Family traditions over the holidays

If your family is like mine, it took sometime to figure out what your holiday traditions are going to be each year.  Especially if you are married and have kids of your own.  It is a fun and exciting time of year.  For us, our traditions have adapted and changed as our family grew and got older.  Traditions to me are something to try to establish because they are things that as you grow older, you cherish the ones you had growing up.  I am going to write about a few we had growing up and a few that we have started ourselves that I have found to be most enjoyable.

Figuring out what Christmas goodies to make and eat during the holidays was and is a big part of our holiday tradition.  I grew up on tarts and bear tracks during the holidays.  Some people call them dogs, but we have always known them as bear tracks.  They are a donut like treat that you fry and then heat up in the microwave, roll in sugar and enjoy the heck out of when you are in the mood for a real treat.  We usually make several big batches during the holiday season as it is my families go to holiday treat both growing up and still today.  Tarts are my dads favorite treat and also one of my wife’s favorite.  I grew up on a doughier tart but my wife loves the puff pastry tart.  Both are good, but for me, tough to compare to a bear track.

Christmas music is something I love.  I enjoy listening to it from Thanksgiving time till about New Years.  Growing up, we used to listen to A Prairie Home Companion and all of the Christmas programs they would put on.  The best and funniest one is Bach’s Christmas Oratory.  I also enjoyed the 12 days of Christmas the way APHC would make it up to be.  I have also enjoyed singing Christmas carols and playing Christmas music on our piano and my guitar.  I am not sure if I have a favorite Christmas tune but I would have to say Silent Night is the one that moves me the most.  Every year at our local schools Christmas program, they close the concert with K-5 students singing the first verse together and then the audience joins in for the 2^nd and 3^rdverse.  This is a great experience and I have loved doing it every year.  I enjoy listening to most any Christmas songs but the Christmas hymns are my favorite. 

Visiting is something we do a lot of during the holiday season.  We usually try to make it to my parents house during the Christmas break at school and also spend several days up at my in-law’s lake house.  My wife’s entire family and children go up to the lake house and we have a blast up there.  We make a rink on the lake to skate on which usually involves me spending many hours flooding it.  We usually are up there during the New Years time so we do an annual sauna, jump through a hole in the ice, New Years day challenge.  Last year there were 7 of us that did it.  It was 18 degrees that day so it was actually not that bad at all.  Other years it has been below zero which makes it a much bigger rush.  My family is very large so it never happens that we all make it up to my parent’s house during the Christmas holidays.  There usually is a pretty large contingent that makes it either the weekend before or after though and it usually involves many late nights of coffee drinking and visiting.  These experiences are the most important part of Christmas for me as spending time with family is something I look forward to for quite some time.    

What are your family traditions during the holidays?  Hope you establish some as they are things I look forward to every year and I enjoyed every second of growing up.  Till next week, hope your holiday season is shaping up and hope to get some white stuff on the ground before the big day.