My favorite Christmas traditions

Growing up, both my hubby and I both had quite a few Christmas traditions. And since marrying over nine years ago (so hard to believe!) we’ve really created and carried along the traditions we find most dear and special. Out of all of the traditions, I have three favorites.

1. Christmas Jammies

This is a fairly new tradition and not something either my hubby or me did growing up. It’s something I wanted to start for my little family, and is extra special this year with the arrival of our baby girl. And ok, this tradition is probably mostly for me. I get that. I mean, how cute are these kiddos?! And even though my hubby might have bah-humbugged the idea at first, he gets into to it too and secretly thinks his jammies are super comfortable. 🙂

This year we bought our jammies from Hanna Anderson (#hannajams). They always have so many fun styles and I couldn’t pass up the Star Wars jammies. Our son has been super into Star Wars (even without seeing the movies!) and it made me so happy that he loved them. And luckily, their style is still cute on all of us. Some day I’ll have to choose jammies based on our baby girl’s preferences too.

Some families don’t open their jammies until Christmas eve, but my favorite part of Christmas is the spirit throughout all the days leading up. And it already feels like the season goes by too fast. So I like giving out the jammies the first week in December. Plus it feels way better spending the money when you know your kids can wear them all season long.

I didn’t wrap the jammies this year. But maybe that’s something I’ll do in the future to make it feel that more special. I just look forward to seeing their eyes light up each year as we continue this tradition.

2.  Monkeybread

My mother-in-law began this tradition for my hubby and his sisters when they grew up. And one year for Christmas, she gave us the sweetest book of family recipes, including the monkeybread recipe.

We make monkeybread on other occasions during the year, but there’s something very special about waking up to the smell on Christmas morning. The monkey bread is prepared on Christmas eve, and rises up to its deliciousness overnight.

It’s so good with coffee or tea and we kind of just pick at it all day as we open gifts and celebrate. So yummy!

3. Family Ornaments

My absolute favorite tradition is our annual family ‘pick an ornament & eat somewhere’ date. It’s a tradition my hubby and I started several years ago and used to do in the city (SF). Now we choose different places each year. And this year, we chose the West End Nursery Christmas House in San Rafael.

This was the first time with two littles and it was eerrr….fun?? No, it was…really. But it’s just funny how we had gotten to a place with our toddler Braden where we could get out the door pretty quickly. But now with a new baby in the mix, we’re suddenly back where we started. We are always running late even when we plan way ahead. Like no joke, we literally said ‘let’s get ready to go’ at 8:30am and we were in the car at 11:06am. That puts everyone in the best mood (insert sarcasm here). After taking several deep breaths, we were off and thank goodness the nursery was close. And when we arrived, we were pleasantly surprised at the ease of parking and the manageable crowd.

The nursery is family owned and has been around for over a century. And the nursery’s Christmas House was spectacular! It’s setup within a beautiful Victorian style house that’s also over 100 years old. It has over 50 festively decorated trees that each have their own theme like Beach, Wedding, Baby, Retro, etc.

And the trees are scattered around the house along with all kinds of other decor for sale (wreaths, nativity sets, nutcrackers, angels, candles, etc.).

Even though our day had a rocky start, we were all feeling much more festive and fun once we walked in.

Braden was mostly focused on the train, a snowflake light projector, running down a ramp, and wondering where the popcorn smell was coming from. But he eventually got excited about our ornament tradition when we found a ‘Space’ themed tree that had Star Wars ornaments.

Here are the ornaments we chose this year:

Braden

Ellie (first Christmas for our baby girl)

And one for us

I love our traditions and hope that our children think fondly of them as they grow up. Even if they don’t always go as planned, I treasure each and every one of these family moments together.

I would love to know what holiday traditions you have. Please share!

Thanks for reading friends!! And for those who celebrate, a very Merry Christmas to you and yours!!! Love the Six Family.