You’ve seen them, right? Seasonal or holiday-themed bucket lists? They seem to be all the rage in the mommy blog world and have been made even more popular with Pinterest.
The second I quit my job to stay home with Annalyn, I started creating lists and plans for every season. Driven by my fear of boredom and my ambition to “do this mom thing right,” I painstakingly sifted through events calendars and other moms’ lists, picked the perfect font and literally placed a check box in front of every “meaningful” activity I chose for my family.
It actually worked well and was a lot of fun for a while. Annalyn loved helping me pick out things to put on our lists, and she’s inherited my love of checking things off a list. So there was that, too. Then this summer happened.
After all my plans for a fun anything crumbled this summer, I was wary of making many fun plans for this fall. So I didn’t. We were super busy, so we wouldn’t have had time for much anyway. But I’ll admit that I missed having a list.
It turns out that while having a “fun list” for each season makes me more likely to go over the top with my type A tendencies, it also ensures we’re intentional about experiencing something new, keeping up a family tradition and having a little fun among the busyness of the everyday.
Still, I know how hectic the holiday season is. And now that I’m working outside the house again, I’m well aware that our family time and our fun time is limited. So this year, I’m not making a holiday bucket list. No printout, no check boxes, no gotta-get-it-done schedule. Just a decision that these are the holiday traditions we’ll keep this year.
What holiday traditions will you keep this year? I know that’s what you’re dying to ask me. It’s only fair, since I’m going to ask you, too, right?
This year, we’ll . . .
Decorate the tree together.
Listen to so much Christmas music that we hear it in our sleep.
Drink hot chocolate and watch Elf.
Watch The Grinch (the real [animated] one) with my parents and brother. (Done!)
Watch the Claymation Christmas Special with them, too.
See the Plaza lights.
Use Truth in the Tinsel for our advent calendar (with the printable ornaments).
Read a Christmas book every night.
I think I’ve figured out the key to creating and keeping traditions without turning it into just another item on a to-do list. This year, at least, we’re not adding a lot of things to our normal routine; we’re just Christmas-fying the things we already do.
We normally listen to music together in the car. So we’ll listen to Christmas music.
We occasionally watch a movie as a family. So we’ll choose a Christmas movie.
We always read a book before bedtime. So we’ll make it a Christmas book.
Reading a Book a Day for Christmas
This one’s a pretty simple tradition to start, if you’re looking for something to make your holiday season a little more special without adding dozens of cookies or homemade ornaments or caroling around your entire subdivision.
Here’s what I did:
I looked up all the Christmas books I could remember reading (as a child and to Annalyn in past years). Then I filled in my list with recommendations from friends, blogs and Amazon lists. Then I requested every single one from the library the day after Thanksgiving. Most of them will be here before December 1, but even if a few are later, it’s no big deal. We’ll just read those later in the month.
Once I get a stack of books from the library (and before December 1), I’ll wrap them up and put them in a basket under our Christmas tree. (Yes, that means I wrapped up non-Christmas books for that photo up above. Busted.)
What books should you read? You can get them from the library like I did. You could also buy 25 books or use books you already own. I didn’t have the budget for that many new books this year, and we don’t own more than a couple Christmas books (including one vintage Golden Book from my childhood!). As for which specific books to use, my friend Jessie has a great list of Jesus-centered books on her blog.
For my family, I’m gathering a variety of books that has both Jesus and Santa, elves and camels, real and make-believe. These are the books we’re reading:
- How the Grinch Stole Christmas! by Dr. Seuss
- The Night Before Christmas by Clement Clarke Moore
- God Gave Us Christmas by Lisa Tawn Bergren
- Snowmen at Christmas by Caralyn Buehner
- Who Is Coming to Our House? by Joseph Slate
- Humphrey’s First Christmas by Carol Heyer
- Merry Christmas, Curious George by H. A. Rey
- Fancy Nancy: Splendiferous Christmas by Jane O’Connor
- The Perfect Christmas Gift (Gigi, God’s Little Princess) by Sheila Walsh
- A Berry Bitty Christmas (Strawberry Shortcake) by Amy Ackelsberg
- Room for a Little One: A Christmas Tale by Martin Waddell
- Bear Stays Up for Christmas by Karma Wilson
- The Best Christmas Pageant Ever by Barbara Robinson
- Olivia Helps with Christmas by Ian Falconer
- How Do Dinosaurs Say Merry Christmas? by Jane Yolen
- Charlie and the Christmas Kitty by Ree Drummond
- Christmas in the Big Woods (Little House) by Laura Ingalls Wilder
- A Very Handy Holiday (Handy Manny) by Susan Ring
- Clubhouse Christmas (Mickey Mouse Clubhouse) by Susan Amerikaner
- Why Christmas Trees Aren’t Perfect by Dick Schneider
- Olive, the Other Reindeer by Vivian Walsh
- Christmas Cookies: Bite-Size Holiday Lessons by Amy Krouse Rosenthal
- A Pirate’s Night Before Christmas by Philip Yates
- The Berenstain Bears and the Joy of Giving by Michael Berenstain
- Mooseltoe by Margie Palatini
As promised, I want to know about your traditions. What will you do to make this Christmas season special?
For more ideas, read Simple Mom’s ideas for Christmas traditions and Amanda’s alternatives to the Elf on the Shelf.
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Great suggestions on the books! I am off to reserve many from the library right now! Brianna recently brought this book home from the library and it was beautiful (both the illustrations and the story) … it’s Christmas and the fulfillment of God’s promises through the ages as told by the angel who delivered the good news… it’s a must-read :)
http://www.amazon.com/Bright-Christmas-Remembers-Andrew-Clements/dp/0618051538
(Oh, and Elf totally rocks)! :)
Thanks for the suggestion. I just requested it from the library!
We do the books too. I would suggest you add Mortimer’s Christmas Manger (same author as Bear Stays Up) and Mr. Willoughby’s Christmas Tree in the future. They are family favorites in our home.
We will have a fancy dinner on Christmas Eve, just the 8 of us. We drive to a small town about 40 minutes away sometimes in December to buy steaks and other things (all locally raised and slaughtered) for our dinner. Then we eat at a delicious fried chicken house on the way back. Our kids love it.
Thanks for the book suggestions! I’m going to look them up at the library right now!
We decorate the tree and watch elf.
We try to do an advent activity every day, but if it doesn’t happen I don’t worry too much about it.
We try to do the Jesse Tree devotions every day.
We drink a lot of hot chocolate.
A new thing I’m trying is putting up little stockings and putting notes in them of things we like about each other.
Anna, I love the idea about the stockings!! I think I’m going to suggest that to my husband for the two of us to do. :)
We watch tons of Christmas movies and play Christmas music nonstop! There’s nothing better than curling up under a blanket on the couch with a mug of hot chocolate and watching the Peanuts Christmas Special for the hundredth time. :)
One of our traditions that we started when our oldest was little is to buy a Christmas book every year. We now have about 12 (with a few that friends have given us too). I noticed last year though that we didn’t take the time to sit and read through all of them. I love the idea of wrapping them up and reading one a night-I need to do this!
Love this!!! I think I might actually still be able to pull this off! My hubby is a librarian, so I think I’ll have him grab a handful of books for me tomorrow while I wait for others to come in.
I love this! Logging onto the library website to reserve them now :)
Ooh, that reminds me I need to do the same – soon! Enjoy!!
I love this list!!!! And now I must go order them all on Amazon… ;)
A list of books this long makes me so happy! I’ve just been married coming up on 3 years now, and I’m still enjoying the making of new traditions. One of my favorites is that we go get a live tree each year {just a small one} and fill it with ornaments we collect on our little trips throughout the year – and one ornament to symbolize the year as a whole. I take pictures of every ornament and write the story of it on the back of the printed photo, and as we put each one on the tree, I read the story of when and where we got it, and we relive the memories.
Five years ago, I published an Advent devo {for adults} and my husband likes for us to read it together each Christmas. After waiting so long to get married, it’s a sweet thing to hear words I wrote coming from him as he reads. Christmas is extra special now!
I love the idea of a small, live tree! Thanks for sharing your traditions with us, Bekah!