The Holidays

Halloween has passed and it is officially the holiday season; time to start gift shopping and planning family gatherings. Every year I seem to fall behind in purchasing holiday gifts. So I thought that if I dedicate some time here to finding and posting some items I feel could be great gifts to give it would help me be inspired to start my holiday shopping too. I thought a fun way to kick that off would be to start with a top five of the traditions I love the most during the holidays.

1. Hanging our stockings
My mom hand stitched each of our stockings, and when Ryno and I got married my mom, my sister and I all worked on hand-sewing his out of an extra pattern my mom had saved from the 70's. It is a perfect match even though it was made decades later!

Source: fauxto_digit

2. Game nights
Every year we choose a holiday puzzle and allow it to consume the kitchen table until it is finished, whether that be a few nights or a full week. Everyone sips hot chocolate and scours the table for the perfect puzzle piece.

Source: Mikyl Roventine

3. Merry Cajun Christmas Album

When we were younger we lived in Louisiana for a couple years, and while we were there my dad got a hold of a record and book combo called Merry Cajun Christmas. Every year he still plays the record, and I find myself flipping through the book too. It is a subtle, but great holiday tradition of ours.

Source: Infrogmation

4. Topping the Christmas Tree
We have a vintage, Italian Christmas tree topper that we put on our tree every year. It is a beautiful glass Santa topper that goes on after all the ornaments have been placed on our tree. Early in our childhood my sister and I had to develop a system of trading off each year putting the topper on the tree, because it had become such a dispute. To this day we still take turns.

Source: Mikyl Roventine

5. Santa comes
When we were little my parents went all out during Christmas. One of the things I loved the most was that there were always ash footprints leading from the fireplace to the tree. I loved to check for them when I was little. I would place my feet next to the prints and imagine Santa being there. I never caught on they were the same size as my dad's shoes until much later.  PS- it was a close call between this and the neighborhood light competition, so I thought I would throw in some Christmas lights.

Source: Sneakerdog

Although I already listed my top five traditions with my family, I don't want to leave out Christmas with Ryno's family. This will be our second Christmas with his family, but what I loved about our first one was the one night his entire extended family gets together at his grandfather's home and exchanges gifts. I love how big and warm his family is, and it is great to all spend the evening together eating and laughing.