Even though we are having a non-traditional Christmas week we are working to keep some holiday traditions and start some new holiday traditions as well.
The main Christmas tradition that we have as a family of four is a little party to decorate the tree and the house. For my longtime readers you know that I lost my baby brother on Christmas a few years ago so since then the season has not been the best for me. But I really want my children to love Christmas as much as I did when I was a child so we’re adding a few new holiday traditions to make this holiday season and all future holiday seasons lot more festive.
Celebrating cultural holidays
This year we are going to celebrate Kwanzaa intentionally for the first time. I’ve told the kids about Kwanzaa in the past and read them Kwanzaa books but we haven’t properly celebrated before. And now that Kaya is 6 and Rohan is 8 they can understand more of the principles and participate fully in each day’s events that we plan.
We are also celebrating, in true pagan style, the winter solstice. We are going to go full on yule and have a fire and do a little ritual to honor the sun the moon the stars and mother Earth.
Christmas movie nights
I’m going to admit I have tried to make this happen year after year but these kids just want to watch their silly shows over and over again. A year ago or so I got them to watch home alone and while my son liked it my daughter was very concerned about how Kevin’s parents were so irresponsible.
My kids seem to enjoy Halloween movies more than Christmas but I am making it a goal to turn them over to the dark side or maybe the red and green side. I have a few Christmas movies that I’d like us to watch and rewatch like jingle jangle and elf and I have just the thing to bribe them into sitting down and watching with me…
Hot chocolate charcuterie
I got this idea from my friend Tiffani at mymommyvents.com She made the cutest hot chocolate spread ever. I am totally going to copycat and have the kids help. They love to help in the kitchen and something like this let’s us be creative and it’s very easy for the kids to help since there’s no knife work really needed or anything on the stove.
This little kit looks like a cute place to start. But we’ll get our boards and trimmings and make a pretty set up like Tiffani did:
Paint and sip party
I stocked up on some paint it yourself kits that the kids seem to enjoy during the summer and we are going to sit with either virgin hot toddies or more hot chocolate and sip and paint the ornaments, rocks, wind chimes and bird houses while we enjoy some of our favorite Christmas albums.
Matching family PJ party
I have never been the matchy matchy mom but I always wanted to be. This year I ordered some matching PJs for all four of us. haven’t done that before, but back in the day I did put Rohan and Kaya and matching Christmas PJs and they loved them. This year all four of us will be in on the fun and I’m going to force all of them to take lots and lots of photos with me because I don’t know if I’ll be able to pull it off again next year but I’m hoping it’ll become a tradition.
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