Tuesday, November 3, 2009

Can You Believe It Is November?

Wow, where did this year go? Wasn't it the Fourth of July like a week ago? But since it is November, I am trying to schedule all of our holiday traditions. I took the time to ask the children what was important to them. To my surprise, the things that I thought that they would love just were ok and some of the things that I would rather skip are "must haves" for them. The Christmas Light tour only got one star. But the pain in the neck rolled sugar cookies were ten stars. Thankfully we all agreed that Midnight Mass, the nativity set and the Advent wreath are must haves.

What holiday traditions are important at your house?

4 comments:

Unknown said...

There are few MUSTS in our house.
1. Make specalatius on day after Thanksgiving. This tradition began for me as a child and my hubby and I have continued it.

2. Decorate the house the Saturday after Thanksgiving. I absolutely LOVE the holiday and the decorations that go with it.

3. St. Nicholas Day-there is a new ornament in the shoe celebrating something important from that person's year and chocolate coins.

4. One present gets opened on Christmas Eve. Only one.

5. Mass on Christmas morning.

RealMom4Life said...

Both of you have great ideas so far! I'm gonna ask the kiddos. I wonder if I'm trying to hard on things that really don't matter and not hard enough on the things that do!

We do have some things though that I know everyone wants:

1. My Fontanini nativity set - it's getting bigger with pieces added as gifts every year.

2. We set up the Christmas tree sometime the week before Christmas but don't decorate it until all the kids are sleeping on Christmas eve. We also have a train set that goes around the tree complete with mountains, buildings, etc.

Midnight Mass? Really? I am sooo impressed! I haven't been to a midnight Mass in years! But then again our families have always been a little shifted from each other in the "daytime" hours.

Thanks for the post. This is going to get me thinking - and more importantly...asking...

Crunchy Momma said...

Mary, how on earth can you kids stand to only open one gift Christmas Eve? Around here I am afraid that would make them more likely to stay up all night anticipating. We do Saint Nicholas's Feast Day too. I forgot one year and I still hear about it.

Real, eventually you will have to get a bigger house just so that you have a bigger living room to put that nativity set in! And yes, you and I are on totally different schedules. Your family are those dreaded morning people that I have heard about. tee hee. Midnight mass is actually a good fit for our family. We are night owls anyhow. Plus the kids are not good with anticipation. So, they might as well be at mass rather than at home trying to be still and quiet in bed.

Unknown said...

1) In advent, Jesse tree and advent wreath
2) usually put up tree and decorate on third Sunday of Advent. Tree comes down no earlier than Baptism of Our Lord
3) My Precious Moment Navitity set has the "extra" pieces placed out, one a day after Christmas with the three kings set out on the "true" Epiphany January 6. (I don't have pieces for the 12 days of Christmas. I have a "mini" navitity and when I brainstormed about how to set out pieces, I couldn't find many mini pieces.