We make a paper chain of different colored links, each saying "___ days until Christmas". And we let the kids take off one link each day. We also make chains when Daddy's out of town.
Christmas "Rules" aka traditions
by simplesally 21 Replies latest jw friends
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GentlyFeral
Ahhh, cookies for Santa.
When I was about eight or nine, I realized that Santa would have been scarfing cookies all night long and would probably be heartily sick of them by the time he got to my place.
So I started leaving him a ham sandwich with Durkee's Famous Dressing™.
About December 15th, my mother would ask me how much money I had saved up (I started saving my allowance at Thanksgiving). She'd match the amount, dollar for dollar, and that was my shopping money. I often had thirty or forty dollars to work with, back in the late sixties. I used to buy one big, splashy, expensive gift for a different family member each year (a live lime tree for my dad; a big wicker laundry basket full of imported delicacies for my grandparents; an armful of gaudy cut flowers for a beloved neighbor), and smaller, but still nifty, things for everyone else.
Our family opened the presents in the evening on Christmas Eve – because my mother's mother was a telephone operator who worked on Christmas day.
We also made acres of Christmas cookies. Mom would always try a few different Old-World recipes each year (springerle, pfeffernusse), but the family trademark was gingerbread cookies in all kinds of holiday shapes, frosted by us kids in psychedelic colors. Mint green, turquoise, fuschia, school bus yellow – we liked our colors BRIGHT. And silver dragees – impossible to eat, but it's all about the shiny stuff anyway, right?
We also made our own Christmas cards. Mom would design them and my sister and I would have a field day with construction paper, glue and glitter. She finally gave up after the card list grew to 400 names. That's a tradition I revived, though, after I unjaydubbed, at least for a few years. I not only designed the art for my own cards, but also composed a verse. I've stopped doing it, though – my husband and kids aren't Christmas sluts like I was, and it's a lonely game to play by yourself.
LDH,
My 15 year old likes to get a strip of AA batteries in her stocking.
You know what, I think I'll make a Christmas stocking for my 22-year-old daughter. She's never had one. And she still remembers, fondly, the Goth Easter basket I made her about 8 years ago, with the plastic eggs painted with simulated rust, steel, and cast-iron craft paint, and crumpled black crepe paper instead of Easter grass. Pity I didn't think of this sooner, I could have bought some Halloween spiderwebs to put on her stocking.gently feral