Holiday Fun

     Christmas is one of the most exciting seasons and holidays for the children. I know it’s sometimes a stress for parents, but it’s not all about the money you spend, it’s for spending time with your family and just having a great time. You can do so many fun things during this season.

      One thing to start off with is you could go get a Christmas tree. You can either cut one down or pick one out that’s already cut down. My family always has had this tradition since I was little. We would go shopping the day after Thanksgiving, also known as Black Friday Shopping. On Saturday we get our tree, and then go back to my aunt’s house and usually have soup for lunch. Finally, we would go home and decorate our Christmas tree and our house to get into the Christmas spirit. When I was little we would go cut our own tree down but now we just go pick one that’s already cut down, but we still have a blast doing it. We have all of these traditions that we still carry on since I was a little girl.  I just love all of these things that we do and it makes it even more special during this season.

        Cooking is another special tradition that you could do with your family. The kids loving cooking. Some of the things that you can cook is homemade Christmas sugar cookies. My family does this every year and we have a blast. We make the same recipe and it’s my mom’s recipe which will probably get carried down to each generation because it’s such a great recipe. Some of the most common cookie cutters we use is the Santa, reindeer, star, Christmas tree etc. Then we will make the homemade frosting and decorate them as they are supposed to be. They always turn out awesome. We will save them until Christmas Eve, which is always at the same place. It used to be Grandma and Grandpa’s house, but they have both passed away and it’s now my Aunt, Uncle and cousin’s home. It wouldn’t be the same if we didn’t have Christmas Eve there.

          Another tradition and is usually on a Sunday is get together Aunts and a few cousins and make homemade Christmas Candy. We all bring supplies for what candy we want to make and combine it all together and take some home for our families and save the rest for Christmas Eve. Some of the main candy we make are; peanut clusters, popcorn balls (and make them red and green), dipped pretzels, dipped cherry balls and many more. This is always an all-day thing and a big huge mess but we just always enjoy it every year.

            Even making crafts is a fun idea to do with your children. My aunt is good at drawing and she gets a bunch of my cousins together; it doesn’t matter what age and she will pick one Christmas thing and go through each step on how to draw it. It’s always really cool when you think you can’t draw and after that day you see what you have just drawn something pretty neat. Some Christmas crafts you can make with your younger child could be; homemade ornaments.  I remember that I made tons of them when I was younger in preschool and older. I loved that every year we would make something different and wrap it up and could be a Christmas present for my parents. We also made gingerbread houses out of milk cartons. This was a fun thing that I still remember when I was in kindergarten; and the special thing was that my mom got to come help me and the class out.

            You can do so much more during this time period with you child. It’s important to do fun things that they can remember and even repeat it every year so you and your family can start traditions like my family did. You’ll never ever regret having these family traditions. Remember, Christmas is not always about spending a lot of money; it’s about family and traditions and memories to share.