UPDATE: The winner is…Donna Bullard!
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Is it too soon for a picture like this? Well, was there ever a year that couldn’t end fast enough? Yeah, 2020 will be that year for lots of folks. Our family is so eager to get to the end, we put up the Christmas tree before Thanksgiving!
Not that we haven’t found joy along the way this year—in our house, anyway. Yes, we’re staying home as much as possible, taking as few risks as possible. My SIL is a cop who interacts with people every day, but he’s masked and does his level best to distance. The older kids have fast-food jobs and mask. We order our groceries for pick up. The kids are online students. We make no unnecessary trips, except for the rare trip to the flea market! We are doing our part. I hope and pray everyone else does, too, so we make it through the end of this horrendous year.
And you’d think that all this self-isolation would have meant greater productivity for this hermit author—but noooo! I spend more time with family, doing family things, helping kids with homework, my dd with housework and dishes. We binge-watch TV series together. At present, we’re watching Yellowstone and The Boys.
December will be the worst for distractions. Our “Elves on the Shelf” made their appearance this weekend, so they’ll be moving all around the house every night. We have advent calendars to load nightly with goodies, and “Kriskindelnacht” coming up this weekend. Kriskindelnacht is a celebration our family adopted after two tours in Germany. On the night of the 5th, the kids put their shoes out for Santa to fill with coal if they were naughty or something cool if they were good. My dd says Santa told her that the biggest kid in the house has to leave out a shoe this year, too! 🙂 (I’m beyond thrilled!!)
Of course, there’s editing and writing to do this month, but I think I’m not going to be very ambitious. I want to enjoy this holiday season like no other because we’ll likely never have this chance to be so together again. Silver linings, folks.
So, I shared our family’s Kriskindelnacht tradition. What traditions do you observe? Share for a chance to win a $5 Amazon gift card!
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We make sure that every year we put out the same lights on trees in the backyard it doesn’t feel like Christmas without them and we share them with the whole neighborhood.
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We make Christmas candy and cookies as a family. It takes all day to get them complete. Christmas Eve we make Royal Crown. It’s kind of like a cinnamon pull apart but it’s not. You make it with sweet bread dough let it rise all day and roll it into balls, place the balls in melted butter, roll them in brown sugar and cinnamon mixture and place them in an angel food cake pan (one that doesn’t come apart.) It’s been a tradition since I was old enough to remember and probably a lot longer than that.
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We decorate together… and make M&M cookies together.
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We make different types of cookies and fudge every year and on Christmas Eve we watch Christmas movies!
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No name to our celebration. We buy a small gift and drive around to look at decorated houses. The house we like the best gets a gift with a note that says “Our family voted your decorations as the best, enjoy your prize!”. Some years we have runner up prizes (normally boxes of candy canes). This year we may miss out on the rewards, but will still do the drive 🙂
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bake together
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We have already decorated the house and Christmas tree. I have even wrapped a few gifts.
It’s never too early to get into the Christmas spirit.
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We reuse the same gift bags and gift wrap and cards. It makes for some funny gifts when you forget to change the name of the recipient!
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We have a tradition of small presents after dinner. You are not supposed to know who gave them.
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Stockings were the last to explore. And “Santa’s” presents were unwrapped. Cuz he’s just so busy. Early risers may play/use Santa’s present but wait for the family to wake up. This Santa’s helper HAD to have her coffee.
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I loved reading about all your traditions!! Thanks for sharing!
The winner is…Donna Bullard!