Reminder! If you are doing holiday shopping, don’t forget to activate your cash back from your Ebates account. This is the time of year when I get the most back (if I actually remember to activate it)! I also install the bookmark tool because it notifies me to activate my cash back any time I am shopping online.
Today’s post is about Christmas traditions to start with your spouse. I know it’s not Christmas yet, but it’s almost November which means I’m starting to get into planning mode. Christmas is super special for me, which means I’m planning months in advance to help create all of the magic.
Traditions are super important for family unity and bonding, but they are also really important for couples and marital relationships. Marriage isn’t always easy, but taking the time to create traditions and memories—just the two of you—will do wonders for marriage. It will also give you plenty of good memories to look back on.
If you’re looking to start a new tradition with your spouse, here are a few ideas to get your started:
If you want some creative ideas specifically for your stocking this year, make sure to check out these ideas here: 9 Creative Ways to Do Christmas Stockings With Your Spouse
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- Cider Sippin’. Okay, I actually prefer hot cocoa, but “cider sippin’” sounds cooler. For this one, you get a babysitter and go out Christmas shopping for the kids. But you go somewhere special—just the two of you—and get some hot cocoa together. While you sip on your cocoa and enjoy the time alone, you can go over your children’s lists and make a plan of attack for the shopping.
- The Classics. I love the tradition of watching a holiday movie together. For my husband and I, it is “Elf.” Send the kids to grandma’s, or send them to someone else’s house, or give them an incentive to stay in bed while mom and dad have a date night at home. Put on a favorite Christmas movie while you wrap all of the presents. Make dinner something easy (pizza, take-out, etc.).
- Hallmark Christmas Movie Countdown. There’s nothing that brings the Christmas spirit like a feel-good Hallmark Christmas movie. If you don’t have the Hallmark channel, heres a list of Hallmark Christmas Movies you can Watch on Amazon, or if you do have the channel, here’s the Hallmark Christmas Movie Schedule.
- T’was the Night Before Christmas. The next day will be majorly focused on the kids, so make a tradition the night before for just the two of you. It could be as little as 5 minutes, but come up with a tradition that works well for your relationship. Maybe you have a special “toast” and share your favorite memory from the last year, or maybe you exchange a special gift or letter.
- Stocking Stuffers. Get together with another couple that you both enjoy spending time with. Enjoy an activity, dinner, or treat together and then split up: Guys and Gals. collaborate together as you search for some fun stocking stuffers for your spouse. Sometimes getting ideas from someone else can be helpful, and having a girl’s and guy’s night is fun too!
- Plan a Trip together. It’s recommended that you take a trip together once a year–just the two of you. Make Christmas the time that you book something because of all the deals. See this years Black Friday Travel Deals (Includes Cyber Monday).
- Christmas All Year Long. I mentioned this one in my post on creative ways to celebrate your husband’s birthday, but I’m mentioning it again here because I love it! Rather than give each other THINGS for Christmas, give each other date nights to be enjoyed once a month, all year-long. This could be as simple as movie tickets, plays, and sporting events; or,if you can afford it one of them could be a special weekend away.
- Christmas Lights. After the first snowfall, drive around listening to Christmas music and look at all the lights.
- Themed Stockings. This is a favorite tradition all on its own! Each year, pick a theme for each other’s stockings and go to town making it fun & unique for each other. In fact, themed stockings can be such a fun tradition for spouses, that you don’t even need to worry about other gifts. For some ideas on some fun themes, check out my post Creative Ways to Exchange Christmas Stockings With Your Spouse.
- Advent Calendar. Do an advent calendar for each other! Here is a fun idea using fishnet stockings, as well as some really fun ideas for what to put inside them: Advent Calendar For Your Spouse (If December has already started, this idea also works great for the 12 Days of Christmas, or even the Stocking for Christmas Day).
That’s all for now! Now it’s time for you to inspire me! What are some traditions you enjoy with your spouse?
Here are a few Reader-contributed ideas:
Christmas Pajamas. “Every year we buy each other something to wear to bed on Christmas Eve…some years one (or both) of us is “naughty” some years it is comfy. We wrap them and leave them on the pillows.” –Kristi
Gift-giving in Reverse: “We also buy each other a gift card/certificate for somewhere that we would like to go during the year. A few years ago, I wanted to go zip-lining, so I bought the gift certificate and gave it to him for Christmas, he wanted to go to a certain restaurant that wasn’t near us and gave it to me. Then, each of us plan to use the certificates and surprise the other one with a trip. It works out great for us.” -Kristi
Stringing the Lights: “My hubby and I go out to the mountains to pick and cut down the christmas tree. Later that evening when the kids are asleep, he will put on the Bing Crosby White Christmas CD, make hot chocolate and we string up the lights. The kids decorate the tree the next day.” -Stephanie
OFF the wall: “Our first Christmas together, we had only been together for a short time and we each were a little “off the mark” with our gift. Each year from then on, we buy each other something small that is totally off the wall just to laugh and remember that first Christmas.” -Kristi
Ornament Exchange: “My husband and I exchange Christmas ornaments every year! There have been some interesting ones over the years due to his last minutes shopping skills” -Sara
Tip The Waitress: “My husband and I have a shopping date night each December while our daughter bakes cookies at Grandma’s. We get all those last minute gifts and the inevitable clear tape. Then, we go to our favorite restaurant for wine and appetizers (enough to make a meal!). We give our server a ginormous tip – it’s a very busy time for wait staff and honestly, tips can decrease as customers are pinching pennies for gifts.” -Beth
Gingerbread Houses: “We make a gingerbread house every year together. It is always a fun date.” -Melinda
$20 Budget: “When we first got married we were poor collage students so we went to a store we each had 20$ to spend including tax and we buy presents for each other. The goal is for the most we can get that’s sentimental. We do that every year now and I LOVE it! We also enjoy making chocolate turtles with each other during Christmas.” -Eva
Christmas Reading: “My husband likes to listen to me read so I usually find a Christmas story for us to enjoy together.” -Lorraine
Donuts on Christmas Eve. “My husband and I make doughnuts every Christmas Eve together. Is has been our tradition since we first got married. Here are 35+ amazing doughnut recipes that we like to use” -Katie
That’s all for now! Now it’s time for you to inspire me! What are some traditions you enjoy with your spouse?
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These are excellent tips! My husband and I are really big on having our on traditions, especially now that we have a little one. I love traditions and I’m excited to make some of my own with my family.
Love this! With the craziness around here some (most) days, my husband and I could use some traditions for “us”. Thanks for sharing!
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You’re welcome Jody! Thanks so much for stopping by!
These are some awesome ideas! Last year, my husband and I started an advent calendar where we split the days to put little surprises in. They ranged anywhere from an activity to do together to a few chocolates to a small gift like a new movie. It made every morning leading up to Christmas lots of fun to see what the other person had come up with!
I LOVE that idea Emily!
I love the tip idea for wait staff and might have to do that this year. Last year, we went downtown and tried to give cookies I made to homeless people, but we couldn’t find any!! They were all, fortunately, in shelters. I liked the idea and hoped to continue it, but we might take a different approach. Suggestions would be great!
Something we’ve done in the past (being that I’ve worked for a lot of non-profit organizations) is to take something like that and give them to the STAFF or volunteers at places, especially ones that have a lot more stress this time of year without any or much time off – homeless shelters, fire or police, emergency rooms, postal workers, domestic violence shelters, CPS, etc. A lot of those people work very hard to make sure others are safe and having a special holiday even when it takes them away from their own family.
I love that idea JoAnn! No one ever thinks of the staff! I have a friend who never got to have her dad home for Christmas because he always had to work (he was a pilot). This would be a good tradition for Thanksgiving as well! I always feel bad for those poor clerks that have to work Black Friday!
I love this! I’m adding some of these to my list of things to do for others this Christmas. It’s important to teach our children that giving is far better than receiving. Thank you!
My husband and I don’t have any children and we decided traditions shouldn’t only be for families with children, so we’ve had time to develop some:
– We watch Christmas movies while we decorate the tree and we always end with Die Hard
– We load up the puppies, get our portable cups with hot chocolate, and drive around and look at lights
– I give him an ‘us’ ornament every year and a New England Patriots ornament every year (and I usually make both) in his stocking
– We do stockings for each other but they can’t be pricey and instead of giving each other gifts, sometime during Christmas break (the husband’s a teacher), we take a little 2-night getaway to a private cabin with an outdoors hot tub and no wifi or cell reception
– No matter where we are on Christmas morning – our house, my parents’, his parents’, etc, we always spend at least an hour together just the two of us, even if it means waking up extra early. We always try to remind ourselves that while we love our families of origin, WE are a family unit and they are just relatives.
– We had a miscarriage a few years ago that was very difficult emotionally, especially for me and it’s always harder at Christmas since I love it so much (and we have ten nieces and nephews running around). So each year we adopt a Salvation Army angel that is the age our baby would be; we didn’t know the sex of the baby so we alternate between a boy and a girl each year. It can really help.
JoAnn! Your last one totally made me cry. I had a personal way of remembering my baby that i miscarried, but i like yours better. These are all FANTASTIC ideas. Thank you so much for sharing. I’ll add them to the list!
wow you guys sound a lot like me and my husband!
– our daughter was stillborn 3 years ago. we have a tiny tree (about a foot tall) that we decorate each year and take to her headstone on Christmas Eve, it even has little battery powered lights so it stays lit all night long. we get a Angel from the Salvation Army as well…. we have no other kids, just our puppies and kitties who are spoiled rotten with presents each year
– instead of milk and cookies for santa we always leave two shots of whiskey and a Dark Chocolate Candy bar which we share at midnight on Christmas eve
– we also put a small meaningful gift in the bottom of each others stocking and fill the rest of it with our favorite candy.
– Christmas Morning is spent watching our furbabies open presents and drinking hot cocoa or eggnog and then the rest of the day is spent running between our two families for dinner
– im sure some of this will change if we ever have another child but for now its our perfect little Christmas tradition.
What a wonderful way of remembering your daughter!
These are great ideas! This is mine and my husbands first Christmas together and we decided that since we don’t have a lot of money we’re going to write a letter to each other with a picture of our favorite memory from the year together 🙂
My parents have a tradition that sort of falls into the “family traditions” box, but they started it well before any kids came around so I think it counts. Every year they buy a new ornament that reflects the year — a trip they/we’ve taken, a major life event, etc. my dad then writes a short description of the year on the box. When we decorate the tree, before hanging any other ornaments, we read the boxes and hang the year ornaments year by year, starting with their first Christmas together. We have them all memorized by now, but it’s a lot of fun and I plan to do the same with my future husband. They also buy a new Christmas music cd every year.
My husband’s family and mine are almost 3 hours apart but we are able to do Christmas Eve with his family and Christmas Day with mine. Since we have to leave fairly early in the morning from his parent’s, he and I wake up super early and make very rich Christmas-shaped buttermilk pancakes and bacon for the family. It’s nice for us to have a little alone time and the kitchen is small and we are always super close to each other trying to be as quiet as possible to not wake the little ones.
We also buy a gingerbread “something” to make with his nieces on Christmas Eve. We have done houses, villages, trees, cookies, etc. It gives the four of us an activity to do together that they love and it keeps them out of Grandma’s hair while she’s making dinner!
Looking forward to creating new traditions with new addition next year!
Every year my husband and I make a new stocking for each christmas. We decorate them and watch christmas movies- sometimes it takes a couple weeks to finish them. But we have fun planning the whole year one what we are going to make.
Each day of December, my hubby and I watch a classic Christmas movie, such as Year Without a Santa Claus, Rudolph, and the Little Drummer Boy. Also, each year we buy a Hallmark ornament in memory of my husband’s mother, as this was a favorite tradition each year for her.
I love that Traci! Thanks for sharing your special tradition!
I loved reading all of these traditions. This is my first Christmas with my significant other, and I want to make it special. Growing up we made sure we watched “it’s a wonderful life”. After, we would turn off all the lights except for the Christmas tree, and sit in the living room drinking hot cocoa while listening to classical Christmas music. It seems silly, but it’s something I love to look back on.
I love these ideas! My husband and I do a lot of these already and plan to add more when we have little ones of our own. One that we do is get our picture taken with Santa 🙂 Find out the hours for Santa at the mall then try to go when it won’t be too busy (a school night, during dinner/bed time…). We make it a part of a date night or Christmas shopping night. You are never too old for Santa and it’s a fun picture of the two of you to have as a keepsake!
Elizabeth! That’s a GREAT idea! Taking pics with Santa without our kids…that’s totally something we would do! lol
These are some really great ideas. I love traditions and Christmas and finding ways to make something special. I’m not married right now but would love to start doing these things. Sadly, George Clooney is not the marrying king:)
Haha, thanks Shannon! I love Christmas traditions too! Some of these can also be done with roommates, sisters and BFF’s, so don’t feel like you have to be married. Merry Christmas!
turns out he is!
Haha I love that you came back to update this! I was giggling at my desk
We fill each other’s stocking with the usual – candy and small gifts – but then at the bottom, we stash a can of silly string from the dollar store. Whoever gets to the bottom of their stocking first cracks that baby open and it’s an all-out war. After cleanup, then it’s time to move on to the rest of the regular presents.
Lisa! I LOVE the silly string idea! Thanks so much for sharing
One thing my boyfriend and I like to do every year is walk around and look at all the decorations people have put up outside. We bundle up, hit a Starbucks for some hot cocoa, and walk around looking at all the decorations. It’s a lot of fun, and a great way to enjoy the cold New York weather.
You live in New York?! So fun. Maybe it’s because New York seems to be in all the Christmas movies, but it seems like living in New York would be extra special during the holidays.
My fiance and I have adopted a gift-giving theme that works really well. We limit ourselves to four gifts that fall into each of the following categories: 1) something you want 2) something you need 3) something you’ll wear 4) something to read.
This gives us enough freedom to be creative and show affection for eachother AND keeps us on the same page.
Love it!
Wow great ideas!!
Great ideas. I like the one of watching a Christmas movie every year. My favourite Christmas classic is, “A Christmas Story.” I never get tired of it, but my husband has never seen it. I guess I’ll have to pop it on the tv this Christmas.
These are great suggestions! We like to drive around different neighborhoods and also walk around ours to look at all the great Christmas decorations. I also do the twelve days of Christmas for my husband. I love that it makes him feel like a little kid again when he finds a new present every morning leading up to Christmas 🙂
Love more ideas! Traditions are important to me.
-Every year we make paper cut snowflakes while watching a Christmas movie (usually Elf)… then we hang them from the ceiling.
-We try to make an ornament each year for the tree.
-We always eat pomegranate seeds in melted peanut butter!
-We also love making a blanket fort, eating a plate of cookies, hot chocolate, and a movie!
-SANTA SHAKES!!!!!!!!!!!!!! A milkshake made with peppermint ice cream and eggnog.
-HOT PASSIONATE KISSES!! It’s hot chocolate and then get grasshoppers (thin mints) take a bite from either end… then you suck the hot chocolate up through the cookie like a straw. It’s DIVINE.
Many more! But these are my favorites!
Cheers!
Talia
Wow! Those are fabulous ideas! Now i want to try pomegranite with peanut butter!!
Great ideas! My husband and I started our tradition the first Christmas we were married. Each year we have taken turns buying an ordnmant that represents our year together. We’ve now got a little collection of meaningful ordnmants that take us through the years we have been married and our adventures together. I can’t take the credit for he started it.. I’ve got a sweet man what can I say. 😉
I’ve had the BEST time this morning reading through these!
My Grandfather (with whom I was very close) died suddenly 1 week before Christmas 2007, and it has been very difficult to enjoy Christmas since. But because of that, we put in even more effort each year (and we were always a very Christmas-focused family!). So…here are our traditions:
From when my twin sister and I were about 5, Dad took us out to a Christmas tree farm in the heart of the countryside, and we’d find the BIGGEST tree possible! My sister and I now have husbands, so she and her husband go in the car with Dad, me and my husband in our own car, or in 3 different cars, all following my Dad, listening to and singing along to Christmas songs the whole way there and back (and we don’t start ANYTHING Christmas related til we’ve done this trip). When we get there, my sister and I have the deciding vote on the trees and the place is a total secret from me to this day (I’m 29).
A few days before Christmas, my husband and I pull out all our Christmas movies and watch a couple while drinking a festive cocktail and wrapping all our presents.
On Christmas Eve, we ALWAYS watch A Mupper Christmas Carol, snuggled up on the sofa with our two cats.
Christmas Day morning we have a ‘fancy’ breakfast. I’ll have banana pancakes or french toast or eggs florentine. He’ll usually have bacon sarnies. And if we gave each other any sort of edible gifts (which we ALWAYS open in bed!) then we start on those as well, and a snifter of alcohol of some kind.
My sister and Dad and I always used to start Christmas Day with a tin of chocolate biscuits for breakfast. But we all have coeliac disease now, so instead, I make a HUGE tub of chocolate biscuits and we split them out when we all arrive at our parents’ house. I cover plain gluten free biscuits with chocolate, nuts, coconut, etc, and make some of my own.
And there we have it!
Those are amazing traditions! I hope you have a wonderful Christmas this year! Thanks for sharing 🙂
my husband and I BOTH LOVE to bake. We make cookie platters for several families. It’s fun to go thru recipe books and buying the ingredients and putting it all together. Time in the kitchen with my main squeeze is the BEST.
That is so awesome! Thanks for the smile
I love all these ideas! This year my significant other and I of 4 years moved in together and this will be the first year we spend the holidays together and travel together. Since we’ve been in school or lived in different cities, I can’t wait to adopt some of these ideas! I did manage to come up with one I can’t wait to continue for years to come!
-So this year we decided to take a lot of mini trips and take advantage of our spare time before marriage, children, ect. On all of our trips I would find a tourist shop and pick out a christmas ornament for that city or place. It was a lot of fun picking them out together. I mean lets be honest, ALL of our holiday decorations are mine/left overs my mom gave me over the years. It’s nice cause we both can’t wait to pull all those out together and remissness on our trips together.
Also by the way, for anyone thinking of giving back to volunteers or workers, that is a great idea! As a nurse that works holidays (I only get Christmas Eve and Christmas Day off every 3 years), anything would mean the world to us!
I work at a children’s hospital and all year round we are always appreciative of donations of toys or games to help the kids occupy their time. A lot of hospitals also have Ronald McDonald houses (where patient families can sleep and eat for free while a loved one is the hospital) and they are always looking for food donations or people to volunteer and cook meals for families.
Thats a great one!
This is a great post! We are always planning stuff with family & kids and sometimes neglect the hubbys! Thanks for sharing! xo
I just LOVE this list!! As a mother, I am often so focused on getting all the festivities organized for the family and the kids to enjoy the holidays. That keeps me so busy that I often don’t spend enough time thinking about making time and traditions for just my husband and I to share… yet this is so important! Thank you so much for this wonderful reminder and all the great tips!
You’re welcome! Thanks for stopping by!
I love all these ideas! My husband and I have only been married for two and a half years and don’t have children yet. However, we have a tradition we started before we were married.
We pick a night sometime close to Christmas Eve, we make hot chocolate, and watch The Polar Express. Last year we hadn’t picked THE night yet but my husband surprised me one evening with a golden ticket he had made after dinner with instructions to hop into some pjs. 🙂
We also read ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas in bed on Christmas Eve.
Those are awesome traditions! Thank you for sharing!
I love that you didn’t rhyme off a bunch of traditions that revolve around religion. 🙂
My husband is in the military and seems to leave before Christmas all the time. Either for a couple days, or a few weeks (this year he’s gone for three weeks until the beginning of Dec) so I always get to decorate the tree and put up stockings and such before he gets home.
He now demands my hot chocolate when the weather starts getting cold – he says it’s the best in the world. Which is huge, considering I cook almost nothing well.
He likes to surprise me by putting up decorations outside while I’m out or away.
This year I want to try some of the suggestions above as well as a weekly movie night where we invite friends and family to come by and drink my hot chocolate and munch on some seasonal goodies while enjoying a holiday flick.
We have always taken a Friday or Monday off together to go Christmas shopping together. It usually ends up being breakfast out somewhere, a little window shopping, a stop for coffee, a little more window shopping, and then a nice, late lunch followed by an evening with our whole family watching some Christmas movie. It’s a great opportunity to connect with out the weekend “busy-ness” of the mall / stores and a wonderful to get last minute ideas for each other (because we’re usually done with the kids by the time we do this).
There are so many great things on this list! Our wedding anniversary is December 13, so we normally take the day off work, send our little ones to daycare and spend the day together. Usually a movie and a nice lunch, maybe finish some holiday shopping! It’s nice to have time just the two of us!!
We also purchase new ornaments every year, sometimes more than 1 each! Things that remind us of the year or interests of our boys/family. We put up our tree Thanksgiving weekend, listening to Christmas music and our boys wearing their new Christmas pajamas!
We also have a local park that has “Christmas in the Park” with lots of different Christmas lights, designs and scenes. We go several times every year, it’s free! We take hot cocoa and relax as we drive through!
We are both from large families and have to split our time to attend celebrations at each family, we usually spend Christmas Eve at my grandparents’ house, it’s been a tradition since I was very small. So we usually end up getting home quite late and our little boys are tired, so we let them go to bed with us and wake up with them Christmas morning! Santa leaves something small, usually edible, on our nightstands and we wake up and open that first thing, as a family!!
We are huge on traditions and love, love, love Christmas!
This being our 2nd chrismas since we got married,my husband and i am developing a christmas holiday tradition of staying indoors a few days to chrismas and watching chrismas movies, playing cards, computer games, eating and just having fun…we find this relaxing!!
Prior to that, we always usher in the festive holiday by playing chrismas song as early as 20th of november….after the fabulous chrismas day, which ofcourse we spend half of it at church, we begin inviting couples and friend over to our house.
We get to have a lot of fun, have meals together, watch movies chat and moreso reflect on how the whole year has been for each one of us.
We sooooo love christmas holiday, it means less work, more rest and fun!!!!!!
My boyfriend works from home and I’m the homemaker so we spend lots of time together. This is our second Christmas together as a couple and we’ve started a few traditions that begin after we get our tree:
~ around the 10th of December, we drive out to the Xmas tree farm, he cuts the tree, we drive home and decorate it while sipping on Christmas cocktails – we order pizza too that night!
~ every night after the tree is up, we watch a different Xmas movie
~ we fill each others’ stockings with little gifts for each other and we buy an extra gift for each other “from Santa” that’s for the household, which we open on Xmas eve
~ last Xmas eve, I made pulled pork in the slow cooker, it’s a new tradition this year with some added homemade mac n’ cheese
~ last year the cats tried to open the presents (too many shiny bows!)!!! so our new tradition will be to hide the gifts and put them out on Xmas eve
~ neither of us has family and we live in the mountains so friends aren’t inclined to visit often, so we spend Xmas alone…no big dinner planned, I make all-day appetizers and finger sweets and we sip on egg nog and apple cider, nap, enjoy our gifts, watch more Xmas movies and listen to Xmas music…no pressure, no getting dressed (pj only rule)
THIS year, I’m making ice lanterns by freezing water in balloons then putting tea lights in them. On Xmas eve we’re going to put out the Roots chairs on the snowy back deck, light the candles, bundle up in blankets, listen to Xmas music on the Ipod and drink some Jack Daniels “Winter Jack” apple cider. It’ll be pretty romantic! A movie in bed, then I’m sure I’ll be up at 7am like a kid wanting to open my presents!!!
Are you posting some New Year’s traditions too?
I loved everyones idea. This will be my significant other and I 3rd christmas together. Every year for thanksgiving, Christmas eve, Christmas day and new years we go to both of our family’s home. But I want to start a tradition of our own and I came to the right place for options. We currently live together and have no kids. It will be our first time putting up a christmas tree also. Well I will let everyone know how it went. 🙂
Thanks
My Fiance and I give each other a Christmas Eve box, which has to contain 4 things; something to eat, something to drink, something to do, and something to wear. It’s usually a pack of each others favourite sweets, beer for him, wine for me, a christmas DVD or a game, and new pyjamas. We get into our new pyjamas and enjoy the contents of our boxes together.
I absolutely loved reading this along with everyones comments!! Such unique ideas!
This will be my boyfriends and my 2nd Christmas together, and every year we make an ugly Christmas sweater for each other to wear to all the parties we have to go to with our friends. It makes a great conversation piece for everyone who asks about them and gets a lot of laughs. We also love watching our favorite Christmas movies while sipping on some hot chocolate mixed with peppermint schnapps! It is so good and tastes like Christmas!
This has been great to read! We have been married for 10 1/2 years with no children yet. Every year we decorate the tree together around the end of November/beginning of December. The day that we have Christmas together is a day meant for relaxing and spending quality time together. We sleep in together and he helps me with lunch – I’ve usually prepared it beforehand. We always put a Christmas tablecloth on the table and eat the meal by candlelight. He does dishes for me or we do them together. We exchange gifts. Then we set out candy and chocolate (which we have shopped together for beforehand) and snack while we play a game like Scrabble. Eventually I’ll put out supper which is leftovers from lunch, cookies, cheese, pickles, etc. We sometimes go for a walk in the evening. Sometimes it is hard to know how to fill a whole day so reading these traditions gave me some great ideas!
this is our 50th Christmas. We starting dating four years before in College and then married 50 years ago. We could not afford to buy anything that first year. We got a tree, we bought some lights, we bought one box of red ornaments and a couple of boxes of Candy Canes. The cellophane on the canes would sparkle in the evening when the lights were on. Now 50 years later, every year since that first one, I put candy canes on our tree to remind us of that first Christmas.
We buy a “special” ornament every year. More if we travel and want to have one to represent a special place to remember it.
We had trouble having children so we were married for a little over four years before our first daughter was born. I guess she “fixed” me because a year later, her sister was born! Every year they get a special decoration. When they were married, I boxed up all their decorations and gave them to them for their first tree.
Now every Thanksgiving, after dinner, I give each daughter, son-in-law, and grand child (5 of them) an ornament for their tree that year. So when they marry, they will have ornaments of their own. It is something to remind them of something that happened that year, some kind of sport, award, travel, etc. – something special for that year.
Through my husband’s Rotary Club, our grandchildren come with us, we have a lovely breakfast, and then we deliver Christmas Dinner and presents for the little ones to families that are in need and have been selected to receive the food and gifts. I think about a 100 families in our area benefit from this holiday tradition for his Rotary Club. We started bringing our grandchildren with us to help deliver the Christmas baskets a few years ago and every year they want to come with us.
Since the homes we go to are not anything like their lovely homes, it is a good opportunity for them to see that not everyone is a lucky as they are to have a nice home and loving parents (and grandparents). Lately, we also spend a day filling boxes for the local food banks one weekend day before the holidays, and they all want to come with us and help. It warms my heart that they want to share that experience – and they are hard workers. We have fun doing it all together and it helps them learn to appreciate what they have and, hopefully, to continue doing good works to help those families and people in need throughout their lives. The first time our oldest grandson went with us, he was in a car seat, now he is six feet tall and hauls the food boxes to the delivery truck and helps Grandma fill her boxes!
Just before Christmas, they go with us to see the Christmas lights, we try to go to a Singing Christmas Tree production in our area, just before the holiday. We read the Night before Christmas just before bed time on Christmas Eve and then the Christmas story in the morning. 3 are teenagers now, one is a few weeks from turning 21, and the little one is 11. They always want to do it the same as when they were tiny – and I am glad – I love Christmas.
It is a magical time of year and I love all the traditions, the decorations, and the Christmas outings with my husband, our daughters, and our Grand daughter shopping for the family members. Our girls and I usually spend on Saturday shopping, our grand daughter will go out with me one day after she comes home from college, my husband and I always have a shopping day. With so many people in our family, I shop all year round. Everyone in the family gets a Christmas stocking in the morning from me.
Our son-in-laws seem to love the stocking tradition even better than the children. Once one of the daughters, after all the grandchildren were being born, suggested that I stop doing stockings or just do them for the children. Her husband exclaimed – “That’s the best part of Christmas morning.” So the tradition stayed! Everyone gets a stocking.
Great ideas ! That makes Christmas preparation more romantic !
This is so sweet! I love the off-the-wall gifts and gift giving in reverse, and we’ll definitely be going for a walk around the neighbourhood this year to look at the Christmas lights 🙂
Ohhhh so lovely
never forget all of you how lucky you are to have such a husband or such a wife.
I never got so much fun, love or happiness with my husbands.
Love you for being happy
Fun ideas! My boyfriend and I are coming up on our second anniversary right before Christmas. Every year I buy us matching ornaments! He’s a chef so most of them are food related (our first year was chocolate covered strawberries)! This year I bought us Disney ice cream cones. So much fun to put them up on our tree to remember them