(1) Every year I write a letter to myself when I take the Christmas decorations down and tuck it in the box. I write down the main events and feelings from the past year. When I take out the decorations the following Christmas, the first thing I do is read my letter to myself. I have done this every year since 2009, when I was packing my decorations away living on my own, knowing that I was going to be moving to a new town with my boyfriend (now husband) in a couple of months. My 11-year old has been writing her own letter to herself for the past few years too. It’s such a lovely way to mark the passage of time and remember what was important in our lives at particular points in the past. Jen, in the north east of Scotland.
(1) Here’s a lovely tradition for the book lovers! Our children treasured our Christmas book advent tradition in the days leading up to Christmas. A happy stack of twenty-four favourite children's Christmas stories individually and festively wrapped, one unwrapped for bedtime reading each evening, ending with classic ‘The Night Before Christmas’ on Christmas Eve.
(1) I grew up in the U.S. (Chicago and then Washington D.C.) and my parents did the whole Santa Claus thing. My cleverness got the better of me pretty early, however, so I think I had just turned 5 when I realised that Santa Claus wasn't real--it didn't help that Chicago apartments don't have chimneys ;)
My parents continued to keep up the charade even though they knew I didn't believe in Santa anymore. So when I was 6 years old, I started leaving wine & cheese out for Santa Claus instead of cookies & milk, because I knew my mom (i.e. 'Santa') would never drink milk and much preferred a glass of cabernet! To this day (I'm now 36), I still leave some vino for Santa by the fireplace when I celebrate with my parents, and I always get a hand-written card from 'Santa' in return on Christmas morning. ☺️
(3) I would not call this a tradition, but it´s a strong memory that I have, connected with Christmas and Winter. I was at college, having a difficult time due to multitude of reasons, so a friend of mine asked me to join him in a pub one evening. I did not want to go that much, but I knew it will be good to have a company. This took place some time in December, we went in, had a couple of drinks and when we left, whole city was covered with snow and it was still snowing. As we were entering the pub, it was normal, grey winter afternoon, but once we left, it had turned into this magical wonderland. At that moment I really felt that there is more to the world than my problems. This happened some 13 years ago, in Bratislava, Slovakia. I would like to recreate this as a sort of tradition, but the beauty of it was, that it happened once and when it needed to happen - for me.
Favourite traditions in our family (lived my youngest years in Dublin) were the stocking at the end of the bed, that would be filled with little toys and treats. There would always be a colouring book and a new set of felt tips too, to keep us busy until the adults got up. Then we would creep down stairs to see if Santy (Santa Claus) had been. There would be two chairs in front of the tree - one for my sister and one for me. The gifts were unwrapped and displayed like a toy shop window. We knew immediately which was our chair and would excitedly explore the gifts and play with our new toys. We would still be wearing our matching nightgowns with rollers in our hair (they did not help us sleep on Christmas Eve). We would get dressed in our new Christmas clothes after breakfast and before the rest of the family came for granny’s turkey dinner. I loved those Dublin Christmases! 💫
(1) I remember when growing up we would walk to our nearest Christmas tree seller in Edinburgh. I loved the smell of the pine and the slightly scary Santa that would give us the worst Christmas chocolate Santas 😅😂 they tasted horrible but at the same time they were delicious because they were part of the experience. They always gave the children mini Christmas trees from branches that had fallen off in small logs. I always loved decorating mine in my room. Mum and dad would look at several trees and then ask us what we thought and our families tree was decided 🌲 they would wrap it up and we would all carry it home to decorate. Even though me and my brother just held the top or a branch in the middle, we felt like we were an important part of the carrying. When home our father would set it up in our bay window and start untangling the lights from the previous year.
1) A tradition: When we were younger my mum would buy a new Christmas tree decoration every year and we would have to come in and guess which one was new. As I got older and had my own tree, I would do this, but each decoration would be tied to a specific memory; a sparkly eyed visit to Harrods in London, carols at Blenheim Palace, a promise of a wedding, Richmond Park at sunrise even a broken heart. Each December I would take a breath and decide which memory to carry with me into the following years. I’d hunt down a decoration at that very location.
I never throw any of the decorations away, no matter the outcome, they all hold the story of my life. Every year I carefully unwrap them and relive all the years that have gone before. This year I’m starting a new chapter. I’ve quit my job and left the city. Ready to start a new life of my souls choosing. This is also the year I found out my dad was terminal. I don’t know yet what my decoration will be but I am grateful for a tradition that maps my life in the way that I’ll never forget who I was and who I am becoming.
Your comment touched me. I love that you are starting a new chapter. Beautifully written, I would love to read more of your winter/Christmas words! And I am so sorry about your dad.
Sorry Christine I have only just seen this. Thank you for this it’s brought me some joy this morning. Thank you ❤️ I do love Christmas and read this thread has sparked some more Christmas writing ideas in me so you may just see some writing. Thank you 🙏🏼
(1) my children lived in France, far from their grandparents who were in the USA. We usually visited in the summer but the year my dad was diagnosed with cancer, we came to see them for Christmas. We went to a Christmas tree farm to select our tree and my daughter and I "asked" the trees until we found one that "agreed" to come home with us. The rest of the family thought we were crazy 😏. My parents are gone now. Ever since that year, 2010 I think, we still select our Christmas tree and ask it if it agrees to come home with us.
(2) My mom is French and we were born in the states in the 1960s. She made traditional home cooked French Christmas food every year: snails and a Christmas log cake from scratch with butter cream frosting. Now we're in France so we don't have to make the cake from scratch!
We lived in Alsace for more than 10 years and we've added the Alsatian Christmas tradition of making "bredele". Bredela (the plural is "bredele" in Alsatian dialect) are dozens of different kinds of Christmas biscuits. We do both the French and American food traditions, with a "réveillon" meal on Christmas Eve & the American food on Christmas day. We include the Provençal "13 desserts" tradition as well. 🙂🎄🦌🎅
(1) This is not really a Christmas tradition, but connected to it, I always (if possible) try to take a bath on new year´s day. In my mind, it removes the old and starts the new :) Filip, Slovakia
1) My favourite tradition is our North Pole Breakfast.
On the day we decorate the house and put up the Christmas tree I lay out a breakfast feast and decorate the table with Santa plates, Christmas napkins and miniature stocking cutlery holders. Breakfast features a Christmas tree fruit platter, pancakes, donuts and reindeer faced crumpets. We then get everything down from the loft and start decorating ☺️
Another favorite tradition of ours: we’d fill the kids' stockings with little games, activities, puzzles, and snacks, and hang them on their door handles the night before Christmas. The idea was to keep them busy when they woke up at those ridiculously early, excitement-filled hours.
What we didn’t realise until they were older, was that they’d gather in one room to do the activities and munch on treats together!
Now, if they’re away from home for Christmas, we’ve kept the tradition alive by sending their stockings to them (and yes, we’ve even made some for their roommates too!😆).
1) My Mum loved Christmas. At Christmas you could see the small girl in my Mum, awed by the magic, stripped back to a time when everything was simpler for her. She died on 8th January 2023 at 67 years old. Because she loved Christmas, it has always been a magical time for me. I could write pages on the many ways she rooted Christmas magic in my soul, but the traditions we had always changed. The love of Christmas, of being together, of it being special, (and the sheer effort that went in to making it so), that was the tradition. Her wisdom that times change and you have to move with them have left me with that precious love of Christmas, but cut me free of any obligation that I had to do something a certain way because she had done it that way, or indeed guilt that I’m not doing it that way. When she was ill she was adamant that we weren’t to keep things when she died because she’d bought them. Now when I throw things away that she bought a small voice in my head says ‘she loved this, don’t throw it’. A louder voice (hers) says ‘she loved you. You don’t need to keep this to know that. Throw it’. It’s the same at Christmas. She loved Christmas and she loved me. The tradition I honour is to love Christmas too, to spend time with those I love and to make it extra special. All joy and no pressure; what a gift to have been given.
Given the hectic hodgepodge of our families, never knowing which bits of various families may be in town - my partners family lives a 5 hour flight away across the country (Queensland), and one of my sons and his family live a five hour flight away in another part of the country (Tasmania), my kids father lives a 4 hour flight away in New South Wales, and his wife’s Italian parents an hour’s drive down south (obviously the Italian Christmas dinner trumps all else for food 🤣), we have taken to having a “long table” dinner outside under the cover of the shed verandah at my son’s house - with all the random family and friends who are around coming along. I buy a turkey and my son cooks it in the covered barbeque out the back of his place - it’s best not to have the oven on inside or the house gets hot. We all bring various plates of salads, veg, prawns, fruit, watermelon, desserts for the meal and everyone gets in and cleans up afterwards. The kids play in the blowup pool out the back or with water pistols - anything to keep cool! Christmas can get really hot, but luckily we are by the coast and the sea breeze comes in by about 3pm to cool us down.
(1) Thank you for the opportunity to be a part of this special group and to share a new holiday-time tradition from my family to yours! My husband and I grew up with music as a huge part of our lives, and he still plays instruments, sings, and records his own music. So during the pandemic when our children were just 3 and 5, we had an idea to record our own rendition of a classic holiday song with everyone singing. We all had so much fun spending that quality time together as a family, that we've now continued the tradition and are in our fourth year! We joke that by the time the kids are teenagers we'll have an entire holiday album! :) Last year we also figured out how to include a QR-code with the song linked in our holiday Christmas card, so our friends and family can also sing-along. It's great fun and a special way to commemorate the Christmas season every year.
Hi Beth, I'm back to share my Christmas memories!🎄🥰
My mum is Danish, so there are a few traditions from there that we adopted as children and still have today with our own children. One of my favourite memories from Christmas was this gorgeous little book, which I still have. Written in Danish, it is the story of a family preparing for Christmas... going out together to collect the tree from the forrest, decorating it, having a special 'Christmas wash' the night before and joining hands around the tree to sing carols; before (finally) opening the presents.
All traditions which we followed ourselves and I will always remember the warmth and excitement I felt after my own 'Christmas wash' on Christmas Eve. Knowing that it was just one more sleep until that cosy, joyful, special day 😍
I will never forget that content, cosy feeling of snuggling up to my mum whilst she took us through the story - explaining it in English and chatting together about each page and what they were up to. It was pure bliss ❤️ The only thing that comes close to matching it, is cuddling up with my own children continuing the wonderful Danish story of one family's magical Christmas 🎄🕯️💚
(1) Every year I write a letter to myself when I take the Christmas decorations down and tuck it in the box. I write down the main events and feelings from the past year. When I take out the decorations the following Christmas, the first thing I do is read my letter to myself. I have done this every year since 2009, when I was packing my decorations away living on my own, knowing that I was going to be moving to a new town with my boyfriend (now husband) in a couple of months. My 11-year old has been writing her own letter to herself for the past few years too. It’s such a lovely way to mark the passage of time and remember what was important in our lives at particular points in the past. Jen, in the north east of Scotland.
I love this Jen
(1) Here’s a lovely tradition for the book lovers! Our children treasured our Christmas book advent tradition in the days leading up to Christmas. A happy stack of twenty-four favourite children's Christmas stories individually and festively wrapped, one unwrapped for bedtime reading each evening, ending with classic ‘The Night Before Christmas’ on Christmas Eve.
📚🎅🎄
(1) I grew up in the U.S. (Chicago and then Washington D.C.) and my parents did the whole Santa Claus thing. My cleverness got the better of me pretty early, however, so I think I had just turned 5 when I realised that Santa Claus wasn't real--it didn't help that Chicago apartments don't have chimneys ;)
My parents continued to keep up the charade even though they knew I didn't believe in Santa anymore. So when I was 6 years old, I started leaving wine & cheese out for Santa Claus instead of cookies & milk, because I knew my mom (i.e. 'Santa') would never drink milk and much preferred a glass of cabernet! To this day (I'm now 36), I still leave some vino for Santa by the fireplace when I celebrate with my parents, and I always get a hand-written card from 'Santa' in return on Christmas morning. ☺️
Wait, what? Santa isn’t real?! (Tee hee hee) 🎅🏻🧑🏻🎄
🫢😅
(3) I would not call this a tradition, but it´s a strong memory that I have, connected with Christmas and Winter. I was at college, having a difficult time due to multitude of reasons, so a friend of mine asked me to join him in a pub one evening. I did not want to go that much, but I knew it will be good to have a company. This took place some time in December, we went in, had a couple of drinks and when we left, whole city was covered with snow and it was still snowing. As we were entering the pub, it was normal, grey winter afternoon, but once we left, it had turned into this magical wonderland. At that moment I really felt that there is more to the world than my problems. This happened some 13 years ago, in Bratislava, Slovakia. I would like to recreate this as a sort of tradition, but the beauty of it was, that it happened once and when it needed to happen - for me.
This gave me tingles, how perfect. Thank you for sharing it
Favourite traditions in our family (lived my youngest years in Dublin) were the stocking at the end of the bed, that would be filled with little toys and treats. There would always be a colouring book and a new set of felt tips too, to keep us busy until the adults got up. Then we would creep down stairs to see if Santy (Santa Claus) had been. There would be two chairs in front of the tree - one for my sister and one for me. The gifts were unwrapped and displayed like a toy shop window. We knew immediately which was our chair and would excitedly explore the gifts and play with our new toys. We would still be wearing our matching nightgowns with rollers in our hair (they did not help us sleep on Christmas Eve). We would get dressed in our new Christmas clothes after breakfast and before the rest of the family came for granny’s turkey dinner. I loved those Dublin Christmases! 💫
(1) I remember when growing up we would walk to our nearest Christmas tree seller in Edinburgh. I loved the smell of the pine and the slightly scary Santa that would give us the worst Christmas chocolate Santas 😅😂 they tasted horrible but at the same time they were delicious because they were part of the experience. They always gave the children mini Christmas trees from branches that had fallen off in small logs. I always loved decorating mine in my room. Mum and dad would look at several trees and then ask us what we thought and our families tree was decided 🌲 they would wrap it up and we would all carry it home to decorate. Even though me and my brother just held the top or a branch in the middle, we felt like we were an important part of the carrying. When home our father would set it up in our bay window and start untangling the lights from the previous year.
Getting the tree is such a precious tradition ❤️
1) A tradition: When we were younger my mum would buy a new Christmas tree decoration every year and we would have to come in and guess which one was new. As I got older and had my own tree, I would do this, but each decoration would be tied to a specific memory; a sparkly eyed visit to Harrods in London, carols at Blenheim Palace, a promise of a wedding, Richmond Park at sunrise even a broken heart. Each December I would take a breath and decide which memory to carry with me into the following years. I’d hunt down a decoration at that very location.
I never throw any of the decorations away, no matter the outcome, they all hold the story of my life. Every year I carefully unwrap them and relive all the years that have gone before. This year I’m starting a new chapter. I’ve quit my job and left the city. Ready to start a new life of my souls choosing. This is also the year I found out my dad was terminal. I don’t know yet what my decoration will be but I am grateful for a tradition that maps my life in the way that I’ll never forget who I was and who I am becoming.
Your comment touched me. I love that you are starting a new chapter. Beautifully written, I would love to read more of your winter/Christmas words! And I am so sorry about your dad.
Sorry Christine I have only just seen this. Thank you for this it’s brought me some joy this morning. Thank you ❤️ I do love Christmas and read this thread has sparked some more Christmas writing ideas in me so you may just see some writing. Thank you 🙏🏼
(1) my children lived in France, far from their grandparents who were in the USA. We usually visited in the summer but the year my dad was diagnosed with cancer, we came to see them for Christmas. We went to a Christmas tree farm to select our tree and my daughter and I "asked" the trees until we found one that "agreed" to come home with us. The rest of the family thought we were crazy 😏. My parents are gone now. Ever since that year, 2010 I think, we still select our Christmas tree and ask it if it agrees to come home with us.
(2) My mom is French and we were born in the states in the 1960s. She made traditional home cooked French Christmas food every year: snails and a Christmas log cake from scratch with butter cream frosting. Now we're in France so we don't have to make the cake from scratch!
We lived in Alsace for more than 10 years and we've added the Alsatian Christmas tradition of making "bredele". Bredela (the plural is "bredele" in Alsatian dialect) are dozens of different kinds of Christmas biscuits. We do both the French and American food traditions, with a "réveillon" meal on Christmas Eve & the American food on Christmas day. We include the Provençal "13 desserts" tradition as well. 🙂🎄🦌🎅
(1) This is not really a Christmas tradition, but connected to it, I always (if possible) try to take a bath on new year´s day. In my mind, it removes the old and starts the new :) Filip, Slovakia
Oh I love that! Thank you for sharing
1) My favourite tradition is our North Pole Breakfast.
On the day we decorate the house and put up the Christmas tree I lay out a breakfast feast and decorate the table with Santa plates, Christmas napkins and miniature stocking cutlery holders. Breakfast features a Christmas tree fruit platter, pancakes, donuts and reindeer faced crumpets. We then get everything down from the loft and start decorating ☺️
Oh my goodness I love everything about this. Thank you so much for sharing it Liane!
Another favorite tradition of ours: we’d fill the kids' stockings with little games, activities, puzzles, and snacks, and hang them on their door handles the night before Christmas. The idea was to keep them busy when they woke up at those ridiculously early, excitement-filled hours.
What we didn’t realise until they were older, was that they’d gather in one room to do the activities and munch on treats together!
Now, if they’re away from home for Christmas, we’ve kept the tradition alive by sending their stockings to them (and yes, we’ve even made some for their roommates too!😆).
Oooo, exciting! We grew up with some lovely Danish traditions from my mum's side of the family 🇩🇰 ❤️ I'll pop back later to share some of these ✨️ x
Oh lovely please do, thank you!
1) My Mum loved Christmas. At Christmas you could see the small girl in my Mum, awed by the magic, stripped back to a time when everything was simpler for her. She died on 8th January 2023 at 67 years old. Because she loved Christmas, it has always been a magical time for me. I could write pages on the many ways she rooted Christmas magic in my soul, but the traditions we had always changed. The love of Christmas, of being together, of it being special, (and the sheer effort that went in to making it so), that was the tradition. Her wisdom that times change and you have to move with them have left me with that precious love of Christmas, but cut me free of any obligation that I had to do something a certain way because she had done it that way, or indeed guilt that I’m not doing it that way. When she was ill she was adamant that we weren’t to keep things when she died because she’d bought them. Now when I throw things away that she bought a small voice in my head says ‘she loved this, don’t throw it’. A louder voice (hers) says ‘she loved you. You don’t need to keep this to know that. Throw it’. It’s the same at Christmas. She loved Christmas and she loved me. The tradition I honour is to love Christmas too, to spend time with those I love and to make it extra special. All joy and no pressure; what a gift to have been given.
Given the hectic hodgepodge of our families, never knowing which bits of various families may be in town - my partners family lives a 5 hour flight away across the country (Queensland), and one of my sons and his family live a five hour flight away in another part of the country (Tasmania), my kids father lives a 4 hour flight away in New South Wales, and his wife’s Italian parents an hour’s drive down south (obviously the Italian Christmas dinner trumps all else for food 🤣), we have taken to having a “long table” dinner outside under the cover of the shed verandah at my son’s house - with all the random family and friends who are around coming along. I buy a turkey and my son cooks it in the covered barbeque out the back of his place - it’s best not to have the oven on inside or the house gets hot. We all bring various plates of salads, veg, prawns, fruit, watermelon, desserts for the meal and everyone gets in and cleans up afterwards. The kids play in the blowup pool out the back or with water pistols - anything to keep cool! Christmas can get really hot, but luckily we are by the coast and the sea breeze comes in by about 3pm to cool us down.
(1) Thank you for the opportunity to be a part of this special group and to share a new holiday-time tradition from my family to yours! My husband and I grew up with music as a huge part of our lives, and he still plays instruments, sings, and records his own music. So during the pandemic when our children were just 3 and 5, we had an idea to record our own rendition of a classic holiday song with everyone singing. We all had so much fun spending that quality time together as a family, that we've now continued the tradition and are in our fourth year! We joke that by the time the kids are teenagers we'll have an entire holiday album! :) Last year we also figured out how to include a QR-code with the song linked in our holiday Christmas card, so our friends and family can also sing-along. It's great fun and a special way to commemorate the Christmas season every year.
Hi Beth, I'm back to share my Christmas memories!🎄🥰
My mum is Danish, so there are a few traditions from there that we adopted as children and still have today with our own children. One of my favourite memories from Christmas was this gorgeous little book, which I still have. Written in Danish, it is the story of a family preparing for Christmas... going out together to collect the tree from the forrest, decorating it, having a special 'Christmas wash' the night before and joining hands around the tree to sing carols; before (finally) opening the presents.
All traditions which we followed ourselves and I will always remember the warmth and excitement I felt after my own 'Christmas wash' on Christmas Eve. Knowing that it was just one more sleep until that cosy, joyful, special day 😍
I will never forget that content, cosy feeling of snuggling up to my mum whilst she took us through the story - explaining it in English and chatting together about each page and what they were up to. It was pure bliss ❤️ The only thing that comes close to matching it, is cuddling up with my own children continuing the wonderful Danish story of one family's magical Christmas 🎄🕯️💚