The holiday season is approaching FAST! Family traditions are important and special no matter how big or small. We spend a lot of time scrapbooking special events & memories and here on the LMN-O-Pea blog we are really interested in hearing some of your family's holiday traditions!
So….share with us! What makes the holidays special to you and your family? What is it that your family does every year and without it the holidays just wouldn't be the same? Do you bake cookies as a family, is it a special recipe that Grandma or Mom makes only during the holidays? Or..maybe its something totally different. We would love to hear your stories so respond to us here on the blog...post..post..post away :-)
Also by responding on our blog only (not the yahoo group) you qualify for a really cute giveaway! Each person that shares a family tradition with us will be eligible to win!! A winner will be chosen via the integer generator and announced the week of December 1st. The winner will receive a small gift in the mail from LMN-O-Pea!
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Every Thanksgiving after our lunch we go on a picture shoot around
Nederland. We look for fun places to take pictures and then we use one
of our pics for our Christmas cards. When my kids were younger, it
would be just the two girls for the card, now it's my
granddaughter...of course. It's a lot of fun taking silly pictures. I
know they are just indulging their crazy mom, but hey - I deserve it
at least ONCE a year!!! Also fruitcake cookies (they don't taste like
fruitCAKE!) are a tradition we all enjoy. And every year during the
Christmas holidays we get together with extended family - cousins and
their families...and eat just yummy appetizers and junk food. LOVE
THAT! lol
susan guidry
P.S. I tried to put this on the blog but I couldn't log in right.
Sorry - I was as confused as a cow on astroturf....or I only have one
oar in the water....or If leather were brains, I wouldn't have enough
to saddle a junebug....or I could throw myself on the ground and miss.
(I started collecting these sayings lately.....hehe)
We have three traditions that we kept up year after year:
For the big holidays of Easter, Thanksgiving and Christmas, our family would sponsor a table at our local shelter, the Mustard Seed. We would routinely get invitations in the mail to help the homeless by giving them a hot meal, for about $2.75 per person. It reminded us of just how lucky we are as a family, and where we are in our lives, and it made us feel very good to be able to do this small thing to provide something warm and comforting during the cold winter months to a dozen people. It's the least we could do.
Another thing we would do is contribute to Toy Mountain, which was sponsored by Petro Canada and the local radio stations. On behalf of each of our children, we would go out and buy a new toy, stuffed animal, article of clothing, etc. and donate it to one of the Toy Mountain locations. Then, in the days before Christmas, gifts would be wrapped and delivered to needy families, so that every child would experience being able to open a gift on Christmas morning.
We love Christmas lights, and would drive half way across the city to go to the Festival of Lights. This was a huge outdoor light festival put on by the City and our power company (we only have one back there.) Then, because it was always snowy and cold, we'd always stop off and get Tim Horton's coffee (double, double please!) and hot chocolate for the kids on the way home.
We are trying to find new "Katy traditions" to carry on with our kids this year. We are open to suggestions LOL!!.
We have a 2 family traditions. From my dad's side, my grandmother had an OLD family receipe for a cookie called Mini HaHas, they are similiar to a fruit cake, but very light and good! Don't know where the name came from, we were told her grandmother's nickname was Mini and she came up with this receipe. We would bake them on Thanksgiving night while my grandfather would start building his pinecone Xmas trees. He would make fresh trees every year. She has been gone from us for 12 years now and we still are making Mini hahas. This year I'm going to make them with my granddaughter Rosemarie.
Then from my mom's side of the family on Xmas Eve we eat Chicken Gumbo. My grandmother raised chickens and she would go into the back yard early in the day and get 2 fresh chickens and make our gumbo. Well I don't kill my own chickens, but, I still make gumbo on Christmas Eve.
These 2 traditions I know will go on for many years.
Okay, there is one Christmas tradition that I'm not fond of. When our first daughter was just 2 years old, my wonderful husband took her up onto the roof to hang Christmas lights with him! And it sort of stuck as a tradition after that! Yes, I repeat, she was only 2 years old! Well that daughter decided that she no longer wanted to go on the roof with daddy, but our 2nd daughter gladly took her place. Maggie still likes to get on the roof with him every year. Matter of fact, I'm guessing it will be this weekend!
And another thing that has become a tradition of sorts is when me and my 2 girls bake at Christmas time. Usually it's cookies. We like to do the homemade sugar shape cookies, make the various colored icings, and "paint" it on.
Valerie
my mom started the tradition of a "tea ring" on christmas morning - basically it's home made cinnamon rolls in a wreath/ring shape frosted with nuts and a few cherries on top. since i've been married, i've had the fortune of her still making one for me once in a while (we're 1000 miles apart!) but often she visits at thanksgiving and makes it and we freeze it until christmas. i've had to make it on my own a few times too. there haven't been many christmas mornings i've woken up without a tea ring.
another tradition is ornaments - my grandmother gave me an ornament every year, and i still continue that tradition with my husband.
I thought I would post what I miss the most about when I was a kid. We had a lot of Christmas when I was young. We had our entire extended family at my great-grandmother's for Christmas Eve. We would have the traditional Christmas Spaghetti with salad and garlic bread. We would run tables down the length of "Mom's" living room to fit us all. Then we would open presents and get a visit from Santa. It was great. Then on Christmas morning we would have Santa presents at home with just our immediate family. :) Christmas Day was spent at my Grandma's house. It was cool to get there and realize Santa had been there too. We'd open those gifts before the rest of the family arrived. We'd have a HUGE feast in my grandparents basement complete with Christmas music. It was just a great time and I miss my grandma's and my brother the most.
We still do most of the same things....it's truly the family who have passed that I miss this time of year.
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