Christmas traditions

I love Christmas. I love planning for Christmas and I love the run up and all the activities.  I love getting the children involved and sharing their excitement.

Christmas is rich with memories for me, good ones, fun ones, family ones. It was an exciting time and full of magic.

I wish for the same for my children.

So I have been deliberate this year about activities for the kids and in choosing ones that we can ritulaise and continue year after year.  Traditions are important and repeated ones are really what we remember, whether we love them or hate them.

So here are the deliberate Christmas traditions I have begun embedding for the kids.

The kiddies make their own advent calendar with tinfoil and goodies
They write to Santa and send the letter themselves
We make a gingerbread house
We have an elf, namely the "elf on the shelf" for those of you who know him. We hide him daily and he is called Uddle.
The girls receive a new dress for Christmas day, pretty and colourful
We listen to Christmas carols whenever we can
The kids chose the Christmas tree and we decorate it together

So that is our list, nothing fancy, but things we can do year in year out.

So what do you do? How long have you been doing it? What is natural, what do you intentionally? Do you think traditions matter or is this too structured for this magical season?

Do tell.......