I know I’ve talked a few times about various Christmas traditions, but I can’t find any record of me ever ranking them.
Since we’re talking about Christmas (which I love) and I’m actively trying to avoid unnecessary angst, I’m going to limit my discussion to Top traditions only. (In other words, no Bottom mentions from me—but feel free to sound off in the comments if there are some loathed traditions you’d like to vent about.)
There’s something comforting about not having to think about what comes next in the process. There is joy in knowing what you’ll eat and when, and knowing that certain gifts are sure to be under the tree. In a world that can feel incredibly chaotic and unpredictable, I find it grounding to have traditions to guide the direction of our holiday.
I thought I’d do a Top Five from my childhood (Then) and a Top Five from my current stage of life (Now).
Without further ado…
TOP FIVE CHRISTMAS TRADITIONS (THEN)
I truly loved everything about Christmas growing up.
The sounds!
The smells!
The presents! It feels almost impossible to reduce that experience to just a few individual traditions—but, as I say to my children, I can do hard things.
- Collecting evergreens. If you ask my kids what my favourite childhood memory is, both will know the answer immediately: trudging through the woods with a pair of tin snips, a giant garbage bag, and my dad. We were collecting evergreens for the enormous (they were huge) wreaths he made for the front of our church, plus a swag for the back doorway. He’d cover the stage in tarps, and the whole church would smell like fir branches. I loved the smell—but more than that, I loved being in the woods with my dad. We’re both introverted, so I don’t remember deep conversations. I just remember that I loved being with him.
- Decorations. Our house looked like Christmas had vomited everywhere. Towels (of hand, bath, and dish variety) were swapped out. The piano was moved to make room for the tree. Glass bowls overflowed with ornaments. A paper creche sat on the mantle. Everything got Christmas-fied, and I loved it.
- Christmas concerts. Every year our church hosted a Christmas concert straight out of a storybook: kids wearing their Sunday best reciting verses and lines, acting in little plays, and everything was backlit by candles glowing in the windows. Because my dad was the pastor, I got to go early and help light all the candles. The excitement I felt for those evenings is hard to put into words—I remember feeling so happy I could almost burst. At the end of each concert, we handed out little paper goody bags filled with candy, nuts (pre-allergy awareness days!), and chocolates. I helped assemble them at our dining room table, dropping mints and gumdrops and chocolate Turtles into bags one by one. We’d fold over the top of the bags and secure them with a single staple. I loved preparing those treat bags. Plus, any leftovers came home with us!
- Guessing Christmas gifts. Growing up, we never had Christmas Eve church services; instead, we’d sing carols around the piano (actually!), then pass around all the gifts to shake and guess what was inside. I don’t want my own kiddos figuring things out the night before, but as a kid I loved it.
- The food. Cherry cheesecake. Cinnamon coffee cake. Peanut butter balls. Turkey. These foods are inherently delicious (to me) but their emotional pull runs deep because of their connection to childhood Christmases. Growing up we had pizza every single Christmas Eve for supper*, with POP on the side (we never had pop at meals), and we ate by candlelight and my father was always complaining about how he couldn’t see his food. It’s pizza, what do you need to see? I loved everything about it!
*Before I was born, a woman in my parents’ congregation knew how tight money was for our family and gifted them a certificate to a local pizza place. They decided to use it Christmas Eve, and a tradition was born. Every year since that my mom (or John/I) has made homemade pizza for Christmas Eve. This year we’re bringing back the takeout and I am so excited to not lift a finger for food prep on Christmas Eve! Maybe I’ll even grab a bottle of pop? And we will definitely be eating by candlelight!
TOP FIVE CHRISTMAS TRADITIONS (NOW)
- A new ornament on Christmas Eve. Growing up, we were never allowed to open gifts on Christmas Eve, and I always envied friends who could. I love where we landed. Each Christmas Eve, the kids get an ornament (and a pair of PJs). They’re building their own ornament collections to take with them one day, and every ornament on our tree has a story. Even though they know an ornament is coming, they never know which one and the excitement is palpable every single year.
- Participating in the Live Nativity. This is a newer tradition—and only the second year our whole family participated (my fourth)—but one I treasure deeply. I love being part of something that so clearly points to Jesus and the wonder of His birth, with a clear message about why it all matters.
- Turkey on Boxing Day. Growing up, Christmas afternoon always felt rushed. Adults were busy preparing the turkey, no one was particularly hungry, and it all felt a bit… blah. About a decade ago, I decided I was an adult and could make executive decisions; I moved turkey dinner to Boxing Day. Now, on Christmas morning, we have a big breakfast after opening stockings (before presents), light snacks for lunch, and a simple supper. After a relaxed Boxing Day brunch, I start the turkey and all the fixings. Zero regrets.
- Watching White Christmas with Joy. Every single year I’m shocked that an entire year has passed since we last watched it together—it always feels like it could’ve been yesterday. I look forward to this evening all year long.
- The food. Cherry cheesecake. Peanut butter balls. Cinnamon coffee cake. Pumpkin pie. Coffee by the fire on Christmas morning. Chocolate mints. Bowls full of ripe clementines. Seafood casserole. Turkey, squash, gravy. Scrambled eggs and bacon. Orange juice. I love the smells. I love the flavours. I love it all—except maybe the preparation. Thankfully, John is a wonderfully capable cook and helps in many ways.
And that’s a wrap.
- What are your favourite traditions—now or then?
- Is there a tradition you’re currently doing that you’d like to drop?
- Do you eat the same thing on Christmas Eve each year?
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I’ve dropped Xmasxards a ND baking gor the neighbors. I also will not be wrapping presents on Chrismas eve.
I do love decorating the tree.
I don’t know what we’re going to eat on Xmas. Beef is too expensive, and there ate no more turkeys in the stores I’ve tried. I do make cinnamon rolls or cheese braid , my daughter quiche, for Xmas morning.
Take out pizza on Xmas eve is pure genius!
Oh,goodness, autocorrect! Xmas cards and baking. I am not baking for Notre Dame ( that’s Ernie’s job!)
Hahaha! I autocorrected it properly in my head but DID chuckle and immediately thought of Ernie 🙂
NO MORE TURKEYS? I remember that being a huge issue a few years back; this year, I feel like there are so many turkeys and they’re on sale.
This is the first year we have ever bought the pizza and I am so excited to NOT BE MAKING PIZZA ON CHRISTMAS EVE. I love the food part of the tradition, but am very ready for a break from the cooking part 🙂
This was so lovely to read! The evergreen collecting with your dad sounds magical.
My favorite “then” tradition also involves my dad. He and I would make homemade truffles and on Christmas Eve we would drive all over town delivering them to friends. Several of the recipients would invite us in for a chat. It was so fun and festive, and then we would return home to have a cozy bowl of mulligatawny soup that my mom had made while we were gone.
First, homemade truffles are THE BEST and driving them around on CHRISTMAS EVE?? I wish I had lived in your drop-off zone.
And then coming back to a delicious soup. I can 100% see why this was your favourite tradition growing up. It all sounds so wonderfull cozy and friendly and fun and like a huge bonding experience with your dad.
That’s a lovely story with the pizza!
I love how a tiny act of kindness turned into a decades-long tradition. It’s funny how the simplest things can become the warmest memories.
And I love how you keep it going with take-out pizza on Christmas Eve. That’s the kind of tradition that makes me smile – practical, tasty, and full of memories.
We will be travelling to Zurich on Thursday and will get together with the family on 2nd January. I’m looking forward to seeing everyone!
What a great point – yes, we never know what little decision could morph into a treasured tradition!
We always made our own pizza after that first year, but I’m very excited to outsource it this year!
Safe travels and enjoy the holiday adventures with family <3
My favorite ‘then’ tradition was during Advent. Most nights we would gather as a family, light the advent calendar and then my mom would play piano and we would sing Christmas carols. It was a very Norman Rockwell kind of tradition. Christmas Eve was the big day for our family. We went to church, then my mom made oyster stew (yuck, I did not like this but it was their traditional meal) and we had a lot of aps like veggies and cheese and crackers so I would fill up on that. Then we would open presents one at a time. And Santa would sneakily leave our presents on the deck through an elaborate scheme that is too much to type out on my phone. My parents are both of German descent and Christmas Eve is the bigger day of celebration for that culture. We spent Christmas Day with my dad’s family. And since we got all our presents the night before we did not wake up at the crack of dawn. So it was pretty brilliant of my parents to design the holiday that way.
Now my favorite part of our holiday is the Christmas Eve party at Phil’s cousins house which you know all about. I also love our Christmas Eve service at church. Paul’s Sunday school class sings so it is very special to watch that. Taco’s does as well but I can’t do 2 Christmas Eve services in one day. Our church is quite large so the church is packed so the logistics of parking is a lot… but I love going once. In a few years we will have taco be the one who sings and we will miss the service where Paul’s class sings.
I want to add that ornament tradition for my boys so they have ornaments for a future home!
We joke that I had Norman Rockwell Christmases growing up and John had Griswold Christmases.
Your Christmas Eve party always sounds SO fun and your church sounds like an incredible place to worship, especially this time of year!
I absolutely love our ornament tradition! We started with each other when we were dating and then it just pretty quickly became obvious this was going to become a family tradition!
I love your approach of waiting until Boxing Day to have the big dinner. That reminds me, we have another holiday difference between the US and Canada and Boxing Day isn’t really a thing here. If I had a magic wand, I would make Thanksgiving a bigger deal for Canada – you can keep it in October if you want to, but let’s make it a four day weekend, and then I would up Remembrance Day and add Boxing Day for us. Deal?
Least fav tradition – we do a lottery ticket exchange at our big family Christmas dinner. It’s only $20 so not a big deal, but I hate scratching off the tickets and it feels like such a waste of time for the few dollars in return.
We finally settled on a standard Christmas meal for our big family party. It’s always at my one SILs house, and we get take out lasagna from a really good Italian restaurant. The only thing that we have to do is bring desserts.
Thanksgiving is NOT a big deal for me, but I do think other families might be more into it? But it’s NOTHING like the US.
I love having our big meal on Boxing Day and it gives us something to look forward to, since the days after Christmas can be a bit of a letdown emotionally after all the anticipation.
Yay for takeout and Yay for a smorgasbord of desserts.
I love this post so much, because I love everything about Christmas. Those childhood traditions… I can just imagine how exciting they all were- lighting the candles, filling the treat bags. Traditions are so important- I love how my own kids can say “we always do this on Christmas Eve” or “we always put this ornament on the tree.” my absolute favorite tradition growing up was Christmas Eve. We went to an early evening church service, then came home and had an appetizer dinner (pigs in blankets, and when I became vegetarian my mom made mine with cream cheese). We ate in the living room while my parents opened all their presents- they were both elementary school teachers, AND my mom taught private piano lessons, so they had a ton of presents. They literally had, between them, 50-70 presents to open! My job was to keep a list of what my mom got and from whom, and my sister was in charge of my dad’s list (so that they could send out thank you cards later.) It was a real family bonding experience (and we didn’t have a lot of those other than Christmas Eve). Then when my parents were done, my sister and I both got to open one present. At that point, the area under the tree was empty and waiting for “santa” to come, and my sister and I went to bed with the happy anticipation of Christmas morning. If I could go back to one event in my childhood, it would be one of those Christmas Eves.
Awww, Jenny. All the heart eyes for this story. I can see why you’d give just about anything to go back to one of those special Christmas Eve’s. Also, that is a LOT of presents. I love that your job was to keep track of the giver of gifts <3
Agreed that it really warms my heart to have my kids enjoy and expect certain traditions at Christmas.
This is lovely, Elisabeth! I love decorating and baking the most, I think. Also watching holiday movies with the guys. We did our annual gingerbread decorating this weekend, which was so much fun, and then we watched Christmas Vacation. Perfection!
So fun! I hope we see pictures of the gingerbread 😉
I haven’t seen Christmas Vacation in YEARS. This might be the year for a re-watch!!!!
Christmas brings up lots of good memories, then and now! The music is what sticks for me the most back then and is still a big deal for me now. I love Christmas movies and watched “new to me” movies both last year and this year. Alistair Sim’s A Christmas Carol is always watched on Christmas Eve. I haven’t done the big turkey dinner for years. Each year I come up with a themed dinner. Last year was “old-school steakhouse”, this year we are going Southern with shrimp creole and bread pudding for dessert. I give out very few Christmas cards now and have zero guilt about that.
A themed dinner sounds so festive and would certainly keep things fresh! But having a central launch point is helpful. Sign me up for old-school steakhouse, please!!
Oh my goodness, I love this so much! My favorite tradition growing up was the Christmas Eve service at church followed by a late night dinner/celebration with my dad’s side of the family. Our entire extended family lived in the same town and attended the same church. I realize now how special and rare that was. We were always dressed to the nines and there was so much excitement…
NOW.. I’m struggling. this will be the first Christmas without my dad and the last one in our childhood home. 🙁 We did go to a carol sing along at a church (not ours) on the first Sunday of Advent which I loved. I grew up with more emphasis on the liturgical calendar than what our current church has, and I miss aspects of that! I also love The Best Christmas Pageant Ever (the 1980s version) and Charlie Brown Christmas!
Those Christmas Eve’s sound so special. I can almost feel the palpable excitement!
It’s especially painful and sad at Christmas to remember those we’ve loved and lost over the years. Grief doesn’t have an expiration date and I’m sure it feels heavy. I hope you have pockets of joy and lightness, while giving yourself permission to feel all the feelings, including the very hard ones.
I love this list! My top Christmas traditions in this season of life are driving around looking at holiday lights with hot cocoa and the Mr’s holiday playlist accompanied by my daughter’s singing out the window (which we did last night), everyone having their favorite cookie on Christmas Eve, and our new tradition (as of this year) of each of us doing another person’s stocking with a small budget and a lot of creativity, puns, and laughs.
That sounds like SUCH a fun holiday light tradition. Seriously… like something out of a movie!!!! And doing all that while sipping hot cocoa and enjoying a favourite cookie. This is perfection, Lindsay.
The stockings feel very fun, too!
Your Christmas traditions are lovely, and I especially like the idea of getting a pizza! As I get older, Christmas isn’t as fun or exciting as it used to be, but I found that I can enjoy the more calm and quiet version as well. In fact, I really love it!
I love calm, Michelle. LOVE. IT!
I love that we do an ornament every year. And that we go to the lights with our friends at the Rotary Gardens – it’s a fun double date. I love making cookies that I don’t make all year long. I love holiday cards. I love the tree and putting it up is fun – it’s the first time we’ll listen to the holiday playlist and the soundtrack is great.
(I don’t love driving to my in-laws and back on Christmas Day. I mostly just wish we could stay home. But that is not to be.)
Traditions are so fun and you know how I feel about your ornament post!!!! It is one of my favourite holiday things to look forward to.
Ugh. Travelling on Christmas is the literal worst in my opinion. All the gold stars for doing it.
And YES to putting up the tree. I think you and I might enjoy more than many because we have so many sentimental ornaments. It really adds to the fun and elevates the whole experience.
As a family, then and now, we’ve never had turkey at Christmas. Pork, lamb, occasionally beef, and yes, chicken. Turkey was never a thing as a kid growing up. And now? Nope, not here, in Quebec either, their food traditions are so different, they eat things like meat pie, ragu & meatballs, certainly no jelly or trifle, or even Christmas cake. I’m not sure what it will be like this year.
We love meatballs and actually often have them on Christmas Day (since we don’t have turkey until Boxing Day, now)!
That church Christmas program description —Yes! I had forgotten, but it was a big deal. We wore our Christmas dresses (always made by Mom for us three girls), the program was exciting (I remember nothing except the excitement), and then those little brown bags with CANDY! We NEVER got candy otherwise, and these were basic hard candy with some weird striped ribbon-looking pieces, and always an orange at the bottom of the bag, which made us smirk, because Dad supplied all those for the bags.
Dad used to make us read the Christmas story out of Luke before opening gifts, but one year decided (wisely) that it mixed up the real meaning with the secular stuff in addition to making us dread the story because it only prolonged the presents. So, we started reading it before dinner.
Looking back, I see that my Mom did not like Christmas for some unknown reason; she tolerated things, did her best, but there was a real reluctance to just enjoy things. It is too complicated to sort our my indifference/apathy/angst about the holiday. The older I get, the more I crave the spiritual side of the holiday and shrink away from the holly-jolly things and from thinking too much about the past.
Dad shared with me a great article in the Wall Street Journal in 1997, which suggested Christmas be divided into two holidays: Nativity and Excessmas. This is the article,https://cpb-us-e1.wpmucdn.com/sites.lib.jmu.edu/dist/3/247/files/2020/02/Merry-Excessmas-WSJ.pdf
Wait, you got CANDY IN BROWN PAPER BAGS, TOO! I have never heard of another person getting those at church. Wow, it really is like we’ve lived the same life on alternate timelines, Jana.
We read the Christmas story before opening presents and it made me VERY happy to ask Belle about her favourite traditions and the Luke 2 narration was part of her list.
That article is FASCINATING! Thanks for linking.
Childhood: Mother’s Christmas cookies and Daddy reading ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas every year on Christmas Eve before we hung our stockings. Also, our Christmas Tree. We always had a “real” tree filled with antique or homemade ornaments. I also loved the stories my parents used to tell me about their childhood Christmases.
Food: Daddy always roasted chestnuts and bought a pomegranate. I remember covering the kitchen table with newspaper and my dad, brother, and I eating every single seed.
Now: my absolute favorite is our Christmas Eve Lessons and Carols service. Once it starts, Christmas is here.
I also love my Christmas tree, watching The Nativity either Christmas Eve after church or Christmas Day between presents and starting dinner.
I love eating orange-cranberry bread from my grandmother’s recipe and sausages for Christmas breakfast, roast beef and Yorkshire pudding for dinner, and Christmas cookies for dessert.
For years I made pork pie for Christmas Eve, remembering the pork pies my grandmother used to get each year, but my daughter-in-law asked if she could make salmon instead this year so we are switching it up. I suspect not having to cook on Christmas Eve may become a new favorite. 🙂 I love your pizza tradition!
Merry Christmas!
Reading this comment gave me so many warm, fuzzy Christmas feelings, Joy. Thanks for sharing and I absolutely loved all these details.
It sounds like your Christmases were rich with love and tradition as a child and still are to this day.
Salmon on Christmas Eve sounds delicious… especially if someone else is cooking!
Pizza for Christmas! Now that’s different – but I understand why it was a hit for you as a kid. I know families have very different Christmas Eve/Day traditions. Some make very simple meals (think, potato salad with sausages), some make fancy meals, some make the same dish every year). My family leans on the fancy side and we come up with a new menu every year – we never make the same thing twice in a row. I definitely enjoy the food prepping for christmas – it’s part of the appeal.
I also used to LOVE our tradition that the tree wasn’t put up until a few days before Christmas and that I got to decorate it on Christmas Eve morning (while my sister set up the nativity scene). We’ve not kept this tradition because I come to enjoy the tree all through the season, so we usually put it up at the beginning of December now.
It does sound magical to do the tree on Christmas Eve…but I just LOVE the twinkle lights the whole season, so I think I’d cave very quickly. Plus, my kids would revolt – haha.
What a fun post! I LOVE the Christmas Eve pizza tradition. Such a sweet gesture that first year, and brilliant to keep the tradition for a simple, easy dinner at a busy time. I also laughed out loud about your dad griping about not being able to see the pizza. The older I get, the crankier I am when I’m trying to do something in dim lighting so I get it!!
I’ve carried over some of my childhood Christmas traditions, like making clam chowder for Christmas Eve dinner, children getting a new ornament each Christmas Eve, and children going on individual Christmas dates with dad — out to a restaurant of their choice and then shopping for gifts for their siblings/mom. One year my poor Dad had to go to McDonalds three times in two days (once for breakfast and twice for lunch!).
I’ve changed some things up as well. I used to give new PJs on Christmas Eve but now I give them on St. Nicholas Day (Dec 6) so they can wear them throughout the Advent and Christmas season. My mom always made a full turkey dinner for Christmas Day, but I’m usually solo parenting the night of Christmas Eve and at least part of Christmas morning since Nick is a church musician, so I opt for an easy ham and sides. I buy storebought pastries to serve along sausage and bacon Christmas morning and serve it on Christmas-themed paper plates. Basically trying to keep things festive and special but still easy!
Have a very merry Christmas! 🙂
It was a running joke about my dad complaining. He really WAS complaining but it was good natured and we would set the dimmer to the lowest possible setting to try to keep him “happy” (again, he wasn’t truly upset but he didn’t like not being able to see his food) and to make it feel extra festive.
Clam chowder. Yum! That’s a Christmas Eve supper I could definitely get behind.
Aww. Christmas Dates with Dad. I LOVE IT!
That’s brilliant to give new PJs a bit earlier so they can enjoy them the whole season.
Festive + special + easy = the perfect combination.
All wonderful traditions! Our kids always got to pick out a new ornament every year, often on vacation and they took them when they moved out. My husband and I have also bought a new ornament every year since we began dating in 1984, so we have plenty still on our tree.
We often go out to dinner after the candlelight church service, but this year my son’s family is staying with us, so I’m making a German meal.
I was excited to learn that we’re going to have a candlelight service tomorrow night. For the past few years we’ve used glow sticks (for fire marshal regulations, maybe), but we’re back to candles this year and I am so excited!!!
Enjoy your special meal at home <3
I love these Christmas memories. 🙂 The one with your dad, collecting evergreens, is especially poignant. I love how you guys didn’t have deep conversations – it was just the two of you, enjoying the quiet and snipping evergreens. <3
My favorite Christmas tradition growing up was staying up all night on Christmas Eve with my brother! Once our parents were asleep, one of us would sneak into the other's room and then try to stay awake all night by playing games. One of us would usually fall asleep at some point and then wake up around 5 and the EXCITEMENT. There was nothing like it!
My Christmas Eve tradition now is going out for a fancy steakhouse dinner with my mom and stepdad. We get dressed up and it's so lovely.
My dad and I are definitely the biggest introverts in our family, so it makes sense my favourite Christmas memory is with him! I’ve never really thought about how our personalities are so aligned in that way and it helps make sense of what it’s so special.
Your Christmas Eve memories are SO sweet. I just love it. We used to wake up soooooo early and I remember it was agony waiting for my parents to get up.
I could DEFINITELY get behind a steakhouse for Christmas Eve <3
Collecting evergreens. Singing around the Piano! Elisabeth, your childhood seems so idyllic and sweet.
Growing up, we always had Lasagna for Christmas, and I continued this until the year Lolo was ill and ended up (sorry for this) vomiting up her dinner. She declared she could not eat Lasagna ever again. I was kinda sad, but also, it was so much work! HA. What we ended up making this past Christmas eve was such a hit, we might continue this for the future.
As kids we always got an ornament and new PJ’s, both could be opened on Christmas eve and I did this with my girls, until the last few years. They’re adults. Right? I mean, they’d love to have matching PJ’s….but now I’d have to add in the husbands and kids. Maybe next year?
Lasagne is A LOT of work. I’m very so Lolo was sick and has such a bad memory, but also glad you’re free from making lasagne!
I do not plan to do PJs when the kids are older. I love the ornaments so much I think I’d have a hard time stopping that tradition, though?