Family Holiday Traditions

This week's blog cruise question is: Family Celebrations and Holiday traditions.  How does your family celebrate the holidays?

I know one thing that I find rather appalling is, it seems Thanksgiving is pretty much skipped over anymore. It seems Halloween gets more attention than Thanksgiving! So, frankly, I don't "allow" Christmas music until after Thanksgiving. ;-)

Since the kids and I moved here, and my husband and I were married almost 2 years ago, we haven't fully developed our traditions as a family here yet.

Some of our family traditions when we lived in Montana:

We attended the town's Christmas tree lighting ceremony the night after Thanksgiving. The town fire engine offered rides to the kids.

The first Sunday of December, our church group would go up to the mountains, in the forest, and cut our Christmas trees. Then we would gather at a church member's home who lived in the nearest town, for soup and sandwiches, and a white elephant gift exchange.

The little town we lived in had a Christmas stroll, first or second Thursday of December. The little shops stayed open late. The theater usually showed a free movie. There was a horse-drawn wagon offering hayrides. And there was always a group of carolers that walked the street.

Since I lived so far from my family, we rarely spent Christmas with them. Usually one of the families from church invited us for dinner, usually both on Thanksgiving and on Christmas.

Here and now, we haven't developed traditions yet. We are still learning which ones from both of our families to incorporate, or finding new ones of our own.

So far, Thanksgiving has been just us.This week, we will travel to my mother-in-law's, to spend the day. Two of hubby's sisters live near their mother, so we will see them as well.

Christmas two years ago, my brother, his wife and daughter came here. Last year it was just us. This year, we plan to get together with my parents, my brothers and their families, at a condo in Texas near where one of my brothers lives. Only problem with that is, my husband, step daughter, and my oldest son will not be able to come with us.

Hubby seems to like to do his Christmas shopping the weekend before Thanksgiving. Two years ago we went to a Christmas tree farm, and cut our own tree. Last year, hubby bought an artificial tree. He likes to decorate the day after Thanksgiving.

Not only do we have Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's....we have three birthdays: hubby's in a week; my 10 year old's near the beginning of December; and mine within the first week of January. Oh, and our anniversary is less than a week before Christmas!

Hubby's main requests for either Thanksgiving or Christmas: turkey; mashed potatoes; corn; chicken flavored Stove Top stuffing; and chocolate pie. He doesn't care if this menu is just for one of the two holidays; in other words, it doesn't have to be for both.

Another of our most favorite holidays is the Fourth of July. In Montana, we attended the parade every year. The town had a barbecue and rodeo in the afternoon. And, unless it was too dry, fireworks that night.

In Florida, we discovered that one of the little nearby town had their parade, usually July 3. So we would go see that. Then we would go watch fireworks the night of the Fourth. Here, we have yet to find a small town parade, and fireworks nearby.

Since I have a child with a birthday the end of June, and two in July, this is the other part of the year with lots of celebrating going on! And for birthdays, we usually let the birthday person choose the menu for the day of their birthday. I like to have the birthday person open his/her presents at breakfast time.

I am sure more traditions will evolve....Pretty soon, the children will start leaving home; I hope they will always come back home for the holidays, though.

Be sure to read about the some of the holiday traditions of my fellow Crew Mates on the Blog Cruise Tour. Pin It Now!