It’s almost Christmas, my favorite time of the year! Here are 28 glorious Christmas traditions to get your Holidays off to a great start.
1. Listen to “The Christmas Song” sung by Nat King Cole.
2. Pile into the car at night and drive around looking at all of the Holiday lights and decorations.
3. Write a letter to Santa. If you email him from this site, he’ll write back. 
Another idea is to make photocopies of your children’s letters to Santa each year and keep them. They can read them years from now and remember back to when what they wanted most in the world was an Elmo doll.
4. Watch “A Charlie Brown Christmas”.
5. Make a Gingerbread House.
6. Get a special Christmas mug you use for the entire month of December. Put candy canes in your coffee.
7. 
Bake Christmas Sugar Cookies. Here’s a YouTube video that will show you how step-by-step: How-to Make Sugar Cookies. You can also use Martha Stewart’s Sugar Cookie Recipe.
8. Get Matching Christmas Pajamas for everyone in the family to wear on Christmas Eve (some people wrap the pj’s and everyone unwraps them on Christmas Eve).
9. Get an advent calendar to help you countdown to Christmas. Day by day, starting on December 1st, the windows are opened until December 25th. Another alternative is to make a list of 24 Christmas activities and complete one each day starting on the first of December; that can be your countdown to Christmas.
10. Find an ornament for each family member that commemorates a special memory for that year. It can be an ornament of a baby bottle for the birth of a child, a ballet slipper for a first dance class, and so on.
11. Watch your favorite Holiday movies. You can even host a Holiday-movie marathon. Here are some of my favorite Christmas movies:
- It’s a Wonderful Life
- Dr. Seuss’ How The Grinch Stole Christmas
- A Christmas Story
- The Santa Clause
- Miracle on 34th Street
12. Read Christmas themed books, in particular, “The Night Before Christmas” by Clement C. Moore, or “The Polar Express” by Chris Van Allsburg.
13. Make a list of all the people who have touched you in a positive way during the year and send them Christmas cards.
14. Make a string of popcorn and cranberries for some old-fashioned decorations for your tree.
15. Make sure your house smells like Christmas. Here’s one way to do it:
Place 4 to 6 cups of water in a pot on the stove. Add orange peels (from 1 or 2 oranges), 3 to 4 cinnamon sticks, 1 tablespoon of whole cloves and 1 tablespoon of vanilla extract. Bring the contents to a boil and then reduce the heat so it is left to simmer.
16. Remember the less fortunate this Christmas. Does your local mall have an “Angels Tree” with the names of children you can get Christmas gifts for?
17. Sing Christmas carols. It’s OK to sing out of tune (I know I do, and that doesn’t stop me). You can find the words to your favorite Christmas songs here.
18. Go to the tree farm to pick the perfect tree.
19. Set up the Christmas tree soon after Thanksgiving.
20. Once your tree is all decked out, turn off the light and sit on the couch, just admiring the tree.
21. Get poinsettias; they’re known as Flores de Noche Buena in Mexico (Spanish for “flowers of the holy night”).
22. Go to a performance of “The Nutcracker”.
23. Stick to the Holiday recipes that your family knows and loves. If you’re not sure what to make for Christmas, Gooseberry Patch has several fabulous Holiday recipe books.
24. Have a Christmas toast with home-made eggnog.
25. Hang a wreath on your door to welcome in the Holiday, as well as visitors.
26. Hang up the Christmas Stockings. Make sure each stocking is personalized with the owner’s name. Fill them with simple stocking stuffers. Here are some ideas:
- Do they collect anything?
- What are their hobbies?
- How about gag gifts?
- Get Holiday candy.
- Pens and pencils.
- Socks.
- A book they’ve been wanting to read.
- Gift cards.
27. Put together a Christmas Village.
28. Hang up the Mistletoe.
Please add your favorite Christmas traditions in the comments section.
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Last year our neighbors have invited us for a cookie-baking-and- decorating afternoon. It was lovely! I love holiday traditions. I think they are beautiful and they bring people together.
.-= vered | blogger for hire´s last blog ..Crispy, Golden Potato Latkes =-.
What a great post! I’m super into holidays and celebrating and I love Christmas traditions. I’m going to have to add a few of these to my life this year.
.-= Positively Present´s last blog ..the magic of giving (& first ever giveaway!) =-.
Hi Vered: Maybe I can get one of my relatives who knows how to make tamales to invite me over to help this year. Time to start dropping hints.
Hi Dani: I’m glad you saw something in the post that you’re thinking of incorporating into your life.
Hi Marelisa – This is quite a list. Impressive! I particularly enjoy taking a long walk on Christmas day, especially if I can be someplace near the woods or ocean. And I'm a big fan of holiday movies. Two of my favorites: the original “Christmas Memory” with Geraldine Page, and the original “Christmas in Connecticut” with Barbara Stanwyck. In fact, my husband and I have a tradition of watching that one late on Christmas Eve.
Hi Patty: I lived in Connecticut for two years when I was small: it's a beautiful state. I've heard a lot about “Christmas in Connecticut” and I'm pretty sure I've caught pieces of it while channel surfing, but I've never sat down to watch the whole thing. I'll try to watch it this year.
one of my “geeky” Christmas traditions is to play Christmas Tree Pinball – I've been doing it for the past few years and its a whole lot of fun http://www.wildsnake.com/pinball/ct/
I'm going to make my house smell like Christmas this weekend. I love the idea of doing this myself without having to buy a prepackaged product. Christmas is about friends, family, and spirituality. Buying too much stuff only makes the house cluttered.
Hi Feint: That looks like fun.
Hi Karl: Most stuff we buy ends up in a landfill somewhere after only a short while anyway.
Hi Mare – I haven't really enjoyed Christmas since I was assaulted before Christmas several years ago. I try. This year I want to try extra hard, so I'll be trying some of your tips.
I will definitely try your Christmas scent. I bought some from Disney World a few years ago but it was so overpowering I had to throw it out.
Hi Cath:
I think it's something that needs to be tackled from all angles: smell, visual (movies, decorations), auditory (music), touch (baking cookies) . . . I've been listening to “Believe” which is the theme song from the Polar Express over and over again. I put it up on my posterous:
http://marelisa.posterous.com/believe-theme-fro...
Reading your list feels like I'm doing all these things already, great post! Merry Christmas
I love having the e cookbook fundraiser this year for UNICEF…it has made me feel more creative and connected to others.
We are no longer doing gifts – just “magic” in each others stockings and that has been big fun.
We enjoy a breakfast and then stockings and off we go to cross country ski. Playing games is so much fun….we end the year with Peace Dancing…Now I love this season and all the connections.
I enjoyed this post – thank you it lifted my spirits
Thanks for this. Traditions are disappearing quickly. Families are apart more than they are together. Your post focuses on the things we need to do (not just want to do) in order to create some family and friend time that people look forward to. That is, I believe, what the holidays are about. Recently, my family and friends started a new tradition… a Holiday Donation Dinner Party. Its an opportunity to get together before the holidays, to do some good for others. Find out how it works here: http://organize-more-stress-less.squarespace.co...
Thanks for this. Traditions are disappearing quickly. Families are apart more than they are together. Your post focuses on the things we need to do (not just want to do) in order to create some family and friend time that people look forward to. That is, I believe, what the holidays are about. Recently, my family and friends started a new tradition… a Holiday Donation Dinner Party. Its an opportunity to get together before the holidays, to do some good for others. Find out how it works here: http://organize-more-stress-less.squarespace.co...