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Growing up, Christmas was always so incredible. The family, the food, the thoughtful gifts. I looked forward to it every year!

Somewhere along the way, perhaps during college or even high school, Christmas lost some of its magic. We had never really believed in Santa as kids, I never grew up with a Christmas tree. Some people gape at the loss of those things, but it was all the same to me. Christmas still held those great traditions.

Now that I have kids, I am even more excited to start traditions in our household. So, here we are hashing out how we want things. My husband had a little input, but these are mostly my ideas. We will refine them later, though we might just use this year as a trial run.

How We Are (Hoping) To do Christmas this year

• Rakuten cash back
• Number of Gifts
• Exciting and Simple
• Readings
• Decorating
• Food
• Stockings

Let me explain these concepts here.

Rakuten

I just joined Rakuten a couple of month ago because I was super excited about the ways I could earn cash (and not just gift cards) back!

We are saving up money to build and house, and my blog business could always use a few extra dollars of income here and there, so it seemed like a good idea. 

Shop with my referral link on Rakuten here!

If you spend $30 on a purchase, we both get $30 back, pretty awesome, and a no-brainer when purchasing online Christmas gifts (which so many of us are going to do this year!)

Number of Gifts

I hate that the holidays can make anyone stressed out just thinking about buying gifts for people. This year I am hoping to focus on small businesses and brick and mortar stores (or go the homemade route if time allows). There will be a few things I purchase at mega-stores though, for ease of accessibility.

We are keeping it small and gifting no more than 3 gifts for each person, plus one family gift. There are many guidelines on what to get within those three choices. I think we decided on something to learn, something to play, and either something to wear or something to do.

This way it’s simple, the kids don’t get too used to getting a large number of gifts (from us at least) and we get to focus on each other.

Gift Ideas

I love these kinds of gift ideas:

• Pampering products
• Something that person is not willing to buy themselves, but really wants or really could use
• Homemade gifts
• Creative gifts (like coupons for spending time together)
• Clothing that the person will actually wear
• Educational gifts, especially for kids
• Collectible items

Gift ideas I’m not so keen on:

• Trinkets
• Shoes (mostly because I have a pretty particular taste in shoes)
• Decorative items (I’m picky about these, too)
• Gift cards, unless this person loves this place and you have no idea what else to get them
• Useless little gadgets I will probably never use.

A Simple and Exciting Christmas

If I want to go all out, I certainly might have the capacity to do so. However, knowing how I am about those kinds of situations, I chose to keep things simple.

I think of it this way: the fewer gifts, the less I have to compare how much I spent on each kid (we have a 3 and 2 and 1-year-old, not that they will care, yet), the less I have to scramble finding the perfect gift for them.

Kids get excited if you are excited. I am so pumped to introduce the kids to the rest of the traditions we are looking to implement.

Readings

Since we are a Catholic Christian family, keeping Christ in Christmas is quite important to us. We love Mass on Christmas Eve, setting up numerous nativity sets in our house, and talking about Jesus.

So, this year, I think we will make sure we read some children Christmas books. Growing up, my dad was always really good about reading the Christmas story every year. Super cool.

Maybe we will try that as well.

Decorating

I already mentioned putting up Nativity sets, of course. But I like using a small tree (to keep it out of little hands’ reach), even though I never had one. It’s so fun to have lights in your house, on wreaths, outside, or wherever.

I am going to do my best to put up as many toddler-proof lights as I can. Up high, for sure.

And there will be Nativities, and wreaths, and Christmas music. Let’s make this one jolly, folks!

[bctt tweet=”Let’s make this Christmas jolly with good cheer, charity, and lots of lights!” username=”GTastove”]

Food

Some of my favorites for the holidays include: 

• Cinnamon rolls
• Cheese balls
• Dips of almost any kind
• Cheesy potatoes
• Green bean casseroles
• Cracker and cheese platters
• Brisket
• Cheesecake

Just thinking about these foods gets my mouth watering! The key is to keep the holidays balanced, so there will be plenty of fruits and vegetables thrown in there, too.

Food will definitely be part of a great tradition!

Stockings

Another cool idea that I didn’t really grow up with. We finally have enough stockings for everyone, and I think I will be gifting my kids each one small thing, and maybe a few pieces of candy, an orange, and an apple.

The only problem is we don’t really have a place to hang our stockings, so the TV stand might have to do. Or the windows, since they have a cool little flip lock that sticks out and could make a great stocking holder.

How fun. Maybe we will open our stockings on Christmas Eve and do our gifts on Christmas Day!

Christmas Traditions

As you can see, not all of these things are set in stone. I don’t think they have to be yet. There should be a few years of trial and error first, especially with young kids. Things will change in a few years when they are older, anyway.

I am hoping to take some of the traditions that my husband grew up with, and some of mine, and create a new tradition just for our family.

It will be super special, and it will always be celebrating the Savior that came down to save us from ourselves.

Thank you, Jesus, for making the ultimate sacrifice. Because of this, we are able to celebrate you 2000+ years later!

Have a good time preparing for Christmas, keep it real, and keep it close to home!

What are your favorite holiday traditions? 

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