Traditions...

We have some current traditions we love... and some new ones we tried on for size this year that we'll be keeping around for years to come. We also have a small list of some we didn't get to this year, and hope to next year.
We always have our list of Holiday flicks that we watch, "Mr. Kruger's Christmas", "Joy to the World", "A Christmas Story", "Trapped in Paradise", "National Lampoon's", "Frosty", "Rudolph", etc... We'll keep that one up.
This year we tried to do something Christmas-y every night. We'll attempt to keep at that one.
This year we painted ornaments for FHE. That will be one that we will do every year. It's so fun to add to the tree and see what the girls create.
Another new one, a slumber party around the Christmas tree on the "eve of the eve". We will be doing that one again. We put up the queen sized air mattress, brought in a TV and DVD player (that room doesn't have that kind of stuff.. although we are re-thinking it for this purpose... and Halloween, and the fact that it was fun and different..) watched Christmas movies while we ate pizza and other goodies together as a family (even though my toffe didn't trun out right... must have been the humidity, stom came in :)..). The girls so enjoyed it! The only "party poopers" (meaning those who didn't sleep in the front room..) were Mer and Peyton, for obvious reasons... it was great fun... even with Peyton tearing apart the tree, Ashley our "special child" jumping on the bed despite us telling her to not do it over and over and over again... and Lynn asking a million and one questions about EVERYTHING during the movies. We'll do it again!
Since this Christmas, we really tried to pare down, we used a tried and true tactic, it worked on Merrill and siblings growing up, they could open a new gift every hour... we altered it a bit, our kids don't have that kind of attention span, and let them open one every half hour. That kind of forced them to play with their new gift and enjoy it. It worked out very well and that will be used every Christmas now.
We didn't get to a few others...
Ally mentioned Elf on the shelf. I am doing that one next year for sure!
We also wanted to implement a letter writing to Santa... but not your typical letter writing. We want the girls to write a note to Santa on Christmas Eve telling him of some of their accomplishments from the past year. I have heard that Santa will leave a note in reply in their stockings...
We also want to copy another of Holly Brimhall's traditions, the slumber party was one... and wrap 25 Christmas books, themes ranging from fun, to religious, place them in a basket underneath the tree, and every night leading up to Christmas, open one and read it. Cute, eh? I already have a collection started...
I also want to take a picture, one to represent each individual day leading up to our celebration. Then make a fun mini album..
I think that's it.. I do have some grand plans... and around 360 something days to get them all together...