Our Top Ten Favorite Holiday Traditions, from Pat

1. My children each have an advent calendar. They can open one pocket each day. It's just something small (barrettes, a coin, earrings, etc.) but they look forward to it each day.

2. Each day for 16 days the children and I bake a different kind of cookie. On the 17th day, we organize the cookies onto plates that we then give away to everyone who helps us throughout the year from the librarian to the garbage collector, as well as to all our friends.



3. The children and I make all the Christmas cards that we send to friends and family. (Often while the cookies are baking!)

4. We read a different Christmas story for bedtime each night starting on Dec. 1st. We always read Silent Night, In the Manger and 'Twas the Night Before Christmas on Christmas Eve.

5. We put the tree up the weekend after Thanksgiving. There is a picture ornament for each christmas since the children were born. There's also an ornament for every trip we've taken. They always bring out the stories of "...remember when....". Last we tie a red ribbon on the tree and remember all our loved ones that passed on during the year.



6. Each year, each child picks out a new ornament for the tree that represents something from their life that year to add to the family tree.

7. As often as possible, we sit together as a family in the evenings before bed and sing Christmas songs while Mother plays the piano.

8. In the evening on Dec. 5th, we put our shoes out for St. Nikolas filled with apples and oats for his donkey. We tell the story of St. Nikolas. The next morning, it's been replaced with small gifts from him.

9. We spend Christmas Eve and Christmas Day with my husband's family. We always go to the Christmas Eve service at the church together with his parents, brothers and their families.

10. We put up the Nativity set each year and tell the story of Jesus birth as we unwrap each piece. The children have a plastic version they can play with and retell the story over and over again.