The holidays are a time full of family fun and traditions (hopefully anyway). Traditions can create so many wonderful memories for us as we grow up then as we have our own families. I hope that some of those moments created in my home stick with my children forever and get passed down to their children. Brandon and I have a large family and our boys get quite spoiled at Christmas {we are guilty of that spoiling as well er so is Santa} but we strive to teach our kids that Christmas is not about the gifts. The gifts are fun and my bank account knows I LOVE buying gifts for those I love, but there are so many little things we try to instill in the boys to look beyond that. I think traditions play a role in that, something fun, special, silly, giving, wacky, thoughtful, etc to do each year that the kids look forward to.

A few traditions in the Krause home…

The Krause Food Fight 2011
  • Every year we have a crazy themed Christmas card. This is our 4th year to do it. Our first year we all made silly faces, then we were the 50’s family {think the Cleaver’s}, and last year we had a spaghetti food fight in our back yard! The kids had no idea…they just thought we were eating dinner in the back yard and our photographer was there early. Surprise! It was a blast!! This year’s theme is still a secret because my cards haven’t gone out yet. It is a doozy though 😉
  • Our advent calendar is a clothes line of 25 different Christmas socks, each filled with 3 tiny treats {usually candy} and the kids get to take turns picking a different sock to take down each day. My boys LOVE this…and not just to each get a Hershey Kiss every day…they love planning out what sock is getting picked next etc. Right now there is a count down til Dec. 1 because they know that is when the sock line goes up.
  • Elf on the Shelf! Hamilton {our Elf} will make his debut for this year very soon…one year he stayed up the whole year, the kids loved it, but it tripped out some of our friends kiddos. Oops.
  • Christmas night we all pile in the car in our pj’s with hot cocoa and treats and head out to look at Christmas lights. This is one of my favorite traditions! We listen to Christmas music and drive around for a couple hours looking at all of the lights we can find. It is always the perfect ending to the chaos. {which in our family the chaos is never over on Christmas Day}
  • We ALWAYS spend Christmas Eve night at home so that the boys can wake up to Santa at our house. Always have and that is the forever plan. We have had a couple of family members stay the night before to see the kids on Christmas morning, but we don’t do that every year. We like to just have our quiet family time on Christmas morning.
  • Christmas movies galore during December!
  • My husband reads How the Grinch Stole Christmas better than anyone and he reads it quite a bit. {I may be biased, but you should come over and hear him!} It is awesome!
  • Christmas Eve we spread out reindeer food in our front yard and open a few presents before bed. Of course we leave cookies for Santa, but also have a special reindeer bowl full of carrots for the reindeer too.
  • On one side of Brandon’s family there are 10 grand-kids {about to be 12}, so the kids draw names and only buy a gift for the cousin they drew. It simplifies things for all of us aunts and uncles and the kids actually enjoy it more too. They aren’t over stimulated and are so excited to just go play after we open gifts. We love it.
  • We donate toys to Brown Santa…last year we let the kids pick out the toys themselves.

Those are just a few that we do yearly, some others that I think are awesome {some I even want to give a whirl myself} are…

  • Wrap 25 Christmas books, then each night the kids get to pick one to open and read as a family.
  • Cutting down the family Christmas tree {we would love this, but I am allergic 🙁 }
  • “Leave your shoes out for St. Nick”…a Scandinavian tradition that takes place on the night of Dec. 5 {see pic below}
  • Family cookie decorating contest
  • Adopt a family for the holidays that needs the help.
  • Pinterest has TON-O-IDEAS on Elf on the Shelf fun! Um…plus ideas on everything else you could imagine!
  • 12 acts/days of kindness – For the 12 days of Christmas you pick one random act of kindness for each day and do it as a family. {we are doing this one this year and the kids are helping come up with the ideas}
  • Decorate a tree on 360! Just don’t forget to un-decorate and clean up after the holidays.
  • “Hide the pickle ornament in the tree” – get a pickle ornament, decorate the tree, hide the pickle ornament really good in the tree, see who finds it first. Hallmark used to have a talking pickle…not sure if they still do though.
Via

What traditions do you have in your family?

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