Family Christmas Holiday Tradition gives us freedom and guidance in an occasion that’s otherwise hectic and stressful, and often unorganized. Tradition gives us a blueprint of how our family anticipates and loves the holiday season, what they expect, how they love to celebrate.

Tradition gives us the opportunity to set down our Christmas holiday activities well in advance. We could prepare an agenda of action, and organize our holiday events employing a true and proven site map. That will take off stress from last second activities, e.g., the frantic search for needed holiday decor, or the headache of discovering the best holiday menu.

But what shall we do, if our family does not have a Christmas holiday tradition yet? Simply, we create our personal tradition. Let’s open the music box of our personal childhood memories. That which was it that made Christmas holidays so special? Was it the heavenly scent of cinnamon, orange and fir, all woven in to the air in a potpourri of Christmas promise? Or do we remember mother’s Christmas story at candlelight? Was it the holiday music that touched our heart? With our personal Christmas holiday memories in your mind, let’s manifest our personal family Christmas tradition! Here are twelve ways!

1. Build the excitement and joy up in your and your family’s heart. Start with decorating your home to invite Christmas promise into your family’s life. My mother used to decorate every picture within our house with a little fresh and wonderfully smelling fir twig. Whenever we saw that mother was preparing for christmas, excitement developed within our lives.

2. On December 1st, we earned a fir wreath with four candles. Often three of these candles were purple, but one was pink. Living through the first fourteen days, we children were eagerly looking forward to the 3rd Sunday when the pink candle of Joy and anticipation was lit.

3. Obviously, we’d an Advent calendar and one of us was permitted to open a window each day. This meant that we children visited great length to ensure we were good kids – cleaning our rooms, removing the trash, washing the dishes, etc. – so each of us got a turn to open a window.

4. It had been custom that a Madonna statue was carried from house to house in memory of Maria’s search for a place to offer birth to her child. winter and christmas holidays So when it was our turn to open our family door and heart to Maria, our mother would bathe the room in warm, gentle candle light. We sang the old carols and prayed. It had been an honor to allow for the statue for just one night, and every family tried to get ready a special welcome.

5. On the 4th of December, mom would make St. Barbara twigs from the garden. These cherry twigs, now brown and barren, will open their blossoms in the holy night. We watched the Barbara twigs carefully everyday with excitement and wonder. Because out of these seemingly dead brown twigs, soon little green leaves would develop in the warm family room.

6. The 6th of December was St. Nicolas Day. That was each day of joy for children. In the window we’d locate a red crackling plastic sack with apples, mandarins, nuts and chocolate. In our family it was also tradition that St. Nicolas would visit in person. I recall one special visit, when St. Nicolas admonished my little brother who was simply very bad if you ask me at the time. The small guy didn’t realize that anyone would know – especially not St. Nicolas, the old wise man with the sparkling eyes and the long white beard, who supposedly came directly from heaven into our home. From that day one, my little brother didn’t bother me ever again. I guess he learned his lesson.

This ends Part I of our Family Christmas Holiday Traditions. Make sure to read Part II also. We’ll discuss the standard Christmas celebration, share a beautiful and moving Christmas story, and much more.

When Christmas holiday draws near, don’t let yourself be burdened by stressful last second holiday preparations. Follow your time proven family holiday tradition – and in the event that you don’t have a vacation tradition yet, manifest your own personal! Utilize some of the suggestions I shared with you from our personal family Christmas holiday tradition.