As the holidays approach, we asked our World Moms Blog writers to…
“…tell us about a holiday/cultural tradition that you are excited
about sharing with your child(ren) this year.”
Check out what some of our World Moms had to say…
Kyla P’an of Massachusetts, USA writes:
“There are two things I get really excited about each year:
1. setting out our family creche. We add one piece each night until Christmas Eve, saving the baby. On Christmas morning, baby Jesus magically appears and the kids get excited about discovering him there.
2. Advent calendars, my mom has devotedly given me an advent calendar every year of my life for the past 39 years and now she sends them to my kids too…this year we have a chocolate one and a Playmobile one to look forward to.”
Salma of Ontario, Canada writes:
“The kids love Secret Santa so we always do it. Also, if hubby and I both get enough time off, we plan a whole week filled with fun, games and outings.
Hubby – in charge of the entertainment (movies, etc.) & snacks…and forking over the cash to get it all done
Amira- Games (Monopoly, etc.)
Iman- Treats
Me- Outings, schedule, bookings, budget etc.
This is our tradition and we look forward to it.”
Dr. Lanham of Arizona, USA writes:
“I’m excited about bringing in the New Year at church! We do this every year!”
FireCrystals of India writes:
“I am extremely excited to share the tradition of crib making with my little one. It is going to be such fun to be making a crib with the 3 kings, the shepherds, all the animals and finally setting out the angels and Mary, Joseph and Baby Jesus. As well as decorating the crib, lighting it up and seeing the wonder in his eyes, when he sees all the fairy lights – I just can’t wait for Dec 15th to begin all that! 🙂 ”
Hamakkomommy of Japan writes:
“We do Christmas twice: the purely materialistic Japanese version with my in-laws on the 24th complete with fried chicken and strawberry shortcake, then the “American” version with other ex-pat friends on the 25th.
My kids love everything about the lead-up to Christmas, but especially leaving out homemade cookies and milk for Santa Claus. This year I will have to remind hubby not to clean them up! He thought they were just leftovers….
New Year’s is the biggest holiday of the year here in Japan, and the children enjoy getting “otoshidama” (gifts of money) to buy toys with and playing traditional New Year’s games. The thing they love the most is flying kites in the park, but it is so cold on the first of January that I can’t say I’m as enthusiastic! They also like going to watch “Chinese dragon” performances and giving and receiving New Year’s cards.”
Spectrum Mummy of South Africa writes:
“As my hubby & I are Italians living in Cape Town (South Africa) our traditions have had to be adapted for the heat!
Our traditional Christmas meals are designed to warm you up when it’s snowing outside! We now have the roast late on Christmas Eve and (adults) exchange gifts with Panettone (traditional Italian Cake) and champagne after midnight. The kids go to bed early (otherwise Father Christmas can’t come as he knows if kids are asleep or not!) and they find gifts under the tree in the morning.
We have Panettone for breakfast too! Christmas lunch then consists of leftovers from the night before or a braai (South African BBQ) around the pool! My favourite “tradition” though is one I started when I was pregnant … every Christmas Eve I read “The Night Before Christmas” out loud. My kids are 18 & 15 years old now and (despite the fact that they roll their eyes when I pull out the well-loved book) I think they’d miss it if I stopped reading it. I enjoy it in any case and am looking forward to reading it to my grandbabies one day!”
Ms. V of South Korea writes:
“My husband’s family has a great tradition of gifting ornaments each year to the children so that when they grow up, they have an ornament for each year of their lives. My husband and I started the tradition of making an ornament each year as well. So this year, our son’s first holiday season, we will make an ornament for the family, and then one special just for him. The other tradition my husband and I have started is to have a huge Greek feast for Christmas dinner, in honor of my mother’s Greek heritage. The little one is too young for spanakopita and dolmades this year, but next year he’ll love it (I hope). And lastly, we always make my husband’s great-grandmother’s sugar cookies for the holidays. I know the little will enjoy that as he gets older.”
RoxIsBrilliant of Nevada, USA writes:
“I’m excited about teaching my son all the different traditions surrounding both Hanukkah and Christmas. This will be the first year that we’ll have an Advent calendar, and we’ll light the candles of the menorah.”
Maman Aya of New York, USA writes:
“We celebrate both Hanukkah and Christmas in our home, so we enjoy lighting the menorah and eating all of the yummy fried food (especially latkes) for Hanukkah, and setting up and decorating a pretty tree for Christmas. the children get spoiled by both sides of the family, and love every minute of it (especially all of the presents 🙂 ).”
Multitasking Mumma of Ontario, Canada writes:
“This is the first year my daughter will get really excited about Christmas. We just welcomed Elf on the Shelf to our home and will be enjoying watching her as we travel to our families’ homes. We are starting our own traditions and couldn’t be more excited.”
Tara B. of Washington State, USA writes:
“We have started a new tradition for our family of going sledding on Christmas Eve. We don’t usually have snow at our home, but we can be up in the mountains in the snow within an hour of driving. We go up during the morning and play ‘til we are frozen. Then we make hot chocolate in our portable camping stove before eating tons of cookies on the drive home. It is a way to celebrate three of our favorite things: nature, family and treats!”
Carol @ If By Yes of British Columbia, Canada writes:
“Every year my family decorated the tree as a nighttime party, often with close friends invited. We’d put up the tree (real, of course) and bring up box after box of decorations.
We hung the decorations with care, being sure to balance the tree in terms of colour and shape of the decorations. Then we’d carefully hang each icicle so that it hung straight down.
All the while Christmas music would be playing, and a fire roaring. My father would pour everyone egg nog with far too generous a hand.
I can’t wait for my son to hang his first ornament on the tree.”
What about you… what holiday/cultural tradition are you excited about sharing with your child(ren) this year?
And do you have a question you would like to pose to our WMB writers? If so, email us at wmbsidebareditor@gmail.com to see what they have to say.
Don’t forget to visit us tomorrow to check out the travel itinerary for next week!
– World Moms Blog
Photo credit to Lindsay Schoenfield http://www.flickr.com/photos/nonnygoats/331215031/. This photo has a creative commons attribute license.
We will take our children to a carol service – outdoor “carols by candlelight” are very popular here in the long summer evenings, but we’ll be at a church carol service because our daughter is singing in the choir.
We also love to drive around the city and look at the big trees decorated with coloured lights! Sometimes we go to a suburb well-known for having the houses decorated for Christmas, they collect money for a charity and close the streets so you can walk around and enjoy the beautiful lights.
That sounds lovely Kate! I remember carolers coming to our house when I was little (on the east coast U.S.), but I honestly have not seen that out here on the west coast. Definitely something I miss!
I loved reading about everyone’s traditions!!! I started putting up the Christmas Tree on December 1st, and we’ve had an Advent Wreath on the dining room table beginning the first Sunday of Advent. The kids and I have always driven to my parents’ house in IL to spend the holidays with them. We have the tradition of opening one gift on Christmas eve, and of making a birthday cake for baby Jesus.
These all sound great Frelle – enjoy this magical time of year!
This is a neat question!
I’m looking forward to my favorite meal of the year — my sister’s and brother-in-law’s house on Christmas Eve for fried flounder, shrimp scampi and pasta. We eat there before we all go to church that evening.
We host Thanksgiving in the US, and we put up our Christmas tree on the Friday afterwards because my in-laws are usually in town. It is much easier when it is a group effort!
A new tradition that my oldest daughter and I started is making Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer sugar cookies. We found the recipe in a National Geographic Little Kids magazine — thin broken curvy pretzels for the ears, a white choc chip plus a smaller dark choc chip for the eyes and a red candy or cranberry for the nose!
We also start recording the Christmas programs on t.v. and some mornings in December are spent with me and my girls in bed watching a new Christmas show. 🙂 It’s a cozy time!
Jen 🙂
Jen, you’ll have to share pictures of those cookies – they sound SO cute! And I can’t think of a better way to spend a December morning with your kiddos 🙂
This year for the first time in my life I’ll be the host for the Christamas Eve dinner. Not feeling very well becasue of my pregnancy but planning to cook (or try to cook) some traditional american dishes, but one thing I am excited the most about is one Polish Christams dish I’m going to make. I know that people who didn’t grow up with it are not very fond of it when they taste it for the first time. They more likely not like it at all. I LOVE it and I’m going to be very happy if that entire dish will be just for me to eat 🙂
Good luck with the cooking Polish Mom Photographer (and congratulations on your pregnancy!)
I am excited to host our 3rd annual Christmas Cookie Making with my oldest’s closest friends. This year we’re adding two younger siblings that are now old enough to join the fun 🙂
This year I decided to try The Elf on the Shelf. I hate adding to the more layers to the Santa story, but I have to say, it’s been so exciting to see the magic of Christmas through my big girl’s eyes!
Like Kyla and others, we also love to set up the creche and this year we also have an advent calendar. This is the third year we set up the creche in a special way, with a path (spiral) of colored stones (each represents one member of the family) that leads to the nativity scene, which is set up slowly, adding first the elements and then the people. On the first year my husband and I sewed the dolls and built the whole thing, it was loads of fun, Here are some pictures: http://acordagirassol.blogspot.com/2010/11/natal-2009.html
Wow — that’s cool with the stones. You guys are creative!! 🙂
🙂
Wow! Beautiful ecoziva!