Sandra of Diary of a SAHM is hosting "Holiday Traditions." From her blog: "Do you and your family have a special tradition every Christmas Morning, or maybe it's a special dinner for Thanksgiving??? Do you all go out on a certain day to get a Christmas Tree??? Is there a special ornament or fun way your family decorates for the holidays??? How about different Heritages, how are the holidays celebrated all over the world???"
I meant to join in and post, and I'm finally getting around to it!
These aren't traditions from my childhood, but rather traditions since Joe and I were married.
Believe it or not, I had never heard of luminarias until I moved to New Mexico. Really. I went all these years without knowing what one was, much less ever hearing the word before!
So, I move to this town and when it was nearing Christmas I kept hearing all this talk about luminarias and I had to ask what they were. I was told, "oh you have to go see them on Christmas Eve! Drive through town and you'll see them all displayed along the roads and houses and yards, it's quite the site to see." We did this and I was hooked! So now we go to the Candlelight Service on base and follow that with a drive to Tularosa to view all the luminarias.
Of course we also take a couple nights where we drive around base looking at all the lights and decorations, and another night where we go into town and see the decorations and lights.
Another tradition Joe and I have is we give each other an ornament each year. Now we've got Kayla, so we buy ornaments for each other and for Kayla. It's fun to see what ornament Joe picked out for me from him, and from Kayla. Maybe this year she'll help to pick out the ornament! We've got quite the collection growing too!
Wednesday, November 01, 2006
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23 comments:
I love Christmas lights! I like the idea of buying an ornament for each other, how lovely :o)
Your little girl is just adorable.
Blessings.
I had to click to see what they were too. So pretty!
I like the exchange ornaments each year idea!
Our neighborhood does luminarias every Christmas Eve too. I love how you exchange ornaments amongst yourselves, that is really special! :)
That ornament tradition is so beautiful - I love it!
I think luminarias work best in warmer climates, probably - although I imagine that they'd be pretty magical in snow, too.
Your tradition are really nice.We like to look at the lights with the kids also. I remember going to Philly and driving around with my family to see all the lights and display people did.
My mom has the tradition of giving my kids ornaments.We have the tradition of making ones with the kids. It's a fun activity for the family to do together.
I love luminarias too! There's a park not too far from our house where there is an enormous display.
I think I saw Martha Stewart do something similar to luminarias by using snow to make "candle-holders" I guess that might work for climates with colder weather and snow. (not so much here)
Those are lovely traditions. We gave our girls an ornament each year and then when they moved out into homes of their own, they took them with them. It was fun to see the collection grow.
So heart-warming. Thank you for sharing! I love Christmastime & EVERYthing the season brings.
If I haven't mentioned it yet, I LOVE the new layout! Its perfect!
Those are cool! I had no idea what they were called.
I didn't know what lumenaries were until we moved to WV, which is odd I know. Everyone did them there and made their own. It was so nice. I did it here our first year, but no one seemed to know what they were which is weird being in Texas and all.
We do the ornament thing too. Jacob cannot wait to see what we choose for him each year.
We use to go out on Christmas eve as kids (we are Jewish) and look at all the lights.
I bet the luminarias are beautiful.
HUGS!
We don't have children together, but our tradition is that one Christmas we go to the family ranch and one Christmas we travel to California. It is nice to spend time with the family. We never see them enough so the time that we do is precious.
Take care,
Becca
We try to make Christmas (all holidays for that matter) as special as possible-so I am the crazy lady on the block with 3,000 feet of christmas lights and such...every room in the house decorated.....activities planned every day of the month,especially going to see all of the local Christmas lights displays.Of course that is what we do with our kids....my grandmother has me read the story of Jesus' birth every year verbatum out loud every year and my brother does the blessing over the food.
BTW Love the halloween pix-somehow I missed the blogs.Kendall has that costume too,although,she was Shrek this year-She loves Shrek!
Love your traditions Michelle, the idea of buying an ornament for each other is just wonderful, what a great idea :)
I had never heard of luminarias either, thanks for posting the link :)
Hugs,
Sandra
I had never heard of luminarias either but they are very pretty. I love traditions - they are such an important part of our lives - that is why I still shudder when I remember our first Christmas with the twins - in hospital! I like to buy a special ornament each year too - there are so many beautiful ones around. Midnight mass will have to shift to Christmas morning now I guess so new traditions will be started as well as old ones maintained.
The luminarias are just a lovely idea.
Your little kayla is just a doll baby! So cute!
Sherry
We buy a Hallmark ornament every year...after this year we'll have 14 total. We always put them on first, going in the order we bought them. Our first one is a pair of raccoons decorating the tree and says, "Our First Christmas." This year we bought Linus holding his blanket. Jack adores his 'black.' (That's what he calls his blanket.)
I love Kayla's Halloween pictures! The only thing Jack wanted was his sucker too!
:)
I love to drive around and see all the lights and decorations. I live near Wheeling W.Va. which is the City of Lights. They have a display at Olgeby Park that is gorgeous. They have bus tours go through it..and downtown Wheeling is always decorated so pretty!
I never knew what luminarias were until just a couple of years ago...unfortunately it's not something that has caught on here yet, at least not where I live. Maybe I should start the tradition??? hehe I love Christmas lights, the whole world seems so much brighter when all the houses are lit up with them! My mom has always bought an ornament for the boys since they were born...when they moved out I gave them to them and now they decorate their own tree with them! The problem is, now my tree is bare so I have to buy my own decorations! lol
I'm just popping in to say thank you for linking up again :)
Can't wait for others to come and read your awesome traditions, I love the Luminarias :)
Hugs,
Sandra
We do Christmas lights the weekend before after church service....we always get hot chocolte from the mini mart and have a ball......this year we have a lil one to get to see the beautiful lights to....by the way your daughter has the most prettiest eyes I have ever seen.....Big Blueberry Eyes indeed.....God Bless her.
What a wonderful tradition you have started. We do the ornament for each child each year. Timoni is 26 now and when she marries I will package them all up and present them as a wedding gift. After four children marry we realized our tree will be pretty empty so we started buying some for just us a few years back and then we have some we have recieved as gifts over the years. Thanks for sharing your traditions!
I'm enjoying reading everyone's traditions too. Thanks for stopping by.
I love driving around looking at lights and the luminarias sound beautiful. Great idea on the ornaments!
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