Christmas Traditions with Ornaments

I'm a sucker for family traditions and especially ones that occur around the holidays. There's just something about creating memories for my young family that I hope will not only continue throughout my children's childhood but maybe just maybe will be carried on to their children. At least that's the hope, the vision in my head while we participate in these simple customs. That is until my 4 year old drops a favorite ornament smashing it into tiny pieces all over the floor and decides tree decorating isn't for her and my 2 year old's adorable plastic Santa cup unbeknownst to me leaks and the hot coco spills all over the couch!! True stories, but I digress.

 I've posted about a few of our family Christmas Traditions here Advent Calendar and here Hot Chocolate Bar.

This past Sunday we put up our tree....

 

 and enjoyed our hot chocolate bar...

I wanted to share another simple Christmas family tradition we have while decorating the tree. Each child has their personalized first Christmas ornament from the year they were born. Every year these are the first ornaments put on the tree, each child puts on their ornament. Just a fun way to get the ornament decorating started!

 

Do you have ornament traditions in your family? I'd love to hear about them!

Have you done the hot chocolate bar? I'd love to see photos!

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Holiday Tradition- St. Nick

I had intended on this going up last week but still thought this was worth sharing if you are taking note of holiday traditions you'd like to start next year or sometime in the future.

My friend Tiffany at peanutblossom has been doing a series of posts called Stock Your Stash.  She and a few other guest posters have been sharing holiday gift guide ideas and have come up with some wonderful suggestions. Be sure to check their Stock Your Stash series on her blog (click on peanut blossom above to get there). One of the Stock Your Stash posts that Tiffany featured had to do with the St. Nick tradition.  I love how Tiffany tweaked this simple tradition  to better suit her own family!  She very kindly let me feature her post here to share with you all.  Thanks Tiffany!

Welcome to the second post in the Stock your Stash series. If you missed the first round, you can get all caught up here.

This week we're talking stocking stuffers for St. Nick. Does your family celebrate St. Nicholas Day? I know not everyone is familiar with this tradition, so you cancheck out a little snippet of an explanation here.

Growing up, St. Nick always brought my sister and me a wall calendar for the coming year and a box of chocolate covered cherries. He usually filled our stockings with Lifesavers and chocolate coins and tubes of M&Ms. My mom always said it was a perfect little teaser holiday to get us in the Christmas mood. 

Now with kids of my own, St. Nick has taken on a little bit of a change. When the Peanut was just a year old, a wall calendar and cherries didn't seem exactly appropriate. St. Nick came up with a substitute that was much more fitting and luckily it has grown with her over the years. 

When each of my girls empty their stockings this year they will discover:

- a new Christmas picture book
- a single holiday movie for the family to enjoy
- matching Christmas pajamas
- an ornament for the tree

And in lieu of too many candies I don't really want them indulging in (anyone else STILL have Trick or Treat bags laying around?!) St. Nick brings us a family treat platter for sharing. 

Oddly enough, this treat basket was the item that was the most memorable for the Peanut last year. She has specifically asked whether I think we'll be getting it again this year.  

Items found on our festive red platter include: 

- "Snowballs": white cheddar puff balls
- Yardstick of popcorn kernels
- Red velvet pancake mix
- Raspberry white chocolate & Eggnog flavored scone mixes
- Eggnog streusel muffin mix
- Holiday shaped pasta
- Peppermint chocolate piroutte cookies
- Peanut butter filled, chocolate covered pretzle bites 

I use this collection to make several festive weekend breakfasts during December and we celebrate will little holiday themed meals and snacks all month long. These are all treats I'd likely find myself buying anyways over the course of the month. Bundling them together and putting them on a bright red platter underneath our stockings just makes them stand out as that much more special. I love that it also promotes sharing our treats together. 

What does your family enjoy most? Your gift basket could include:

- Hot cocoa and new mugs with fun pepperment stir sticks and marshmallows

- Holiday baking basket with packaged cupcake wrappers, mixes, and various sprinkles or cookie cutters and parchment paper

- Gingerbread house decorating basket with plenty of candies for coating it roof to base

Chances are likely these are things you'd be doing this season anyways. It's just all in the presentation!

Are you looking for other St. Nick ideas and Advent inspiration? 

Let's Lasso the Moon is sharing a fantastic printable with activities and games to do with your kids that will make more of the Christmas season.

Diet & Ridicule is sharing some healthy ideas to fill stockings for St. Nick. 

Then be sure to check back again the coming weeks as we really dig in on the holiday shopping lists!

Holiday Traditions Series- Hot Chocolate Bar

The Holiday season is upon us and I would like to do a series of posts (1 each week) featuring ideas for holiday traditions, some that I have started with my own family others that I would like to start someday.

The first one is tree decorating complete with a hot chocolate bar.  We did this last night for the first time and I would love to make it a family tradition.  

I made a big deal about it, hyping it up to Mallory. I told her after her nap we would decorate the tree and make our very own hot chocolate bar! She was super excited about both!

There are so many various ways to do this but we kept it pretty simple and I'm sure as the girls get older it will be altered through the years.  For now we bought instant hot coco (when the girls are older I would like to try home made hot coco).  The toppings included tiny marshmallows, chocolate chips, whip cream, and Xmas sprinkles and candy canes. I pulled out our festive holiday mugs. I bought the cute santa cups at Target and the real mugs for the grown ups are from Pier 1.

Again, ideas for toppings are endless- chocolate shavings, toffee chips, peppermint candy, ice cream, nuts etc..



The girls were able to choose what they wanted to put in their hot coco. They LOVED this!







All ready to enjoy as we decorate the tree!





The first of many family traditions we will do this season!  Simple and easy but hopefully memorable! Stay tuned for more various traditions shared in the coming month!