Hellobee

We did this as a Swarm several years ago and we loved the answers so much we’re doing it again this year!

We go to Christmas Eve mass. We used to do midnight mass, but with two small ones, we now go to the 4 pm or 6 pm service.

We also exchange ornaments every year; all the ornaments on our tree are from 2009 or later (the year we got married). We have an ornament from the places we’ve traveled since 2009, plus the ornaments we exchange and give to our kids.

On Christmas Day, I make (or reheat) our favorite dim sum items. I also make a special Christmas dessert. Last year, I made creme brulee muffins and white hot chocolate. The year before I made a butterscotch pie.

We always open pajamas on Christmas Eve. We open up our doors for an open house drop-in party Christmas Eve, too! I’m not sure if we’ll do it this year with a newborn but I like how casual it can be.

This is probably a really, really weird tradition but it started with my late Uncle — we smash a chocolate Santa every Christmas Eve. He used to get a giant hollow Santa and bring it to our extended family Christmas and we’d take turns, youngest cousins to oldest, trying to be the one to break Santa with whatever kitchen utensil we picked out that year. I can’t find a hollow chocolate Santa here in the middle of nowhere, but three years ago I ordered a mold and I make a little one-foot Santa for M and any other kids who are around to smash.

On Christmas morning we split each our family’s breakfast traditions — we start with little boxes of cereal, which Mac Daddy’s family always ate on Christmas, and then we have coffee and Baileys and mimosas while we open presents, and eat a fancier brunch when that’s done like my family did.

Last year, we started something new. We take the twins to Dollar Tree and let them buy presents for their siblings & grandparents. We’re not at a point where we’re going to break the bank letting them buy really nice presents for those people since we already give them gifts, too, but we want them to start learning about choosing gifts to give to people you love & be part of the spirit of giving and not just getting. I take them one at a time and we talk about the person we’re shopping for, what they like, etc., and then they can pretty much choose what they want to give that person (and we know it will only cost $1!). Then we go to the next person on their list. It’s nothing fancy, but the boys LOVE getting to do their own shopping, pick whatever they want in the store, and it helps keep them from getting to consumed in what they are getting. And added perk is that the grandparents have gotten a huge kick out of whatever it was the boys chose for them.

We open a book each evening starting on Dec. 1. I don’t have enough Christmas books yet, so I check out books from the library to make sure we have enough. The boys love, love, love this and always ask if it’s time to open the book for the night. We also have a couple of fun advent calendars – one we move bears through the house looking for Christmas. The other one is a nativity scene. Each day you take out one character from the nativity story and add it to the scene.

Ever since I was little, we would put the Christmas decorations up the day after Thanksgiving and take them down after Three Kings Day on January 6th. We also buy an ornament whenever we travel some place together.

For the past three years we’ve been visiting Christmas Card Lane with the kids to see the lights displays. We also go to Balboa Park for December Nights and attend Maytinis with Mr Cheesecake’s family.

Since Mr. Cheesecake and I got together we spend the holidays with his family since they are mostly local. There are usually big family gatherings on Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and NYE. We eat Filipino and American food, open presents and just hang out with family. Now, every year on NYE we celebrate GemCake’s birthday too.

My husband’s grandmother started the tradition of giving him a nutcracker every year at Christmas and since she passed away, I have carried on that tradition. Every year he gives me something he has made and we give each of our boys a special Christmas ornament.

We don’t have a lot of other traditions where we do certain things at certain times because every Christmas ends up being different with changing work schedules and trying to fit in travel to see family.

Mr. Cotton Candy’s family is in Colorado, so we usually visit there at some point over the holidays. Whether it’s before or after Christmas, we all open presents together, drink craft beer, and play with the little ones (Little CC’s cousins are two and eight months), and watch the beautiful snow fall on the mountains.

We usually spend Christmas Eve with my family, my mom and two brothers. Instead of cooking, we like to go out for a sushi dinner if we can find a restaurant that is open.

We always spend Christmas morning with just the three of us Cotton Candies. It’s a sweet and special tradition that I love. We open stockings and presents, and Little Cotton Candy receives all of his Santa presents (unwrapped). We usually make a big, delicious breakfast, like waffles or breakfast tacos.

We do a family dinner on Christmas eve, sort of like a potluck with everyone contributing something. We also do a funny white elephant gift exchange with about 15 family members. Then we head home and the kids get new Christmas pajamas and we watch a Christmas movie together in bed.

In the morning, we get up ridiculously early with the kids and open gifts and do stockings. Then at 9 am we head over to my parents’ house where my mom cooks everyone Christmas breakfast. This has been going on for about 40ish years now. At my parents’ house, we do niece and nephew gifts and gifts for my parents, then me, my siblings and their SO’s do a nice white elephant exchange.

We used to all do a Christmas dinner together too, but Mr. Cereal and I decided a few years ago that we would make Christmas dinner our special time, so we cook a decadent meal and stuff ourselves.

We’re trying to figure out what traditions to do as a new little family. I am hoping to keep up the midnight candlelight service tradition since we only have one little one.

Our newest traditions include getting a picture with Santa on Christmas Eve, stopping for hot chocolate on the way home, and strolling around the neighborhood to see the lights after. During the day, we have a big family lunch at our home, and a gingerbread house decorating contest.

Christmas day starts off with cinnamon buns because you have to get the sugar buzz going early to play with all of those new toys all day long!

We bring out our Elf right after Thanksgiving. We started this when Drake was 6 months old and it’s been fun watching the kids as they grow up anticipating and waiting for his arrival, as well as the month-long fun of finding him every morning.

On Christmas Eve we always have dinner with Mr Chocolate’s family and celebrate Christmas day with breakfast at my mom’s and then later with the extended family at my SIL’s house. Mr Chocolate’s family does a secret Santa stocking exchange for the adults that is always highly anticipated to see who gets the silliest thing in theirs.

We spend Christmas Day at my paternal grandparents’ house with all of my extended family, probably 20+ people. Small kids immediately head to the toy room, tweens and teens to the pool and foosball table, and adults to the apps/bar.

After play and gossip, presents and Christmas dinner, we all gather for family games where my younger cousins tailor popular game shows to our family (ex, “Family Feud” with questions tailored to family traditions, family jokes, etc). It’s a blast and I truly look forward to Christmas Day all year long!

We love to take a day off of work right before Christmas and use the morning to eat a big breakfast as a family and take Will to see Santa (no lines! less overwhelming!) and then watch It’s a Wonderful Life on a big screen near us that plays classics. It’s become a fun tradition that I look forward to every year!

Mr. M and I also both grew up with our families throwing the neighborhood Christmas Eve party, so someday we hope to start that tradition up for our family, too!

We usually start with gingerbread house decorating soon after thanksgiving is over.

We also love going to the botanic gardens and seeing the winter wonderland train exhibit every year.

And finally Mr. Juice is the chef for Christmas dinner and his specialty is prime rib.  

I mentioned in a previous post that we are starting all new traditions this year since we’re staying home just the four of us. Here’s what we came up with, we’re going to go to a Christmas Eve family church service at 4 PM and then home for pizza, hot chocolate, and a movie, most likely, “How The Grinch Stole Christmas.” I also want to read “The Polar Express” as a family before bedtime.

Then, I’m excited to see how it feels to open gifts on Christmas Day so we’ll have the kids open presents in the morning followed by a big breakfast. We were just invited to my brother and his wife’s Christmas Day brunch so we’re excited for that!

And finally, we will probably drive around and look at holiday lights in the days following Christmas.

We sometimes have trouble sticking to a lot of traditions on Christmas day. We have some variability in our Christmas celebrations depending on whether we are home, in San Diego or in Utah. No matter where we are though we have a few traditions that we always make happen.

Leading up to Christmas we usually go on the Santa Train which is like the Polar Express. We board the train and have hot chocolate and cookies while we ride out to the North Pole. Then Santa boards the train and we sing Christmas carols until Santa sees all the kids on the train and gives them a bell. The kids love it and it’s super fun.

Since I was a kid my grandma would have a graham cracker (substitute for gingerbread) house day where we would get together and build our houses. Now my mom and I are continuing the tradition with our friends and family. Everyone comes over and we put together our houses. Then we hang out and have lunch. I always make potato soup and butternut squash soup. After lunch, we have a visit from Mr and Mrs. Claus. They hand out presents to all the people at the party and everyone gets to take a family picture.

On Christmas eve we always give the kids one present. I get the boys watches and Mr. Train gets our daughter a piece of jewelry. My dad always gave my sister and I a new necklace to wear to church on Christmas eve and I wanted to carry that on with my kids.

Christmas morning either my mom or I make breakfast. It is a meal that my grandma used to make every Christmas. We have cornbread with poached eggs on top, sausage, and halved grapefruits with a cherry on top. I know it sounds weird but it wouldn’t be Christmas without it.

We moved to the Philippines last November so this will be our second Christmas here. Last year we didn’t do much other than give the kids gifts since we were still settling in.

Mr. Bee’s family has a resort here, and they host a big Christmas party for friends, guests, staff and their family. Now that we’re fully settled into life here, it will be our biggest Christmas party yet! A whole pig (two this year) is killed and slow roasted over a spitfire all day, which is a ritual and tradition that locals love. Then we have a huge Christmas dinner with Filipino and American foods, lots of drinks flowing, exchange gifts, play games, and of course… sing karaoke! Everyone looks forward to the party and it really is a blast.

Our traditions have definitely changed while living here since it’s difficult to get many things locally. But my kids miss their cold, white Christmases from New York so I tried to do as much as we could to embrace the holiday season this year. We traveled 6 hours to the island capital to buy a (fake) Christmas tree. We played Christmas music every day, watched tons of Christmas movies, and did a Pokemon figurine advent calendar. We’re opening stockings on Christmas Eve, presents on Christmas morning (Santa’s will be unwrapped), and passing out gifts to local kids (a coloring book, crayons, and bag of treats). And then later this week we’ll be hosting a Christmas party for local kids who otherwise wouldn’t have a celebration or gifts. We did something similar for Halloween, and we had so much fun we knew we wanted to do it again for Christmas.

We live in hot tropical weather, but we still feel the Christmas spirit here!