Holiday Traditions

Over at the Mom Gadget forums we gals are talking about holiday traditions for this weeks blog carnival.

I wanted to talk about 2 traditions -

The first is a tradition that I grew up with. Each year we would, as a family, pick a Saturday or Sunday evening in December for "light viewing". As simple as this sounds as kids me and my siblings would plan this in advance and count down the days until we would be going on that special ride. We would spend hours driving around town looking at all the lights and decorations. We would keep a running total of how many snowmen, Santa's and rain deer we could see! It was such a great memory for me as a child, I have continued it with my own children. We are going this Saturday!

My other tradition is one my husband and I started with our own children a few years ago. My oldest son was born on December 1st. Each year we have a "visitor" that is magically delivered to our house by Santa on my sons birthday. This visitor is Thomas the Penguin Elf. He is nothing more than a skinny little stuffed penguin that I got at the Dollar Tree. In my kids eyes, he is Santa's helper who visits our home each year from December 1st until Christmas Eve - when Santa picks him up. Thomas the Penguin Elf for those 24 days is the focus of my kids ~ he goes everywhere with us and sleeps in a "special" bed the boys made for him. Sometimes if the boys are especially good, Thomas will leave a "treat" for them the next morning with a note from Thomas explaining that he will have to make sure Santa hears about the good behavior. This tradition is so simple, yet the boys talk about Thomas all year and can not wait to see him each year. Each year I have to hide him with my Christmas wrapping paper until next December, and each year my husband & I joke about the possibility of Thomas getting misplaced or lost and we can't help but cringe.

Here are some great posts by other Mom Gadget members that could help you start your own holiday traditions!

• Katelyn at Free Holiday Ideas talks about the "holiday journal" ~ what an amazing and sentimental idea! I want to try to start this one with my family...
• Kathy at Fruit and VeggieVille believes that holiday traditions binds a family from generation to generation and she recalls her favorite Christmas Dinner tradition from her own childhood.
  
• Teri at Mother Earthbeats has great creative ideas that will get you into the holiday spirit and "give back" a little too!
  
• Gayla at Mom Gadget has found the hard candy version of fruit cake and all the memories from her childhood associated with it. She has also gone on a blog scavenger hunt & found new random bloggers she'd never discovered otherwise ~ all with amazing holiday traditions.
• Eliza the Home Mom has some great traditions including a Holiday Menu and a countdown chain!
• Char over at Casual Keystrokes has a sentimental tradition involving handmade ornaments - check out the pictures!

I hope you enjoyed this weeks blog carnival! Keep on submitting your "holiday tradition" posts and I will continue to update this!