I joined our local MOPS group, and one of the recent speakers talked about budgeting and financial issues, particularly as they apply to the holidays.  One thing that he said really resonated with me: spend more of your money on holiday traditions than presents. He asked how many presents we specifically remember from our childhoods. Of course, most people only really remembered a few specific “big” presents. For instance, I remember getting a Barbie house and a locket my parents gave me in high school. There are a few other things I can recall, but as the speaker pointed out, generally our memories of holidays center around our family traditions. His point was to make sure you put a good part of your holiday budget to making sure that you are building the traditions that you want your kids to remember, that you want them to pass on to their kids, etc.

Mr. Blue and I certainly didn’t have neglected childhoods, but our parents also didn’t spend an outrageous amount on presents for the holidays. Not making the holidays all about the presents and spending way more money than was wise has always been important to us, but at the same time, it’s important to me that our kids have great, lifelong memories of the holidays. I think that’s what made his point resonate with me so much. It’s really easy, especially in our culture to get caught up in the idea that we all need to spend tons of money on presents for our kids if we love them, that they need to have just as much as their friends, as much as we see on blogs, Pinterest, etc. That’s not where our values lie, however, and it’s not what we want to teach our kids. Pulling off traditions, however big or small, costs some amount of money, and we need to plan accordingly.

With that in mind, we’ve been thinking about what traditions we want to prioritize.  This is a bit of a moving target because some things will change or be added or subtracted as our kids grow.  Here’s a collection of some of our favorite ideas that we are considering incorporating into our family holiday traditions.

1.  Christmas Pajamas  – It’s a little thing, but I love how much Mr. Blue and his sisters still like getting their Christmas pajamas and wearing them all day for a movie day during our holiday vacation. Cost:  pajamas & some holiday movies.

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2.  Baking treats for the neighbors – The boys love “helping” me in the kitchen, i.e. making a way bigger mess and taking a lot longer than any self respecting baking task should take. I definitely want them to learn to be kind to our neighbors, and baking treats is a fun way to get to do something nice for the people around us. This year, I went to my parents’ house and my mom and I did our Christmas baking together. The boys loved helping decorate cookies and ate more than their fair share of Christmas goodies. We took the boys to each of our neighbors’ houses and the boys would hand them a box of treats. Poor lil’ El would always hand his box without prompting, but then would immediately start sobbing. Hopefully, next year, he’ll be a little more into the giving spirit! Cost: Groceries, cute containers or plates, and a little bit of my sanity.

3.  Act out the Christmas Story – When my nieces were little, my mom bought a kid-friendly nativity set.  Every Christmas, all the family in attendance draws for who their character will be.  Then, my dad reads the story of Jesus’ birth, and every one takes their character and places it in the nativity scene as the story references it. Cost: a kid-friendly nativity set.

4.  Decorating for Christmas – Growing up, we always pulled all the Christmas stuff out the weekend after Thanksgiving, or as soon as we could convince my dad that it really was Christmas. My mom gave us a lot of free rein to help decorate as we saw fit, and even though I’m sure she sometimes would have made different choices, I love all my memories of those “decorating for Christmas” days, and I hope the boys will like helping me, at least until they decide they’re too cool for decorating with mom. Cost:  Nothing, other than adding to your decor as your budget and desires allow & the cost of a tree if you choose to use a live one.

5.  Christmas Book Advent – A couple years ago, Mrs. Paintbrush wrote about their version of the Advent calendar, which involved opening one Christmas book each night as you countdown to Christmas. I love, love, love this idea and have been dying to incorporate this as soon as the boys were old enough.  he last two years, I have looked after Christmas to try to find a few Christmas books on sale, but I’ve only found a few. We have probably 8 or so books, and I plan to buy another two or three before Christmas this year. We’ll just spread out however many books we end up with this year over the 25 days and keep adding to our collection by looking for sales and utilizing places like Half-Price Books. Cost: 25 holiday books

6.  Christmas Around the World –   When I was teaching, my team teachers and I always did a Christmas Around the World day. We each chose a country and taught our classes about how that country celebrates the holidays and had them do a craft and make a food to represent that country’s traditions. The boys are a little young right now, but as they get older, I’d like to choose one country a year and learn about it as a family. Cost:  groceries and any craft supplies

7.  Giving to Others – There are a million good ideas on how to incorporate charitable acts into your family’s Christmas traditions, from volunteering at a local shelter to picking a child from the Angel Tree and letting your kids help buy the items. This year we picked three children from a project our church does and took the boys to help us shop for them. Even though our boys don’t get that at all right now, helping people in need is something I want our boys to grow up thinking is part of every holiday, as well as everyday life. Cost: depends on the project–anything from cost of toys, clothes, etc. to just time if you volunteer somewhere.

8.  Christmas lights – Our boys weren’t quite ready this year, but we love the idea of putting the kids in their pajamas, going to get some hot chocolate, and driving around to look at Christmas lights. It’s not a huge thing, but it’s still a nice time together and a treat for our little people to get to stay up later and do something fun. Cost: hot drinks and gasoline.

There are tons of great ideas for traditions to incorporate into your family’s holiday traditions. I’m sure our traditions will grow and change over the years, but I definitely want to keep the focus on traditions more than presents.

Merry Christmas from the Blues to you!

What traditions do you/would you like to incorporate for your family?