090 - Our Favorite Christmas Traditions
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Here we are in the final weeks of 2020, praise the Lord.
It is Thanksgiving week, and we are full on diving into the Christmas season.
Today, I'm going to be sharing all of our favorite Christmas traditions in my heart. And sharing this is really just to encourage you to make time for the most important things—to make space for a lot of fun and laughter, and games and meaningful giving, and hopefully just to invite you into our family for a little bit and sharing how Will and I have brought our different sets of our own family's traditions and made them our own.
For the full episode, hit play above or read through it below!
Okay, first things first—Happy Thanksgiving!
Now this episode comes out two days before Thanksgiving, and I don't want to bypass this holiday that honestly is so important this year for us to stop and be with family, and think about the things that we need to be thankful for. I mean it is necessary this year. So if you're not quite ready to hear all about our Christmas traditions, I totally get it. Just hit pause, come back to this next week and be sure to go back and listen to Episode 033 if you haven't listened to it yet.
Actually it would be great idea for you to just listen to it again. It's all about our favorite Thanksgiving traditions. But if you're like, "Come on Nancy, bring on the Christmas. I want to hear about it”—as many of us are feeling this year, I am just really excited to share a glimpse into our home and our family, and the things that just mean more to me than any amount of Christmas music or decorations. And that's saying a lot, because I love Christmas music and decorations.
So just to give you a little bit of context, I am just a really sentimental person. I was one of those kids who was always super nostalgic about being with my family, and making sure that we followed through on every single tradition. And now that we have a family of our own with three little kids, we have a mix of old traditions and new ones: Will's childhood traditions and mine. And I'm going to share them all with you today.
And I'm just giving you full permission to just pick and choose what you want out of this episode. If you just want to smile and say good for them not for me, that is wonderful. If you want to totally steal some of these traditions, go for it. I am so good with all of that. I just want this to be something that brings you joy and encourages you.
But one thing I do just want you to pay attention to: most of our favorite traditions and the ones that honestly meant the most to me as a kid were really simple and it didn't cost a lot of money.
More than ever, I am believing Christmas is about the awe and wonder of what it means. That our God actually became a human to live with us and to save us. And if you stop and think about that, really stop and think about that, it will blow you away. And it's also about time spent together. I mean that's what Christmas is about, time with those you love most, slowing down, making time to feast and celebrate after another year of work and play.
So whatever traditions you have, wherever you find yourself this Christmas, my prayer is that you would know Emmanuel, God with us. And that He truly is the greatest gift. Now full on disclaimer, I've already given you this disclaimer, but I'm going to give it again just because you're going to see this in the episode. I love traditions. I love them. I love how they anchor a family. I love how they give kids and parents a sense of belonging and a shared experience. It's uniting. It is endearing. I mean it's fulfilling. I just love traditions. And so I'm going to break down a lot of traditions, big and small. I'm starting with the whole month of December: the things that I do throughout the month of December, and then specifically my favorite day is on Christmas Eve and Christmas day. So let's start by me walking you through the entire month, starting the day after Thanksgiving.
The day after Thanksgiving
Now I'm very grateful we live in North Carolina, because North Carolina is one of the top if not the top Christmas tree-producing state in the U.S. And we drive to the mountains—it's about three hours from our house—every year usually after Thanksgiving and we chop down a Christmas tree off the side of the mountain. It's so fun. I mean we don't actually get the ax and chop it down. We go to the guys and they saw it down for us, but it's just so fun to wander through the mountain side and pick out the Christmas tree. And let the kids help us pick it out. It's so fun. So we strap it to the top of our car, drive home after our Thanksgiving vacation. And usually we decorate the whole house the day we come home, the day after Thanksgiving. Now it's gotten a little trickier lately, because we've been coming home from these mountain vacations later and later. We extended our time, and then we've got to go right back to work and there's no time to decorate.
So I think what we're going to start doing is slowly decorate the whole week, leading up to our Thanksgiving trip. And then when we get back, the only thing we'll have left to do is the tree and decorating the tree. And then we can really enjoy it all December.
Another tradition that we put out right away, as soon as we get back from our Thanksgiving trip is The Giving Manger. Now this is a newer company, highly recommend that you check them out and support them. They have this beautiful little wooden manger and a children's book that goes with it. And basically as the parents, you hide the baby Jesus figurine somewhere nearby. And you have an empty manger in a little jar, full of straws of hay. And every time somebody in the family does something extra generous or kind the month of December, you pick out a straw and you put it in the manger.
And I love this because it really cultivates outward thinking, especially for our little ones just encouraging them, making a game out of it to do something kind for others the whole month. And so, as you do kind of things, if mommy does something kind or if a kid does something kind or daddy does something kind, we'll say, "That was extra thoughtful. Let's put a straw in the manger." And by Christmas Eve, the manger is full of hay. And then you get Jesus out, the little figurine and you put the little wooden figurine baby Jesus into the manger, which is really, really sweet. And I really loved how, yeah just last year the first year we did it and it just changed our focus. And I really, really loved that.
Another Christmas tradition that I'm working towards, but I haven't actually implemented yet, but some of my friends do this really well is they wrap up 25 Christmas books in wrapping paper before December 1st. And every night, the kids get to open up a present, which is a Christmas book, and you read the Christmas book. And you can even number them one through 25 so that you can strategically choose which book you read on December 1st, and which book you read on Christmas Eve or Christmas day. And I love this idea. I don't quite have as many Christmas children's books as I want, but I'm building up my collection. I think in the next year or two I'll have it.
But I think what I would do is I would start on December 1st with The Giving Manger children's book, so that you can just totally orient yourself and your family towards giving the whole month. And then you put out the little manger and the straw, and then every night they get to open a present and it's so exciting. And it's these books that they remember year after year, but they only get to read it once. But once it's already open, you can obviously read it throughout the day. I just love that idea as well.
It does take a little bit of forethought and a little bit of work. You have to have a wrapping night every year before December 1st, or you could be really on it and wrap them all before you pack away all your Christmas decorations, then it's done for you. But yeah, I just love that idea of numbering these books and having your kids open them every night.
Okay. So those are the things I like to do in the beginning of the month or before December 1st, as we prepare for Christmas. These next items I'm going to walk you through are things that I really schedule in my calendar to make sure that they happen. So they're more like events or things, or activities that we want to do together. And you could do them whenever you feel like it, obviously. But for me, I feel like they don't really happen or I'm stressed out if I don't put them on the calendar.
Sending Christmas cards
So the first thing is sending Christmas cards. Now obviously backing up, this has to start well in advance. You get your family pictures taken, if you're a Christmas card person. You need to order them ahead of time, and then you need to send them out within the first week of December if you can, otherwise people aren't really going to enjoy them like you want them to. And so I always choose a deadline for myself to send these Christmas cards out. Otherwise, they're not going to get done.
So I will try to have a little Christmas card packaging night, and I'll try to rope Will in to doing it with me where we stuff on the envelopes and seal the cards. And shameless plug here for Minted, because this is hands down the biggest time-saver for me. It takes a lot of effort the first time you do it. But once you do that, it is so easy. You upload all of your friends' addresses and family's addresses into their software system, and they do free printed addressing on any Christmas card order. So that’s just a total free tip, I'm going totally off my notes to tell you about this, but it has been such a time saver because otherwise you have to hand-write everyone's address on the card. So Minted is where we always get our Christmas card because of that feature alone, because it just saves me so much time, which I love.
So sending Christmas cards—I make a deadline for myself. I stuff them all, stamp them all, get them out the door. Hopefully usually no later than December 10th. I like to do everything on December 5th if I can, and make a fun night of it.
Christmas movies
Okay, let's talk about Christmas movies, because obviously this is such a fun Christmas tradition where you watch your Christmas movies. And I think just the way that Will and I are with screen time in our family, is that we don't have a lot of screens just going on in the background. We're really intentional about our screen time.
So I like to schedule in family movie nights, and we do a lot more family movie nights than any other time in the year, the month of December because we want to get all these movies in. So the kids Christmas movies that we love is The Star, highly recommend The Star. The Grinch, which is the newest one, the animated one, as well as the old original cartoon. I never have really gotten into the Jim Carrey Grinch, I should give it another try, but those are my two favorites. Olaf's Frozen Adventure is just a little short film. And The Muppet Christmas Carol, which I love the Muppet's Christmas Carol. But I definitely recommend fast forwarding through the final scene, because it's creepy. Ghost of Christmas future is, I don't even like to watch that. So we fast forward through that for the kids especially too, because ours are still little. But those are our favorite Christmas movies. And it's so fun to plan nights for them.
Now I also recommend that you put in some date nights after the kids go to bed. Not family movie nights, but other Christmas movies that you love to watch as a couple. Our favorites, well yeah, I'll say our favorites first and then one of them is just my favorite.
We love The Elf. We love Four Christmases. It is just insanity, Will and I laugh through Four Christmases every Christmas because both of us have divorced parents. And so it just gives a good sense of humor through it. The Christmas Story—A Christmas Story? The Christmas Story?—you know what I'm talking about, “You'll shoot your eye out.” The Santa Claus, Home Alone and my personal favorite, The Holiday. I love The Holiday, it's so good. Will will watch that with me. I'm also totally fine watching that movie all by myself, if I get a night to myself. It is one of my favorites. Highly recommended it if you have not seen it. All right.
So scheduling in family Christmas movie nights and couples Christmas movie nights, definitely recommend that, super fun.
Christmas lights
So the next Christmas tradition that we always like to plan for and make time for is driving around looking at Christmas lights with jammies and hot chocolate. So everybody has to get in their jammies first. We make hot chocolate, and we just drive around and look at lights. And it's magical.
We have a great neighborhood that has these crazy high-tech houses that sync the lights to the music on your radio. And it is just such a fun experience. We play Christmas music the whole time, and we just laugh and have fun. We totally throw out bedtime, like it's fine, whatever. We have a great time doing that. And usually we save that for anywhere between December 20th and December 24th.
Christmas baking & treats
Another couple little things that we love to schedule in, and I especially love to do this with the kids usually on a day where Will is at work, because we can just make a mess and have fun in the kitchen and then we'll have dessert ready that night is making huge batches of Christmas cookies and treats. We like to do sugar cookies with icing. We do peanut butter and Ritz Crackers Sandwiches dipped in white chocolate. Pretzels drizzled in white chocolate and Christmas colored sprinkles.
Peanut butter cookies. This is the best. If you've never done this, get a bag of peanut butter cookie mix. And instead of making them as cookies, put them in mini muffin tins, and then pull them out just before they're done so they're still squishy, and stick little Hershey Kisses in them. Pop them back in the oven for one minute, you are going to thank me for that later.
Literally our favorite Christmas treat, but we just make them in large batches so we can give them to teachers as gifts. We put them in containers so we just enjoy them the whole month of December. And I love doing that with the kids.
These last two events that I'm going to tell you about that we always schedule into our calendar, we aren't going to be able to do this year because of COVID and it makes me so sad.
Choir concerts
But the first one is Duke University has a beautiful choir. And every first week of December, they have a beautiful concert where they're Chorale sings all of these Christmas songs. And every year we go and it is beautiful. We go with a dear family friends of ours. We get all the kids together, and we just sing and we enjoy singing together. And unfortunately, I think it's going to be canceled this year.
Christmas caroling
The second one that we love to do is singing Christmas carols at a nursing home with friends and family. And obviously we can't do that this year, but it has been such a highlight for us in years past to gather together. We usually eat soup and we choose the songs we're going to sing. And then we just show up and sing beautiful carols and songs at a nursing home.
We've even done it in our neighborhood before, and just surprised our neighbors with Christmas caroling. Have fun. Who says we can't do that in 2020? It feels like ye old tradition from Great Britain, and you can't do that. But no, you can get out and you can sing Christmas carols to your neighbors. Wouldn't that be amazing? And so now that I'm thinking about it, I'm wondering if there is a way that I can still do that this year. Not at a nursing home, but maybe some version of Christmas caroling that would be really fun.
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Christmas Eve
Okay, let's talk about Christmas Eve. I don't know, Christmas Eve to me might be even more magical than Christmas day. It's all the anticipation, and all of the buildup and the magic that you've been anticipating all month long. And then you're here and you're like, "Tomorrow is Christmas."
There's something about Christmas Eve that's just so special. Now when I was growing up, Christmas Eve was pretty much a family day. I have memories of me being in the kitchen with my mom, helping make dinner. Just hanging around the house, and then we would always go to church on Christmas Eve. Usually we'd go to the early service at church and then we'd come home and eat this grand dinner that my mom made. I mean she always made such a big feast. We would laugh so hard because she would always make Cornish hens. If you don't know what a Cornish hen is, it's basically these miniature little turkeys, and each person would get one. And we just thought they were the funniest things, but she would make all the best southern casseroles that you can imagine.
At the end of dinner, we would get a surprise phone call from Santa, which I know that's crazy and hilarious. But as a kid, let me just tell you it was magical. It was magical. We got a phone call from Santa. Just in case there's children around, I'm not even going to tell you how that worked, but it was beautiful. Afterwards was actually my favorite part though.
After dinner, after we put everything away, after the phone call with Santa, after church, my family would gather together in our living room. And this hands down is my favorite tradition of all of them. We would get our nativity out. My mom would open up a book. My dad would have a flashlight, and we would act out the nativity story.
She would read the story book that just explained the events that happened the night of Christmas. And when Mary and Joseph went into Bethlehem. And so basically as she would say these things, the Wise Men came we would take the little Wise Men figurines, and we would walk them up to the nativity. And so we would start with a totally empty nativity barn, and we would bring out the characters and act them out as she read the story. And my dad always had the flashlight and he would hold the flashlight, and be the star of Bethlehem.
And a few Christmases when my brother was young, a Batman figurine would make an appearance in the story, and different army men would be crawling on the house. And we just got such a kick out of it as kids, we thought it was so fun and so funny. And I really just love how interactive it is, and it's just a simple, fun way to experience the Christmas story and recenter your heart on something you can do as a family. And also recenter your heart on what actually happened, what made Christmas so special. So this is the thing that is totally free and it's creative, and it's fun. And I just highly recommend trying it, especially with little kids. But we did it all the way through when I was in high school. We still loved it, where you acted ... you just act out the story.
And then after that, my mom always brought out this big five-day coconut cake that she would make. And we would all sing happy birthday to Jesus and light candles, and blow them out. And then we would all have coconut cake. And then we would go to bed on Christmas Eve. I love that.
Now when Will was growing up, on Christmas Eve, he and his family would always go to church on Christmas Eve as well. And then they would open up their home. I love this.
They'd open up their home and have all of their dear friends and family come to their house, and bring potluck style, different hors d'oeuvre or food. And everyone would just enjoy time together on Christmas Eve, and hang out. And then we'd all say goodbye, and I was even part of this. I went several Christmas Eve to his house when we were dating and engaged, and even newly married. And then everyone just go home to their houses. And the idea behind that was just gathering with your real loved ones, your close friends, your community on Christmas Eve.
Oftentimes we would sing songs. We would just laugh and hang out together is really, really sweet. So now that Will and I have our own three kids, we're picking and choosing different elements of our Christmases, and bringing them together. And it's been really special, and I'm sure this will change through the years as our kids get older.
But right now, Christmas Eve is still pretty much a family day for us. We just like to get together, work on Christmas treats or work on dinner prep. And even breakfast prep for the next day. Definitely still going to church. That's something that we love to do as a family on Christmas Eve.
And instead of a big feast like my mom did, and instead of having a lot of other people come to our house like Will had growing up, we've settled on us just having a little bit of a simpler dinner, where we will have heavy hors d'oeuvre, or a “snack dinner” as my kids like to call it. Maybe a charcuterie cheese board, our favorite dips, maybe some meatballs, veggie tray. Something that is really a crowd pleaser and something that's easy on me that I can do ahead of time. And it feels simple and right for this season that we're in, which I really love.
Christmas Day
Okay. Let's talk about Christmas day. I love Christmas day. So excited to talk about this.
Now when Will was growing up—I love this so much—the first thing that they all did was jump in the bed with their mom and dad, and just snuggle and laugh together as a family. So sweet. And then after a little bit, they would all come downstairs, and they have their tree and presents downstairs. And they had some presents set out from Santa, some wrapped from family members and they would all be very intentional about taking turns and opening gifts one at a time. And then opening stockings, I think they did that all together.
Now when I was growing up on Christmas morning, my brother, my sister and I would all walk down the hall and make sure mom and dad were awake. And we would always have to sit at the top of our stairs before we could go downstairs, to make sure that mom and dad were ready. They'd have their coffee. They had their giant camcorder sitting on their shoulder to video the day buzz. And that always was excruciating, waiting for them.
But the part of the tradition that I love is my mom would always make us sing happy birthday to Jesus before coming downstairs, as a reminder to ingrain in us that this is Jesus' birthday. And so we would sing happy birthday to Jesus, and we would run down the stairs and open all of our presents.
I don't necessarily remember there being any rhyme or reason to the presents. We'd be really excited. I do think that maybe we took turns, but anyway the big deal for us on Christmas morning was after we opened our presents there was a huge scavenger hunt. My dad is the king of scavenger hunt. Let me just tell you, it's like a gift of his. I wish that I had this gift. He can think of riddles and rhymes and things to do, and it would last like an hour or two. And they did this one time when I was really little, and I think my dad just loved it so much. They just kept doing it.
So now this is like a big Christmas day tradition. There is always one big present waiting for us at the end of the scavenger hunt. And again, I kid you not, the presents were awesome. Loved the presents, loved the big presents at the end. They were always so amazing.
But what I love about most was just the silly things that we did as a family, and the way that we had to problem solve together. And the way that we would cut up. And he would say, "Skip backwards while singing jingle bells, until you reach the mailbox." And it would be outside or inside. I remember one year our being present at the end was a trampoline, and they had us go all outside and do this huge scavenger hunt outside, and then come back inside. And part of the things that he made us do were to crawl around on our hands and knees, because they didn't want us looking out the window because they had some friends over to set it up for us so that we could go back outside and jump on it. I mean, they went all in and they were trying to trick us so that we wouldn't see it. It was just amazing.
So I love the Christmas morning scavenger hunt idea. I don't know that I have that gift, but maybe, maybe it'll come to me or maybe I'll try it one year. But it's just so fun because of the memories that it created. Christmas afternoon, I mean it's just pretty low key. Christmas family time playing with your presents, hanging out, eating leftovers, being together.
One thing I do love and always remember is gathering around the piano, and my mom would play and we would sing some songs. And I do want to make this big point. Okay. If you get nothing out of this, you're going to be so glad I told you this. My mom had a CD that she played every Christmas morning, and it's called a Midnight Clear by John Nielsen. I'm going to leave a link for it in the show notes. It's on Spotify now, but it is so lovely.
It's just piano, and it's the only day of the year that we play this music. And so every time it comes on, it just feels like Christmas. And it's the background music to Christmas day. I mean, we just put it on repeat and it's so lovely and so beautiful. It's a lot of hymns and old, beautiful Christmas music just played on a piano. So it's called a Midnight Clear by John Nielsen. You need to adopt this. If adapt nothing else from this episode, just play this music. Some throughout the month of December, but I highly encourage you just to play it as background music on Christmas morning. It's just so lovely.
Okay. So now what do we do? What do Will and I do? What are our traditions? Well, we can't really snuggle in the bed altogether because our kids are upstairs and our master bedroom is downstairs. So if they came down the stairs to snuggle in our bed, they would just see all the presents and not even want to snuggle.
So sadly, we had to let that one go, but we do make them sing happy birthday to Jesus at the top of the stairs before they come down. And we take turns opening presents. I love that. I love how we can really savor our Christmas morning, and his family taught me that—just to take turns opening presents. And then usually we have family join us in the afternoon to continue open presents, and we'll do something easy like leftovers, leftover hors d'oeuvre, snacks, or maybe even a few Christmases we've ordered Chinese takeout for just an easy dinner. And we just enjoy each other. I mean the place is a mess. We've opened all our presents. It's just so fun to be together.
After Christmas
So we plan, usually we take the week after Christmas off, and we just plan time to just have margin in our lives to do what we feel like and to spend time with family.
And usually I don't worry about cleaning out or cleaning up any decorations until December 30th, because my birthday is December 31st. I love a fresh new house on my birthday on December 31st and on January 1st. It's just so nice to have all the Christmas decorations put away in my mind for some reason, I love that.
So I hope that you loved just walking through our Christmas traditions.
Now one thing, one food for thought I just want to leave with you is this year, there's so many special things that we can do. But I'm really asking myself:
What are the most important things that I want to do?
What are the most important traditions I want to make sure that happen?
And then if we get to these other traditions, that's fine, but it's not as big of a deal.
I know that I want to make that Christmas Eve tradition happen, where we all act out the nativity. That's a non-negotiable for me.
I know that we're going to go to church on Christmas Eve and worship the Lord. I know those things are going to happen. So I just encourage you to do the same. Don't feel any kind of pressure after listening to this episode to do more. If anything, it should just clarify the things that you really want to make your own. But I'm really grateful that you took the time to listen to our family and our stories.
Work & Play Cornerstore
Now, it's time for the Work and Play Cornerstore, which is where I share a book I'm loving and a thing I'm loving. I'll get a small commission for anything bought through these links, which help me to continue to bring this podcast to you every week. But the price is normal for you, so it's a win-win.
Today, it is Christmas themed and I'm going to be adding the book, The Song of The Stars, as well as The Giving Manger, which I mentioned earlier to the Cornerstore.
So first let's talk about the book. The Song of The Stars is written by Sally Lloyd-Jones. If you have The Jesus Storybook Bible, you already know what an amazing writer she is. This is my new favorite children's Christmas book. I think if we wrap all the books and number them, this one will be the one on Christmas Eve. First time I read it, I cried my eyes off. It's just beautiful. And the second and third times I read it, honestly. If you don't have it, just go ahead, click that link, order it, do yourself a favor. It is such a beautiful picture of creation waiting for your creator to come. And I love it.
So next is The Giving Manger, as I mentioned. I think as parents, it's just really important to instill and teach, and model the joy of generosity to our children. And The Giving Manger is a way to do that. At Christmas time as a whole family, I mean it's a topic of every single day. And like I said, last year was our first year implementing it. And now I'm just so thrilled to do it every year. Milly who was four last year when we did it was thrilled to make her sister's bed, which at the time it was a crib. So you can't really even make the crib, but she was so excited. And then she also wanted to make the neighbor's beds, which was such a sweet sentiment, but also so awkward.
So I suggested baking them cookies instead. But the point is that she was throughout the month of December others focused, which is hard to do with a four-year old. And I just love supporting small businesses. I love the heart behind this business and their mission, and the way that it's already changed our family around Christmas. So I highly recommend them.
Thanks for listening to Episode 090 of Work and Play with Nancy Ray (can you believe it's episode 90? I can't. That's crazy.).
I'm going to close with some of my favorite words from Song of The Stars:
“The animals stood around his bed, and the whole earth and all the stars and sky held its breath. The one who made us has come to live with us.”
My prayer for you this Christmas season is that you would be wrapped with the wonder of Emmanuel, God with us. And that as you embrace your own family's traditions, whatever that might look like, that you would keep your eyes wide open to God's goodness and presence around you.
Yes, even in 2020.
Merry Christmas, friend.
