles, grandma and grandpa, cousins and siblings.
After eating, playing, and visiting, we would gather in the living room with the piano, and pull out the Christmas story book and costumes. The kids all chose roles in the nativity to dress up as, and someone would read the story while the kids would do the skit and we would all sing Christmas carols.
After the nativity skit, anyone who wanted to, could perform in a little talent show for grandma and grandpa. Then after the talent show everyone would finish visiting and playing and then go home to their own family traditions. Once everyone left we would gather for our “Santa” gift- which was always amazing pajamas that were usually homemade by mom! We went in order from youngest to oldest, then race to change into them. After admiring our new outfits, it would be time to go to bed.
Some thoughts by Colton
This year we’ve really been thinking about how to combine our favorite Christmas traditions to make our own family traditions. With so many memories and choices it’s a little hard to choose what we want to do. But the good thing is that we have many years to make our own traditions and memories! We’re all excited to spend the holiday together and start making memories. One thing we did last year and want to try again this year is making spud-nuts for Christmas morning. We made the dough the night before and left it in the fridge, then in the morning it was so fun to roll and cut the donuts out together and glaze them.
Whatever traditions we choose, our favorite thing about the holidays is spending time together, making traditions and memories with the people we love!
I was raised with a belief that Christ was actually born sometime in April. I’ve since been exposed to a lot of speculation and debate about when this event actually occurred. Christmas in December likely began as a pagan tradition that was supplanted by the early Christian church with a celebration of the birth of our Savior as a way to promote conversion to Christianity.
That being said, we continue as a family to celebrate Christmas during December in concert with most of the rest of the Christian world frankly because we don’t believe that there is a wrong day to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ. Every day of our lives should be a celebration of His birth, His life, and His atonement. We’ll all fall short of perfection, some of us by a greater margin than others, but we all have reason to celebrate Him.
So much of the religious discourse we have these days focuses on our differences and so little of it focuses on our similarities. On this day, as a family, we are perfectly willing to put aside our differences with our fellow believers in Christ and join together as Christians around the globe to celebrate Him and to recommit ourselves to the challenge of exemplifying our faith by the way we live and treat others. From our family to yours, we wish you all a merry Christmas and happy holidays.
