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Moms View Message Board: General Discussion: Archive December 2004: Fun Holiday Traditions?
I am looking to start some new and exciting holiday traditions this year. Does anyone have anything special that they do?
Every Christmas eve we have steak fondue, salad, garlic bread and dessert. After our fondue we get in the car and take a long ride looking at the lights. We come home and open gifts from family and friends (saving Santa gifts for the next day).
One of the things we do is a chocolate advent calendar. We sometimes have bought these premade, one year we made one with hershey kisses and stamped envelopes. This year we haven't done much, but our favorite year we read a Bible verse every night, ate our chocolate, and lit an advent candle. It was very precious.
One tradition we have is to go to a tree farm and cut our Christmas tree down. It's even better when there is lots of snow. (Thus, the reason we have not gotten our tree yet!) We put on boots and walk through all the trees until we find one we like. Then, DH cuts it down. We walk back and get hot apple cider and sit in a little hut with a wood stove. All the smells are wonderful! It's absolutely the BEST!!
Every Christmas Eve right before the kids go to sleep, while they are laying in bed my dh will read to them "Twas The Night Before Christmas". We have a nice story book of it that we only pull out one day of the year. It was a gift to our first ds almost 8 years ago. We've done it every since.
Oh I forgot....On Christmas Eve night we make homeade pecan sweet rolls...the kids love punching down the risin dough! Then we eat them for breakfast Christmas morning after opening gifts.
This year our new tradition is lighting the advent candles. We try to do it every night and either read a story from the book of children's bible stories or the girls make up their own prayers.
I love all of these ideas!! What is a chocolate advent calendar??? I must know!! We hang an advent calendar in the entry way every yr. Each day the boys come down stairs they argue about who gets to move the little santa claus... It's lovely. lol
BTW, when I was a child on Christmas Eve instead of getting Christmas pj's-- my Mom and Dad let us choose whatever gift under the tree we wanted to open that night. We then saved the rest for in the morning. I liked that too. We would spend days discussing which gift we would choose! lol
These all sound so neat! Thanks for sharing them.
I wrap all christmas books, old and new, and the girls each choose one every night starting Dec 1st. They get to unwrap it and we read them together.
A chocolate advent calendar is a a count down calendar where you open little window, each window has a piece of chocolate in it. My mother used to special order these from germany each year. Now you can usually find them through miles kimble and some stores. One year EVERY store, grocery etc had them, put out by hersheys. One year I couldn't find one at all (much less three) So we made little envolopes filled them with three kisses and a Bible verse, we numbered them and strung them on a ribbon. Each day we would take one off, read the verse and eat the chocolate.
We also do the chocolate Advent Calendar, Dylan really loves that!
We don't really have many traditions anymore, since most of them involved family get-togethers, and I'm far away now. My mom's Aunt used to give me and my cousins (really all of the "children" in the generations) a Christmas ornament with our name and the year. I do this for my kids now, and my mom gave me all of mine, so they are on the tree. We also listened to Christmas music as we hung the decorations, and Elvis' Blue Christmas always reminds me of home!
Oh, I forgot to mention...we also go cut down our Christmas tree the weekend after Thanksgiving.
We do the chocolate calendars and my two girls have miniature trees in their room that they decorate any way they want. Santa sneaks in their room on Christmas Eve and leaves a special present under their trees. My five year old is getting wise to this little tradition and told me she's staying up all night so she can see Santa come in her room.
You will need a metal fondue set for this recipe. A set should include a metal fondue pot, a stand, a burner unit and fondue forks. Read the instructions carefully before using. Although electric fondue pots are available, they don't offer the same flare that Sterno or denatured alcohol burners do. The following recipe is not to be used with an electric fondue pots. If you wish to use an electric fondue pot, follow the instructions in the manual. DO NOT use a clay or ceramic cheese fondue pot for beef fondue! The hot oil will break the pot. 1/2 lb. (per person) well-trimmed beef tenderloin, cut into 3/4 to 1 inch cubes (most butchers will cut this for you) You can use cheaper cuts and marinate or tenderize them. We also put out grape tomatoes fresh mushrooma and pearl onions to fondue with the meat. Offer a variety of dipping sauces, each with it's own spoon. This way people can dollop whichever sauces the choose right onto there plates! Suggested Dipping Sauces Horseradish Cream Sauce Honey Mustard Sauce Your favorite steak or garlic sauce Mango chutney Pesto mayonnaise Béarnaise Sauce Remove the meat from the refrigerator 30 minutes before serving. Place meat in a bowl and cover until ready to be served. Set up the the stand and fill the burner as indicated in your fondue set manual. Fill a metal fondue pot halfway with peanut oil. Heat on the kitchen stove over medium-high heat until it reaches 375°, or until a bread cube dropped into oil cooks to a golden brown in 30 seconds. Carefully transfer pot to stand. Light the burner with a long match in the center hole. Adjust the burner unit so that the flue (the little holes on top of the burner) are completely open. This will allow for the hottest possible flame. Allow each person to skewer a piece of meat with their fondue fork and place it in the fondue pot for deep-frying. Each person can cook his meat to his desired degree of doneness. If the oil temperature drops below 360°, return to stovetop and reheat, adding more oil if necessary. Low oil temperature will cause the meat to absorb the oil. You can determine the temperature by affixing a meat thermometer to the fondue dish, but you'll know the oil is hot enough when it bubbles around the food immediately after it is added to the pot. It's a fun night for socializing and eating. I usually serve a salad and baked potato with the fondue. A Chocolate Fondue dessert is a fun touch.
Bea---That is exactly what we do on Christmas Eve!
Bea, thank you for posting that recipe! We have a fondue set that we've never used. It was a wedding gift. Still new in the box. Maybe we'll have to break it out and try this. It sounds excellent.
Lasagna, bread and a salad for Christmas Eve dinner. It cooks while we are at church!
We do the chocolate advent calenders. We also go to my aunt's house every year, order take out chinese or pizza and make gingerbread houses with the kids. She goes all out and they each get their own, full size house. At some point the kids and I make Christmas cookies. Every Christmas Eve, we have my mother, my sister and my inlaws come over for a light dinner and then (another reason I love small town life) Santa rides up and down every street in my town on a fire engine, with a police escort and all of the lights and sirens going. The kids - even my 13yr old - get SO excited when the sirens get close. My mil told me this has been going on since dh was a little boy. I let the kids open my mil's gifts on Christmas Eve because she loves to see it.
Eve - your Moravian star picture is beautiful. I wish I had a porch to put one on.
We have an advent calendar comprised of 24 little books and we read one each night of December, finishing up on Christmas Eve. We also read "'Twas the NIght Before Christmas" and the REAL story out of Luke 2 to the boys. On Christmas Eve we go to the evening candlelight service at church and come home to a feast of everyone's favorite appetizers. The boys get to open their gift of pj's and their ornament on Christmas Eve. Christmas morning we wake up at the crack of down, open gifts, have a casual breakfast, and then feast for lunch. We eat on our formal china and leave an empty place set at the table to remind us of the birth of our special "guest." We also have a birthday cake and sing Happy Birthday to Jesus.
My parents fly out from NH to be with us every Christmas. On Christmas Eve we gather at our house along with dh's parents, his grandfather, his brother and SIL (and this year their baby!) and sometimes we are lucky enough to have my sister and BIL with us as well. Dh's mom makes pierogies and kielbasa (YUM!) for our Christmas Eve meal. After we eat we go outside and sprinkle reindeer dust so the reindeer will find our house. After the kids get into their pajamas, dh reads them 'Twas the Night Before Christmas.
When i was a child we used to decorate the tree as a family while listening to Christmas music. I remember my dad only strung the lights, than sat down and enjoyed watching us decorate the rest (*sniff sniff*....he passed away 14 yrs ago Dec. 19).
I posted my Pecan Sweet Roll recipe on the recipe board for anyone interested. It is under the cake, pie, and dessert board.
No matter what other decorations are in place, we always make sure that our creche or (Nativity Scene), is in place by the first Sunday of Advent. The tiny figure of Jesus is held until Christmas Eve, so the manger is bare until then. We also have our Advent wreath in place. Every night we light one or more of the candles and sing a carol or read a poem or story about Christmas. On the eve of December 6th, when my boys were little, they would put a boot outside the front door for Saint Nicholas. The German tradition is that he travels with his companion Krumpas,(or Black Peter, as he’s named in some areas) (a sort of gnome) to visit children on the eve of his feast day. In the morning they would find candies and small toys for all the times they’d been good and thin branches, (switches) for the times they were bad. The tree wouldn’t go up until Christmas Eve. We told the kids that Santa decorated it. They would go to bed with a bare tree and awake to it’s full glory.
A Dutch tradition is to leave out straw for the camels of the Wise Men on the Eve of January 6th and the Wise Men thank the children by leaving some small gift or candies.
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