Starting Christmas Traditions

I fondly remember our Christmas traditions as a child. I remember drinking hot chocolate at the Christmas parade.

I remember getting in the car to go look at Christmas lights. 

I remember leaving a shoe on the front porch and returning home to find that Mrs. Claus had left a treat in our shoe. (This is something my mother started.)

My mother would make seafood every year on Christmas eve. 

These are fun traditions that you live with, that you carry with you to your own family. 

I love this photo. Our sweet friends at Photo by Frame Photography were kind enough to come to our home last year and take this photo. 

Last year our little boy was just six weeks old when Christmas arrived. So he slept through most of it. 

But this year has been a whole different ball game. 

He loves to playing with Christmas theme toys.

Particularly the Little People Nativity  my Mama gave him last year. 

He loves the way the Baby Jesus lights up. 

He has enjoyed reading Christmas books. His favorite was "O Little Town of Bethlehem" which both lit up and played music. 

Every night Jason reads him two books, one a fun book about Christmas. The other is a story about the first Christmas written for children. My sister was kind enough to give us a HUGE bag of Christmas books last year. So we have plenty to choose from. 

He likes looking at the tree, we put it in our sun room to keep him from pulling off ornaments. One year olds are a bit destructive!

He loves dancing to Christmas music and dances to it when we listen on Pandora. 

I even let him watch a little Charlie Brown last night and he loved it. 

But I think my favorite thing we did this year was taking him to "A Walk Through Bethlehem" at a local church. It was a great way to share the story of Christ's birth in a way that the baby could hear, see and thanks to the real live stock, smell. 

It was beautiful and moving and he loved to hear the singing, see the sheep that the "sheperds" were tending to and watch all of the people. 

 Here we are waiting our turn at the church. Clearly the baby is mesmerized by all the Christmas lights!

I am excited to come up with traditions for our growing family and I am excited to watch as my child (and one day soon children) discover all there is to love about the season. 

What are you doing as a family to create memories? 

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