We’re moving along pretty quickly here – one more give-away, and we’re half-way through this year’s series.
As Kermit the Frog would say, time’s fun when you’re having flies!
Today’s Stitcher’s Christmas features miniature stocking ornaments – finished and unfinished. I’ll explain below, but first, I’ll announce the lucky duck who gets to select a five-skein collection from Colour Complements!
Monday’s installment of Stitcher’s Christmas was a you-pick thread selection of five skeins, courtesy of Colour Complements.
If you love overdyed threads, you should add Lorraine to your list of thread suppliers and visit her site regularly to see her new colorways. You can sign up for notifications on the website, and you can also stop in at the Colour Complements blog, which features lots of gorgeous projects worked with Lorraine’s hand-dyed threads. If you’re looking for inspiration, it’s a great place to see color – and lots of it – at work! You can also follow Lorraine on Instagram and on Facebook.
Who gets to select their own favorite colors in five skeins of thread from Colour Complements? Why, that would be Cornelia, whose answer cracked me up. “Like Yukon Cornelius, I’m all about silver and gold.” Yay! I’ll drop you an email this morning – please keep an eye out for it and respond as soon as you can. Thanks!
Today’s Stitcher’s Christmas goes to one lucky person somewhere, and it involves a three-part parcel.
First, you’ll receive your very own Mini Sampler Stocking kit, which contains everything you need to create your own mini sampler stocking ornaments.
These kits have been really popular, and the resulting ornaments are really cute and functional little stockings that you can slip tiny gifts into. You could fold up some cash, write a little note, maybe slide in a pair of earrings or other jewelry for your mom, perhaps a new pair of embroidery scissors for a stitching buddy – lots of possibilities!
The kit will come with the Mini Sampler Stockings instructions already printed and spiral bound for you (instead of the e-book).
I have a few of these printed instructional books available, spiral bound with a clear plastic cover, and I’ll slip one in with the winner’s kit.
And just so you won’t have to wait until you finish your own stockings to have one to hang on your tree, I’ll also include in your package one of the finished samples made when I first prepared this project. It’ll be your own ornament straight from my house to yours, for your tree or for gift-giving.
The Give-Away Question & Guidelines
This give-away has ended. Thanks to all who participated!
If you would like to be included in today’s give-away, please answer the question posed below in guideline #6 and please follow the rest of the guidelines, too.
1. Leave a comment on this article, on Needle ‘n Thread. You can reach the comment form for this article by following this link. Your comment must be left on the website. Comments received via email are not eligible.
2. Please do not use the “reply” feature in the comment area to reply to someone else’s comment. Replies in the comments are not counted in the drawing.
3. Please leave a recognizable name in the “Name” line on your comment. If your name is Mary, for example, you might qualify it with a last initial or a nickname, so that, when the winner is announced, you recognize your name, and other people with the same first name aren’t confused when the winners are announced.
4. Please make certain your email address is entered on the comment form in the “email” line only. Do not include personal information like mailing addresses, phone numbers, or email addresses in the large comment box! Leaving public information on any website is a good way to end up with a lot of spam.
5. Please leave the website line on the comment form blank.
6. In your comment, please answer the following:
What’s your favorite holiday tradition?
7. This give-away ends on Friday, December 10, 2021, at 5:00 am Central Time. The winner will be randomly drawn that morning and announced in the give-away for that day. The winners will also receive a notification via email. If your name is drawn for the give-away, you’ll need to reply to my email within three days (72 hrs). If I don’t hear from you within that time frame, I’ll draw for another name.
The give-away is open to anyone, anywhere. The gifts will be shipped from the business offering them. Needle ‘n Thread is not responsible for lost or damaged packages. Winners should be aware that shipping may be delayed, and that there’s no guaranteed arrival time frame. Some prizes in this series will probably not arrive before the end of the year.
When you leave your comment on the website, it may not appear right away. Never fear! It will show up eventually!
Hi, Mary,
My favorite holiday tradition is the listening to the Service of Nine Lessons and Carols on the BBC, and attending that service when there isn’t a pandemic.
Beth B in Charlottesville, VA
My favorite holiday tradition? Why, of course, making a new fiber arts project for the holidays. Last year I made crocheted holiday bells embellished with ribbon and holly. This year I am making a chicken-scratch/gingham embroidery table topper using a green check fabric and red and white patterns. I’ve done felt ornaments, crocheted snowflakes, cross stitch angles, stockings, woven runners, everything! Thank you so much for your blog, your articles have been a life saver this past year.
My favorite holiday tradition is Christmas Eve at our house. We have lasagna for dinner – because everyone likes it! Then we each open a new book and have some chocolate and reading time.
More pretties to drool over…this is fun Mary, thank you!
To answer the question of the day…my favourite thing/tradition about Christmas is putting out our white porcelain Nativity set I got when I was selling Avon years ago. That set, to me, says ‘Christmas’.
My favorite holiday tradition is to have the entire family over on Christmas Eve for a German celebration. We have a large buffet (cold) and afterwards open the gifts. That way everybody gets to sleep in. Of course, the kids still get a gift from Santa the next day.
Favorite family holiday tradition: piling into the car on a chosen evening with homemade cookies, travel cups of hot chocolate, and Christmas music on the radio to view holiday light displays in a couple of the surrounding city neighborhoods.
My new favorite tradition is entering in your Stitcher’s Christmas give-away! Thanks for these and for all you do, Mary! Happy Holidays!
I think even more than my beloved Advent calendar and candle, my favorite thing is the music. Our local orchestra and chamber chorale usually put on an event, and I love going to that and to whatever Nutcracker I can get — often a local one with kids I know, but this year a broadcast of a Bolshoi performance. And as much singing as possible. 🙂
Christmas Eve Candlelight Service. Such a beautiful picture of the real meaning of Christmas
It has become a new tradition. All the grandkids decorate there own gingerbread house, afterward we go to see the winter lights at the zoo and then dinner. It is an event filled day but such fun.
Florentines……which I have made year after year; they make lovely gifts too and my children’s children expect them each year now
Great projects, many thanks for your generosity. With thanks and seasons greeting to all
What’s your favorite holiday tradition?
Would have to be the advent calendar. This year we added one for my dog and my on loves seeing what the dog is getting, and what chocolate is in his after school.
My favorite holiday tradition is watching A Christmas Carol and A Charlie Brown Christmas with my hubby.
The design reminds me of a band sampler.
My favorite holiday tradition, when I was a kid, was stringing popcorn and cranberry garlands. I loved that, after the tree came down, we would put the garlands out for the birds.
Oh, such wonderful stitchy surprise gifts you have this year, as always! My favorite holiday tradition is one my husband and I created together. We don’t live close to any family so we have our own quiet days for holidays. We like to get outside and take a morning hike! We get exercise, say happy holidays a zillion times to other like minded persons and get fresh air and beautiful scenery.
My favorite holiday tradition is putting the felt Santa on top of the tree. My husband and I bought it at the drugstore 43 years ago when we were dating. Got married the next year and use Santa tree topper every year even though there are more beautiful ones I could embroider.
I’m in love with your mini sampler socks! How beautiful! I used to be an avid stitcher and a guild member. Over the years I’ve drifted to knitting and spinning my own fiber. But your sampler reminds me of how much I enjoyed stitching. This would be a wonderful way of returning to something I truly enjoyed. Happy Holidays!
Alright, alright, alright……it’s decorated cooookies!
While sipping hot cocoa by the fire.
My favorite thing is waking up early on Christmas, turning on the tree lights with a cup of coffee and thinking of all my blessings before everyone gets up!
It is our tradition to have grandpa read the Night Before Christmas. Our grandchildren can practically recite it verbatim!
What a great question Mary because the holidays are filled with so many traditions! At this point in my life I love our Christmas Eve Carol sing the most- extended family and long time friends gather around my parent’s beautiful old piano and belt out our favourite carols, and even some classic songs from my youth. During the pandemic a piano was moved to the front porch and a drive-in sing-a-long brought a little joy to that special time of year in 2020. Whether we can carry a tune or not, we all love to be together for this.
Favorite Christmas tradition:
Popping Christmas crackers and wearing the silly paper hats
My favorite holiday tradition is St Nicolas where we actually hang stockings and put chocolate, clementines, speculos, in them 🙂
What’s my favorite holiday tradition? Decorating our “Nana Tree” which is covered in beaded ornaments my grandmother made for decades. Each is unique and many bear the name of the original recipient.
Christmas eve Fresh Dungeness crab Melted butter ,Sourdough bread And white wine
A stocking from Mary for my tree and stockings to give to others. How great is that!
Lighting the Advent wreath is my favorite tradition – a peaceful moment in a busy, commercial season.
My favorite holiday tradition is celebrating Christmas in the Scandinavian tradition of Christmas Eve dinner with family followed by the exchange of gifts, and perhaps attending the midnight church service if we are still awake. Stockings from Santa are for Christmas morning.
Hi! I love your site, all year. You do such beautiful work, and your instructions are so easy to follow. I am looking forward to trying the mini stocking! Thank you. Joy
When I was a little girl, my parents never put up the Christmas tree until my brother and I had gone to bed on Christmas Eve. Then, when we awoke on Christmas morning, we saw that Santa had visited in grand fashion!!
My favorite tradition is Christmas morning with the family gathered together in the living room to unwrap gifts.
My favorite tradition would have to be the unpacking of ornaments for the tree and reliving memories of past Christmases.
My favorite tradition is baking Christmas cookies with my Mom every year!
My favorite Holiday tradition is getting together with close Family and opening Christmas gifts and then sharing a meal together. What fun!
I have many favourite holiday traditions and most involve my grandchildren. I guess the big family dinner might top the list. However since COVID, those dinners have not occurred. I haven’t seen my American grandkids for 2 1/2 years now. My wish for Christmas would be peace and the eradication of this virus.
My favorite holiday tradition was family time-home made Christmas cookies and eggnog on Christmas Eve. Between the loss of a son and a husband, plus the reminder of the children growing up and starting families, I’ve had to force myself into new Christmas Eve activities which in time will be my new traditions. This year it’s just thanking God for his goodness.
Opening gifts with our close family. That and baking!
Dear Mary,
Christmas time once again…and I get to stitch Santas. I try to do one every year because my favourite holiday tradition is the one my French husband introduced me to: The December 6th feast day of Saint-Nicholas! A day when, in Alsace, France, you have hot chocolate and sweets for supper!! How grand is that? I’m fascinated by how the real person bishop Nicholas morphed, over many centuries, into the commercial Santa Claus. It’s an amazing story of legends, myths and world-wide domination! In his honour, I stitch a Saint-Nick/Santa ornament for my stair garland every year. Merry Christmas to you and yours. Christine
My favorite holiday tradition is listening to Christmas carols.
Love driving around looking at all the Christmas Lights! We usually go out on Christmas Eve to visit certain attractions (ie Old West Christmas) that have tons of lights up plus other things.
My favorite holiday tradition is making new ornaments for the tree and friends every year.
A favorite holiday tradition is driving all around town after Christmas Eve church services to view all the holiday lights and decorations. After singing the last carol, Silent Night, by candlelight in a darkened church, the beauty of the quiet and calm night continues as all is bright.
Our favourite holiday tradition is a nod to hubby’s Dutch heritage. Everyone around our tree gets a Dutch chocolate letter.
My favourite tradition is the putting up of garland and decorating the tree during the first weekend of December. It is usually snowing by then and is a wonderful way of starting the holiday season.
My favorite holiday tradition is singing a carol by candlelight at the Christmas Eve church service.
My favorite holiday tradition is lighting the menorah for Hanukkah. Seeing the recreation of the miracle of the oil touches me deeply.
My favourite holiday tradition (for Christmas) is decorating: putting up the tree, stockings, etc. I’d like to eventually have only handmade decorations. Presently I decorate the tree with the handmade ornaments I’ve made throughout the years as well as store-bought but would one day like to have enough handmade ornaments to be able to decorate the whole tree with only the handmade ornaments for an old-fashion look. I would like to have hand-sewn stockings as well as a wreath I had made myself.
My favorite is our church’s childrens program.
My younger son was born (early) on Christmas Eve. A surprise we recall each year at a birthday meal of his favorite foods. He’ll be 46.
My favorite Holiday tradition is to put the tree with all the ornements I have gathered over the years. And there is a new tradition which started two years ago (and have to stop last year), is to decorate it with my eldest grand-daughter who is now 5 years’ old. Her younger sister who will be two in February will join in next year.
I love these stockings! My favorite holiday tradition is taking pictures of the family, wherever we are. Sometimes we are all together, and sometimes we are in separate places. But always, the pictures tell a story about our family. These stockings are a gift made of love and tender care. I sure would like to win this package!
Today’s reading made me really want to win! It also is making me get pretty excited for the upcoming festive occasions. I have a large family, so it gets a bit loud and happy at times. Stitching in a quiet corner, if I can find one, is always a blessed relief.
My favorite holiday tradition is gathering the entire extended family together on Christmas eve to re-connect, share stories and enjoy holiday food together.
Hi Mary,
My favorite holiday tradition is driving or walking around looking at beautiful Christmas lights in our neighborhood.
What a fabulous giveaway!
I like all holiday traditions, but my favourite is turkey dinner with my family, topped off by a walk around the neighbourhood to help the food settle. It’s a great time of year to be with friends and family.
Happy holidays to everyone!
Making lefse with family. We always had so much fun, harder these days with folks spread all over the country, but that is what we all want to do when together
Terrific give-away, Thank you
Mary Kay
My favorite Christmas tradition has to be decorating the tree. The Holiday music is played as the lights are pulled out and plugged in. The process let’s me remember Christmas past and the possibilities for the future.
Thank you for sharing your time and talents with all of us. Very much appreciated. Happy Holidays!
Hiking in the woods far away from crowds, music, gift wrap and fights with the family.
My favourite Christmas tradition here in my house in the UK is everyone in the house has to stir the Christmas cake mixture and make a wish when it’s made in October. I have grown up kids and they still have a go.
My favourite Christmas tradition is one that started after my father passed away. To make the holidays fun, I started doing a stocking for my mom. It was so enjoyable shopping for small items like note pads or pens, a yearly calendar, and definitely chocolate. And then watching my mom be like a little kid opening up each gift. She’s gone now but those memories still warm my heart. It’s very kind of you to do the giveaway but especially to include a little stocking that you’ve made. Nice to spread the joy around 🙂
My favorite holiday tradition, just one? Since we’re talking about crafting I’ll choose one that involves handwork. When my children were born their aunt made each of the a stocking. When I remarried and was blessed with stepchildren, I made each of them a stocking. Since then, I’ve made each son/daughter-in-law and grandchild (9) a stocking. (And stockings for my sister-in-law’s family in Texas, and she just made her first one for a new son-in-law!)
My favourite holiday tradition is setting up a Nativity Crib in the Spanish tradition which involves creating a scene with lots of little figures. Central to it all is Mary and Joseph. Baby Jesus is hidden away till Christmas Eve night. The three Kings are placed at a distance and each night they creep a little closer to the Crib. There are geese and hens and sheep amongst other figures. The first figures i made with my children 40 years ago out of plaster moulds. They have been repainted over the years. The animals came out of their farm sets. I am always on the look out in Charity shops or Pound shops (especially if you are on holiday in Spain) for bits to add to it each year. Hanging over it all is a little beaded star gifted to ne from a friend i met ‘online’ through an embroidery site. Each item brings back so many happy memories of the love that has entered my life.
Like many people, my favorite traditions involve something from my family history. Something that was important to a loved one. I have dozens, but if I have to narrow it down it would be putting a cho plate orange in the toe of each stocking for my daughters family. My dad always told of the marvel of receiving an orange at Christmas. It was the only citrus fruit he had for the year. His daddy, a farmer, would take some work in the fall that he received a little money for. And on a two hour trip to the nearest available city, he would buy an orange for each of his children, and a few other luxuries- like a can of salmon. Oranges mean nothing to modern kids. But I put the chocolate orange in- you know the one that you whack to separate it into sections- and we share that memory and other stories of my daddy. And I think it helps everyone to remember to be thankful and grateful for what we do have. I would love to win your stockings. It seems like a good project for someone just starting in surface embroidery. Thank you for sharing your talents in this way.
My favorite holiday tradition is the table covered with cookies and maybe a pie or two that appears after dinner. Our gatherings are smaller with the younger generation scattered out of state, but that dessert table hasn’t gotten any smaller.
My favorite holiday tradition is Christmas Eve candlelight church service with the family and then a Mexican food buffet ( we live in Texas).
I have two:
Getting out and using my collection of Christmas dishes
Annual viewing of White Christmas – I can pretty much recite the script at this point!
Favorite holiday tradition: I love gift giving, watching the children’s awe & glee with the gifts given & received.
My favorite holiday tradition is opening stockings. I still do this with adult children as they love the process so much.
My favorite holiday tradition is to prepare and eat vitello tonnato, a typical Italian recipe for christmas!
Our family gets together for snacks and drinks on Christmas Eve. We open one present! When I was a child I always opened the present from my grandmother.
My favorite holiday tradition is to decorate our Christmas tree with hand-me-down antique ornaments. Also, to decorate with ornaments acquired during our travels or gifted to us. And finally, to hang the handmade ornaments many of which are hand stitched. I try to make at least one new ornament each year. As we hang the ornaments it gives us a chance to reflect on the many happy memories associated with each ornament. Happy holidays to all!
My favorite tradition is to try to recreate my mother-in-laws amazing Basque clam recipe. She was a wonderful cook and most of her recipes were never written down. We learned to make the clams by working alongside her for several years. We think of her and her cooking and sweet laugh every year.
Christmas Eve dinner! We always have a big meal and then play games together as a family.
What is my favorite tradition? That’s a hard one, Mary! I think for me, it’s Christmas Eve service at church, then going home to open one gift from under the tree. It’s always nice to be reminded of the REASON for the season, and then the one gift is just a teaser for what comes the next morning.
MERRY CHRISTMAS!!
These are so cute and sweet. I’ve been wanting to try my hands at them.
Every Thanksgiving the grandkids put together the latest Lego Christmas village set. Then they bring in all the previous sets, which are stored in a cabinet in the garage, and set up the whole village. They are now adults, but can spend hours arranging it to their satisfaction.
My favorite tradition is Baby Jesus Birthday cake on Christmas morning. My parents explained to my oldest niece when she was young that we were celebrating Baby Jesus birthday so using Leila Logic, we had to have a birthday cake. So our Christmas morning coffee cake now comes with candles and singing Happy Birthday to Baby Jesus.
My favorite holiday tradition is Triduum. My favorite Christmas tradition is Christmas Midnight Mass followed by my second favorite, family tree decorating! Thank you for the give-aways!
Merry Christmas,
Sunnie
Christmas crackers with their funny hats no one wants to wear.
My favorite tradition is the New Year farher benediction
My favorite holiday tradition is decorating the tree. I love unpacking the ornaments and all the memories surrounding each and every one. I always find pride of place for the ones made by my grandchildren and by my son many years ago.
This site is the reason I believe the old saying You’re never to old to learn something! Bored and watching many of my friends complete hand work I decided I wanted to try my hand at it. This site with your teachings saved me! Purchased a few items to try and studied how to’s to learn. Still working on a few things. Just wanted to say thank you for your site and the diversity of items you have. Trying to do a few Christmas items for gifts. Hope to be a winner to make for my grandchildren. Thanks again
My favourite tradition is putting up the tree. The family gathers together, we laugh and share stories and memories of people we loved but are no longer with us.
My favorite holiday tradition is eating!
What a lovely prize!!!
My favorite holiday tradition is – on Christmas Eve, my husband and I get in our pajamas, turn off all the lights except for the tree and watch It’s a Wonderful Life. We were married in 1974 and have done this every single year. It’s the only constant in our holidays.
Drive around to look at outdoor decorations
My favorite Christmas tradition is attending Christmas Eve Service at our church and singing Silent Night by candlelight. It’s just magical. The candles are lit, the lights are turned off, the little ones have battery powered ones and we sing usually unaccompanied.
Thank you for the chance to enter this fantastic Christmas gift.
My favourite Christmas tradition is Midnight Mass, sadly it didn’t happen last year but so far it’s on for this year!
We also as a family toast in Sherry (my husbands tipple) to absent friends. He passed away 14 years ago, so this is to remember him!
Christmas Eve ravioli dinner with family and friends at our house!
My favourite holiday tradition is actually lingering over our Christmas dinner. No one is in a hurry to go somewhere else and we are all feeling lucky and satisfied.
My favorite tradition? You are going to laugh, I love buying presents for everyone (me included) and putting up that Christmas tree.
My favorite tradition is Christmas Eve service.
Having Christmas cookies for breakfast!
My favorite holiday tradition is gathering the family on Christmas Eve to enjoy food, (usually pizza) games and conversation. There is no stress, no rush to get anything done, just a time to sit back after all the presents are wrapped and the meals are planned and enjoy each others’ company.
My favorite holiday tradition is to attend (with my family) the outdoor holiday (night) festival put on by, & hosted at, a local historical site. Each year we choose to go to the same exhibits (there are so many to choose from!), but they never get old!
What’s your favorite holiday tradition? With out a doubt, it is baking cookies and giving them away. (If I ate them all, I would be …) I just got a pizzella iron and have been experimenting with flavors including pecan with maple syrup and chocolate with orange to mention a few. I am having so much fun with my creations.
My favorite holiday tradition is having family in our sunroom around the Christmas tree, sharing stories and enjoying the laughter.
My favorite holiday tradition is going to 11 PM church service and singing Silent Night with candles.
My favorite Christmas tradition is decorating my tree, with handmade ornaments, and listening to Christmas music. And then baking Christmas cookies with the grandkids.
My favorite holiday tradition is going for lovely long walks over the Christmas season with family and friends. Thanks again Mary. Nona
My favorite is baking cookies!
My favorite holiday tradition is hanging my now-adult children’s stockings on the fireplace mantle. It brings back such sweet memories of when they were young and would grab those bulging stockings before they even looked at gifts under the tree.
We went to my grandmothers house every Christmas. She’d make homemade rolls and I’d help make them. It was noisy and crowded with family and steamy in the kitchen and all the cousins would be running around….great memories.
My favorite holiday tradition is decorating the Christmas cookies I bake with my children. I hope to one day be able to do it with any grandchildren I may have, if my children wish to have any of their own.
The best Christmas tradition is the extended family gathered around the tree on Christmas morning as the younger children pass out the presents and then taking turns opening them. Of course the children phase out quickly because they have to start playing with their gifts, but that’s OK. Just being together is the best!
My favorite holiday tradition is our annual Kris Kringle ornament exchange at our local shop Attic Needlework. Jean has done this every year as far back as I can remember. I don’t have family here where I live and the stitching community is my family. It’s always a fun, festive day getting together with fellow stitchers to catch up, laugh, eat some goodies Jean puts out for us and toward the end of the day, we hold the ornament exchange – they are all beautiful and we all appreciate the time and effort we’ve each put into our ornaments. My tree is full of handmade ornaments collected over the years and I set my tree up early each year to enjoy them!
Tedra R. In Phoenix, AZ
It is so hard to pick one Christmas tradition. Joining with all my family around the table would have to be my favourite.
My favorite holiday tradition is placing small mystery presents on each diners plate. Always something fun or good to eat!
The weekend after Thanksgiving , friends and family get together for an ornament swap game. Everyone hopes to win the prettiest, silliest or most unusual ornament, especially the kids! It’s a great way to kick off the Christmas season.
My favorite tradition is going to church with family on Christmas eve and returning home to snacks and beverages and the children selecting one gift to open.
My favorite holiday tradition is decorating our tree. I was fortunate to live in Toledo, Ohio, for some years, and Toledo is the Glass Capitol. I certainly came to appreciate the artistry of glass workers during those years and began a collection of hand made glass ornaments for my tree. It makes it sparkle and shine. But the special touch for me is the collection of hand stitched ornaments I have accumulated thanks to all my stitching friends who have exchanged with me yearly for a long time. I think fondly of each of them as I put the ornaments on the tree interspersed with the sparkly glass. What wonderful memories!
My favourite tradition is getting the grandchildren together to make a new ornament for the tree which we have done since they were really young.
These are so cute and samplers as well!
What’s your favorite holiday tradition?
Of course, stitching a new ornament for a Christmas ornament exchange and a new one for our family tree.
Celebrating St Nicholas Eve, with chocolate letters, marzipan, and putting hay in your shoe for his horse which miraculously disappears overnight and is replaced with sweets 🙂
Good day Mary, yet another great ! My favourite holiday tradition is dec. 1st when I start to decorate the house with my ornaments that have been waiting all year to come out of the closet. They bring such life and festive athmosphere our house, may the fun begins!!
Probably one of my favourites is decorating cookies with my nephews. They are all boy so this is not an artistic endeavour, rather there are sprinkles everywhere and more is more…
What a lovely giveaway! My favorite holiday tradition is going up hiking in the mountains to cut down a Christmas tree with my family.
Favorite tradition is coming together as a family and celebrating the season of Christ’s birth.
My favorite holiday tradition is making Christmas breakfast for the whole family. Started by accident, over 40 years ago, it is still going strong today. My grandson says it is his favorite Christmas tradition since he has attended since the year he was born.
My favorite Christmas tradition is having our family, children, grandchildren, and siblings join us on Christmas Day for brunch. Christmas cookies, coffee and conversation always fun. We’re so grateful that we are all able to gather together at this most wonderful time of the year.
This one’s easy – candle-light Christmas Eve Communion.
Two favourites, both on Boxing Day. The first is a really long walk with the family. The second, and well earned after the first, is eating the cold leftovers from the Christmas meal the day before; all the hard work is done and it tastes twice as delicious !
It’s long past as my dad passed almost 23 years ago, and it always irked me when it happened, but now that he’s gone, I really miss it. Every Christmas Eve, he would invariably show up on my doorstep with a bag full of gifts that he had purchased for all my cousins and ask me to wrap them for delivery at the gathering at my Grandma’s house on Christmas day. They were always small things not easily wrapped – took way more effort than it should have. Despite the level of my grumbling at the time it was happening, I still think about that every Christmas Eve.
The stockings would be a delightful addition to y mantelpiece.
Pat R.
My favorite Christmas tradition is decorating the tree and leaving it up the full 12 days of Christmas until January 6th.
My favorite holiday tradition is getting together at my daughters home for Christmas Eve
I just love these little stockings !! I really need to try my hand on it 🙂 My favourite tradition for the holidays is usually mi-November when my parents come to visit and set the Christmas tree with my daughter. They are doing it since she’s 3-year old (she’s 10 now). That’s the beginning of the Holidays! Afterward, all December until Christmas, we have the Advent calendarS every morning (one for knitting, one for chocolate and one for tea (!!!)) as well as the elves shinanigans. By the way, I would really need an embroidery Advent calendar ( 😉 😉 )!!! Afterwards, Christmas is coming, but usually, it’s quite stressful with the end of school and all the driving in bad weather that I almost prefer the “before Christmas” than Christmas itself. Afterwards, the pleasure continues all the holidays and I’m never able to keep up with all the knitting and my calendar usually keeps me busy, in fact, all Winter long. Thank you for such a nice giveaway! It’s always a pleasure to read you every morning in my mailbox. You’re like family 🙂
My favorite holiday tradition is decorating a tree and visiting all my favorite ornaments collected across >40 years. I especially love the hand embroidered, needlepoint and other handcrafted ornaments made by my late mom and gifted to me as a newlywed. Lots of love to carry us forward with cherished memories.
I would have to say my favorite holiday tradition is picking out an ornament for my children and grandchildren. I have always loved ornaments and gave one to my children each year while they were growing up. When they went out on their own, they were given their box of ornaments to remind them of their childhood and bring sweet memories to their own Christmas tree. Some of them were bought and some handmade…memories I will always cherish!!
What a wonderful gift for a lucky stitcher!
My favorite holiday tradition changes with my age. It used to be playing games with my sisters after opening gifts when I was young. As I am much older now, I love listening to Christmas music as I decorate the tree. There is a fair bit of singing as this decorating takes place but most of it is in the key of “off”.
I love watching the movie ” It’s a wonderful life.” I even have an ornament of Clarence the angel. The movie is a good reminder, especially today, that life is really wonderful. That’s one of my favorite traditions.
My favorite holiday tradition is the annual family get-togethers with lots of food and cookies!
My favourite holiday tradition NOW involves my grandchildren who live with me. I used to put out cookies and carrots on Christmas eve. we would nibble the cookies and the carrots. THAT brings the biggest smiles to the kidlets!
Your stocking ornaments are really adorable. I live outside the US, so the chance to get your kits is a real treat.
My favourite tradition is watching our children open their stockings on Christmas morning. We always manage to sneak in a few surprises, and every year at least one of them ends up being a special hit. They’re grown now, but it’s one of the traditions that still they want to continue every year, and I still enjoy finding treasures to put in and watching their reactions when the unexpected treasures come out.
Our holiday tradition is pretty much the same for every holiday and some days in between. Friends and pie.
My favorite Christmas tradition is spending time with family and friends. Once the shopping is done it so such a festive time of year!!!
Fantastic project!
Great for my love tree trimming
Spending time reading the Christmas story from the Bible by candle light on Christmas Eve night.
Hi Mary,
This is so exciting & generous – thank you! Favorite holiday traditions? I’ve had several at various times in my life that I love:
1. Growing up, my parents would take all of us kids to the city to see the lights & windows displays
2. In college, my roommate & I would get student rush tickets to see Handel’s Messiah
3. More recently, it’s been decorating the house for the holidays the 1st weekend in December & attending the Christmas candlelight service
I like the idea of creating new traditions to fit whatever is going on in your life – makes things that much easier!
Thanksgiving begins with a breakfast buffet to watch the parade and ends, after the big meal, with watching the movie “White Christmas”. That signals the Christmas Holiday has begun. No eggnog or decorations before that. We’re on our third generation of this tradition and it brings everyone into the spirit of the season.
Ooh just one favorite holiday tradition… making homemade candy canes!! Yum!
Our favorite Christmas tradition is two part. First is Christmas Eve services and later fellowship with our church family. Then at home it is a treat of cookies and some hot tea followed by My all-time favorite movie, “It’s a Wonderful Life” .
These little stocking are so cute… I really hope my name gets pulled on Friday, but then so does everyone else 🙂
Merry Christmas!
Jo
Visiting family. Unfortunately ,as younger members have moved away, it is a lost tradition.
I really had to think about this question. The traditions celebrated in my family during December are numerous. However, one does stand out as indispensable and has been happily continued by my children and grandchildren. It started with my father who worked at a company that shut down their factory between Christmas and New Year’s Day – every year. With the hustle & bustle of special events, shopping, meals and visitors behind us, our small family would stay at home, enjoying each other’s company while putting together jigsaw puzzles, playing games, and just talking – about the past, the future, our dreams and ambitions. What a wonderful time of year! (Any time!)
My favorite is the 11:00pm Christmas service, at St. John’s Episcopal cathedral followed by a nice spiked eggnog at home with hubby.
Listening to our Queens speech
My favorite holiday tradition is music. Christmas carols and other seasonal songs make my heart sing!
Pick me!
My favorite holiday tradition? Putting up the Christmas tree filled with my stitched ornaments. It’s like an annual visit to my needlework past, seeing and touching all my ornaments once again. And my family enjoys it too.
My favorite holiday tradition is when my family gathers around the tree on Christmas Eve at my brother’s home.
We set up a big snack spread, have hot chocolate with marshmallows, the fireplace is going and we open presents together. There is much laughter and joy and dogs barking. It is the essence of the holiday.
DArcy Walker
I love the tradition of putting up the Christmas tree with family!!! We have 7 children so there is never a dull moment. Bulbs all crazy and tinsel all over the house!!
As the years go by – and the last two are changing our traditions tremendously – i think my favorite tradition that we can have wherever we are is to drive around our neighborhood and see all the beautiful holiday lights. In Maine it gets dark before 4 pm in the middle of winter and light is such a joy. It doesn’t cost a thing and always makes me smile.
My favorite Holiday tradition is giving handmade gifts to my relatives and friends and family that include different articles that are embroidered by hand as I find it very relaxing to do and the recipients enjoy getting the handmade embroidered gifts.
Every year, my grandchildren and I spend an afternoon making chocolate truffles for our holiday get togethers and to give as gifts.
Love these little stockings.
My favorite tradition during the holidays is the Christmas tree. Getting out the treasured family ornaments, maybe adding a new one or two, placing them just in the right spot, and then seeing the tree sparkle with colored lights in an otherwise-dark room fills me with joy.
I just love the holiday season! It is impossible to pick just one tradition.
Bev H
The three sisters exchange purchased Christmas pins and exchange them. These are judged by the rest of the family Christmas Eve. The judging is based on the UGLIEST pin. We started this with our mother 45 years ago and it continues.
Hot Apple Cider!! With the ENTIRE family together. Opening presents, huge turkey dinner with all the trimmings.
My favorite holiday tradition is sitting around the dining room table eating a traditional Turkey Christmas dinner with all my family and exchanging gifts!
My very favorite holiday tradition is baking w/ my sisters, nieces and a few close family friends – We plan an entire weekend for it and have great fun! Stitching at night too! 🙂 Thank you for the fun this week!
Just love to read the winning comments, Yukon gold and silver, very apt. To each and everyone who Have ever visit your blog, it is as we arrive in a new place. A stranger and leave as a friend, to return to visit again and again. Thank you, Mary.
Oh how I love to make things for others. We makers make. It is our holiday love language.
Merry Christmas Mary!
Hi. My favorite Christmas tradition is going together as a family to the candlelight church service on Christmas Eve.
My favorite Christmas tradition is making ornaments for my granddaughters. Tali, my youngest granddaughter, had to write a paper on traditions and her favorite was “Grandma’s beaded ornaments” which you know touched my heart!
Favorite holiday tradition is going to church on Christmas Eve.
Such fun projects for those dark, cold winter nights
My favorite holiday tradition is reading Luke chapter 2 in the Bible on Christmas Eve.
Yummy eggnog after one (or two) host(s) secretly slip in an extra tot!
My favorite holiday tradition is a very personal one. I’m an embroiderer but also a beader. Each year I bead two very special Christmas tree ornements with Swarovski crystals, one for my girl and one for my boy.
Lucie D.
Such a great gift to stitch
Our children are all grown up and have families of their own so Christmas mornings are theirs. We have been getting together for Christmas Eve for years now and my favourpart of the evening is watching the grands opens gifts from us and aunts and uncles. Their excitement is contagious.
Ricky Chestnut
My favorite holiday tradition is making a strata for our kids on Christmas evening to deliver to our kids on Christmas morning. We have a split family so my husband visits his grandchildren and I go to my daughters house to open gifts with my grandsons. Then in the evening we both go to his daughters for Christmas dinner. We used to have everyone at our house on Christmas but we now have 14 grandchildren and 4 great grandchildren. It is easier to visit them than to have everyone try to get together at our house. I love the stocking ornaments. I am trying to make one for all the grandkids but I’m sure I won’t be done until next Christmas. LOL
My favorite holiday tradition is simply the family reunion, and the joyous gratitude we have to the Creator for the blessing of life and of love.
Christmas Eve. I have always loved celebrating Christmas on the 24, then relaxing and visiting on the 25. There were always enough left overs and joyous people that it was delightful.
Hanging our homemade stockings and filling with surprises
My favorite holiday tradition is stringing popcorn and cranberries for a garland for the Christmas tree. Then, when I take down the tree, I leave the garland outside for the birds to enjoy!
What’s your favorite holiday tradition? – while growing up, it was attending the midnight Christmas Eve service and then coming home to open presents very early (right after the service). I also loved my grandmother’s Swedish meatballs that she made for the family for dinner.
For more than 40 years my family has held a cookie decorating party for kids of all ages using my great grandmother’s biscuit cookie recipe and cookie cutters that have been passed down for generations. It is a special tradition for all of us!
Besides gathering with family (the BEST!), I love the tradition (Swedish, I think) of hiding the almond in the rice. The rice is served in bowls with milk and maybe sugar, and whoever gets the almond has a special year ahead of them. One year we all ate multiple bowls of rice and no one found the almond. My mother-in-law forgot to put the almond in. It was sitting on the kitchen counter! We all agreed that we all had a special year coming. Thanks, Mary.
My favorite holiday tradition is baking my Grandmother’s Christmas butter cookies from her Polish recipe. I share this tradition with a cousin; we are both dedicated to keep our Polish traditions alive
One of my favorite holiday traditions is having a personalized family ornament made each year and showing it off when we gather on Christmas Eve. This has been a tradition for 26 years and includes our dogs through the years and now spouses (and soon to be grandchild). Now that my son and daughter have their own homes and families, they have asked me to continue this tradition for their homes as well and I love doing it!
I love the tradition of going out Christmas Eve with the whole family and looking at all of the light displays in our area. Then going home to hot chocolate and opening presents.
I really love the stockings! Happy Holidays!
My favorite tradition is the all day baking extravaganza my daughter and son-in-law and I do the weekend prior to Christmas. The exchange of baked goods I receive and create because these are truly given with love and keep the spirit of the season alive!
A tradition we don’t do anymore is Caroling this is a much beloved and missed tradition.
Jamie
My favorite holiday tradition is baking cookies. One year, long ago when I was young and full of vigor, I realized on Christmas Eve that I hadn’t taken the time to bake. So – I stayed up into the wee hours baking a couple batches.
Would love to win! Merry Christmas!
My favorite tradition is a small one. The pancake breakfast before opening presents has continued over many years and moves. Everyone pitches in to cook and today we veer to vegan as a courtesy to our youngest.
Stockings for everyone. I either see it crochet a special stocking for the new baby or babies in our family. These embroidered ones will be just so extra special.
Rita F.
I find it hard to pick one favorite tradition! My Christmas has changed so much over the past few years that some of my favorite things have gone away… I suppose this is true for many folks these days.
I do love all of the Christmas decorations and recounting where each one came from and where we lived when they were first used in our home.
My favorite holiday tradition is that my husband bakes Russian teacakes and roasts Cornish hens. He also gets the cranberry jelly out of the can in a nice cylinder and slices it.
Christmas Eve we light a fire in the fireplace, turn off the lights and use candles. Root beer floats in special mugs and fresh baked Christmas cookies. A quiet time to enjoy family.
My favorite is the Advent calendar. I loved filling the calendar’s pockets each day with treats and see the excitement in my children’s eyes when they see the goodies inside. My children are all grown up now and have homes of their own but I still cherish those memories of Christmases past.
My favorite Holliday tradition is gathering around the table with all of my family. We eat, we talk, we laugh, we eat…
My favorite tradition is to decorate our Christmas tree. We have a mix of new(ish), handed-down and handmade ornaments — including some my grandmother made 50 years ago!
When decorating the tree I cherish the stories behind the ornaments and am deeply touched while remembering the dear ones associated with each one!
My favorite Christmas tradition is listening to Christmas carols while we put up our nativity scene and light candles around it.
Christmas Eve – hot chocolate, homemade cookies, and a ceremonial viewing of “White Christmas” with Rosemary Clooney and Bing Crosby. Then, Christmas Day, deliver parcels and food gifts to the residents of a nursing home who won’t have family or friends to visit them. Then, count our many blessings.
My favorite holiday tradition is gathering with my family on Christmas Day when we exchange gifts, share food and most importantly, love each other.
Pre-Covid , our family of 15 would rent a limo and drive around looking at the lights while singing Xmas carols and eating snacks. The driver would sing too and a lovely time was had by all !
Hopefully, we will be able to do this again. Maybe next year ?
Christmas Eve – our special Crevettes a la Greque and one present each to open. That’s the essence of Christmas for our family.
My favorite holiday tradition is attending a holiday musical event. Some years we go to the symphony, some years we attend the Nutcracker Suite ballet, Trans Siberian Orchestra, etc. Gets me in the spirit of Christmas every time!
I love it all but my absolute favourite is sitting down to Christmas dinner with our family – after all the fun and excitement – and just relaxing and enjoying each others’ company.
Stockings are such an embodiment of the holidays and mini stockings rock around the tree!
Our favorite tradition is hiding The Pickle in our tree. The only problem is hoping the tree is still standing after ‘the hunt’.
My favorite holiday tradition is opening gifts one by one. Each of us taking turns so we can see the joy in their eyes and feel the joy in our hearts.
My grandson told me if he had to choose between getting gifts or giving them he’d choose giving them.
Looks like so much fun to stitch!
My favourite Christmas tradition is being with my family, sipping hot apple cider, and listening to Christmas carols as we decorate the tree, recalling that each decoration has a story. Our tree top and main tree lights, as well as a selection of glass ornaments, are the same ones we used for our first Christmas as husband and wife 48 years ago. There are decorations made by our children, with remembrances for our pets, and some from family members no longer with us. Ours is a history Christmas tree. It’s wonderful to have all those lovely memories hanging on our tree every year. Merry Christmas!
My favorite holiday tradition is getting the Christmas decorations out on the Sunday after Thanksgiving and decorating the tree with the kids. We have the movie ELF playing. We do this every year! It’s my favorite day!
My favorite holiday tradition is cutting down our tree as a family! It’s a newer traditional and one my husband and I never had as kids. I love the longish drive with Christmas music playing, tromping through the trees and choosing a little piece of nature to celebrate with!
My favorite holiday tradition is driving around to view the lights on Christmas Eve after leaving the family gathering.
My favorite tradition is playing bingo with cards that have family memories instead of numbers. For example, instead of the card having B2, it would have B ‘the time dad lost Tim at the world’s fair.
My favorite holiday tradition is decking out the Christmas tree with the Christmas music playing in the background. I think Christmas trees are so gorgeous with all the lights!
My favorite tradition getting together with 4 generations of our family for cookie decorating. Each family brings already baked cookies and we all decorate them, sing songs, have dinner, and just a lot of fun. One of my favorite things to do each year.
My favorite Christmas tradition is making cookies with my daughters. We would always set out on a Saturday morning a few weeks before Christmas and have a marathon baking until late Sunday afternoon. Christmas music would be playing and the girls could make whatever cookies they wanted that year and our dinner would be pizza. Then on Christmas Eve they were allowed to eat as many cookies as they wanted to!!! As the girls have grown and have their own families, we continue the tradition, but they make them at their home. We pick the weekend and do the rest, keep in touch by text. We still have then gathered on Christmas Eve to eat the cookies. This year a new Grandson will be in the mix this year to join the fun – to young to bake, but old enough to sample!!!!!
Being with all my children and grandchildren. Decorating the house. Making cookies. Reacting the Christmas story.
Decorating the tree, and remembering, as each ornament is added, something about where it came from, or who gave it to me…or which pet left those toothmarks on it …….
My favorite holiday tradition. Sigh. There has been so much loss and so many life changes that these favorite traditions are but memories now. As a kid, we’d wake early, get all our chores done, milk the cow,… and wait for Dad to get up because he always ended up working overtime on Christmas Eve. Then we’d eat breakfast, open our gift and then we’d go out and cut a truckload of firewood. There was the hanging of the greens to decorate the church, the church I attend now doesn’t do that. There was a worship night during advent at a church where we used to live that was amazing. I had a ladies group at that town that all got together and made and exchanged cookies. We had some friends who got together and we all played card games for New Years Eve. We’d go out to his grandparents’ for midnight mass that doubled as a family reunion. I guess I need to create some new traditions for the location and stage of life we are now in. The last several years saw many funerals (none from covid) and my husband permanently disabled and our kids grown and our remaining parents needing more and more help as our own visits to the Dr increase in frequency. Jesus is faithful. He heals the broken hearted and sets the captives free.
They are so cute! Would love to make them!!!
Favorite Holiday Traditions
When I learned to bake, I was the one who started making all the cookies for the holidays. Then I met my husband and we added to those cookies some of the Irish/Celtic traditions such as sugar plums, figgy pudding, and goose.
Gathering with family is the best and most important holiday tradition we have. We eat lots of snacks including a cheese fondue that has been enjoyed for over 30 years. All the grandkids have appliquéd stockings they hang and they each get a special handmade ornament every year.
My favorite holiday tradition is going to church Christmas Eve and at the end of the service the lights go out and we light each others candles. As the light spreads we hear the story again. Just love those few moments. Can feel His.
My favorite holiday tradition is baking cookies with family and sharing the results of our efforts with neighbors.
I’d really like to say getting together with family and friends, the wonderful foods, baking cookies, parties…but what I really love the most is the magic of children still believing in Santa Claus! My 8 year old grandson still believes and his comments are priceless. This is probably the last year so I am treasuring every drop of it!
Merry Christmas and thank you Mary, you are a treasure too.
On Christmas Eve we have rice pudding with a hidden almond. Whoever gets the almond gets to open the first present.
I look forward to BAKING Christmas goodies. It is my therapy for all the problems of the world. God Bless us, Everyone 🙂
Karole King
Cathie Barnes West
Favorite Christmas event is the family making cookies. We started this tradition when I was a small child and have continued this tradition to this day. Some are not with us now, but the next generation takes their place. The grandchildren look forward to this every year.
What’s your favorite holiday tradition?
Oh I love Caroling! I love making hot chocolate with the kids after we have been playing in the snow, I love going to church and helping to decorate the church, I love all the gatherings and parties, I love wrapping and making gifts for my loved ones! I love everything about the Christmas Season!
My favorite is eating around the table with ALL the family. Thanksgiving was 65 people and Christmas will be less but still everyone in town, 10 people. We are very spread apart.
Hi Mary, my absolute favourite holiday tradition was shopping for what we called a “Boxing day book.” Mum and Dad would take us to a huge bookstore downtown on boxing day and we each picked out our own book. Then Dad paid for all the books. I think we’d spend at least an hour, maybe more, making the selection. Heaven.
My favorite tradition is making Bourbon Balls. We make enough to store some in the freezer – a nice treat in the summer!
Like most of us I enjoy being with family and friends but I really enjoy watching the excitement and see how my children, grandchildren and great grandchildren truly enjoy their gifts. Lastly but definitely not least is the traditional prime rib dinner we have – YUM!
My favorite tradition is going to see the Christmas light and decorations with my family.
I guess my favorite would be hanging our stockings on the mantel, because it’s really easy to do!
I have had several holiday traditions with my family throughout my 84 years. I don’t know if I can choose a favorite. Some choices are: a special breakfast on Christmas morning, decorating and trimming the Christmas tree, a drive around the neighborhood to view decorations, and reading “The Night Before Christmas” story. Also, many years ago I started collecting angel ornaments for my special angel tree.
We make tamales every Christmas season. We are not Mexican but l love tamales and getting together to make them. Delicious!
A warm mug of smoking bishop on Christmas day! I feel straight out of a Dickens novel.
Watching the family who is here Christmas Eve decorate our tree.
Decorating the house in preparation to and sit back with family and friends to enjoy it for the whole holiday season!
Decorating the Christmas tree with all the ornaments that were made or are keepsakes. And then turning the lights.
Along with the pleasures of getting together with family at Christmas, enjoying a bountiful meal and opening gifts; my sisters and I have been exchanging “special” cookies at Christmas for years now. We each bake up to 10 different types and it’s always a fun surprise to see what is contained in the cookie tin when it is opened. The scrumptious delights are enjoyed through the rest of the holiday season.
Using my mother’s Spode Christmas China for a full two weeks: Christmas to Epiphany.
My favourite holiday tradition is opening the gifts under the tree surrounded by family.
Getting together with as much family as I can.
I love your stocking!! My favorite holiday tradition is giving (and receiving!) a bag full of books!
My favorite tradition is watching Christmas movies 24/7 and stitching away. Luckily now, Hallmark manages to let us have them more than just December… so I’m blessed almost all year long. And, really, isn’t that the way we’re suppose to live? Christmas giving all year long? Merry Christmas Stitching!
My favorite holiday tradition was making gingerbread cookies with my mother. She gave me a set of tiny cookie cutters when I was a child.
My favorite holiday tradition is getting together with our large family. We missed it last year, but we are all set to go for this year! Bring on the fun!
My favorite thing to do is decorate the tree with family
Celebrating St. Nick Day with the grandkids! Love watching them put their shoes out the night before and looking for their treats the next morning!
My favorite holiday tradition is spending an entire day at home with my three sons. Best day EVER
My favourite Christmas tradition is the making of desserts. Bringing my son over to grandma’s house to make Christmas Pudding (a single bottle of Guinness is getting hard to find locally, which adds to the fun of searching one down), and then making dessert tamales with my mom/family to give out to our friends. We also make dark chocolate peppermint bark, and other homemade gifts.
My favorite holiday tradition is all about the food! Holiday food and cookies are the best!
Ooo this is such a great giveaway! Getting a piece of embroidery from you feels like a very generous gift even though it probably didn’t take you that long given your embroidery prowess.
Favourite holiday tradition.. decorating the Christmas tree with a jumble of all our childhood ornaments. Our tree definitely wouldn’t fit in an interior design magazine.
Wrapping presents with mom. She couldn’t wrap, so i had to learn to wrap blind, so i wouldn’t ruin the surprise. (Yes, she had me wrapping my presents)
My favorite holiday tradition is baking with my granddaughter!
My favourite holiday tradition is to take all of my Christmas movies out of their normal hiding place and watch them as I stitch away on things that are going to be late, wrap up the ones I have done and, because I am such a great starter, Planning what I might do next year. I have a order that I watch the movies in… And I go from all my old and Goldies to my newest ones every year. And then of course there’s the gathering with friends and family and food.
Our favourite (and most missed) tradition is opening gifts with our daughter and her family—and her wonderful Christmas morning breakfast/brunch! After indulging in that, who cares about turkey!!!! We couldn’t be together last year and wonder if we’ll be able to this year.
At home, our own little tradition is to hang a large wreath with all of our hand made ornaments-so many pleasant memories
One of my favorite holiday traditions is decorating the tree with my daughters.
My very favorite holiday tradition is decorating the tree!
Favorite holiday tradition … so many but I guess Christmas Eve service followed by homemade cookies with family and making sure baby Jesus is in the manager.
My favorite holiday tradition is buying a new ornament each year for each of my children. Should they ever leave home/get married they’ll have a collection of ornaments to take with them.
My favorite holiday tradition is making gifts for people. In past years, this has included making 7 cross stitch kits of tea cups for my tea group, cross stitches for my sisters & cross stitch towels for friends. I’ve also made a needle turn appliqué Christmas wall hanging for family and friends the last 10 or more years. This year I “repurposed” 80 Christmas cards to go out with Meals on Wheels, & 3 appliquéd wall hangings plus 2 cross stitches…which I still need to stretch and frame. Oh, oh…
My favorite holiday tradition is chili in fiestaware lights bowls watching the original Grinch on Christmas Eve followed by everyone opening a special gift. Now it’s Christmas.
What a wonderful way to show off all the embroifery stitches – I love the blues.
These would make very nice Christmas presents.
My favorite tradition is opening gifts. We do it slow and it takes hours and really feels like family.
My favorite Christmas tradition is the exchange of special Christmas stocking gifts with other family members. We often spend more time selecting the ‘perfect’ little stocking gifts for than the larger items under the tree.
I would have to say that I really don’t have a favorite holiday tradition. I love everything about the holidays…the music, the cooking and eating, the decorating, caroling, attending Christmas Eve services, and best of all, my children and grandchildren coming to stay and visit with us!
Putting up seasonal Christmas decorations and the decorating of the fresh Christmas tree with baubles, lights and tinsel. Candles in red.
My favorite thing is getting to talk to family in Ireland, especially my daughter who’s been there for the last eight years. I also like a crisp morning walk in the neighborhood.
My favorite Christmas tradition has got to be giving a special ornament to each family member every year, with the date written on. Now, after 42 years of marriage, our tree is full of ornaments depicting our lives through the years, as well as my stitching interests. When our kids grew up, we gave them a box of their ornaments to start their own holiday tradition. And our grandkids report that their ornament, and their Christmas Eve gift of Pjs, are their favorite tradition memories.
My favorite holiday tradition is going through the boxes every year to pull out the handmade ornaments: The 3D printed ornaments from the family 3D printing afficionado, the tatted snowflakes, the bargello diamonds, the cross stitched ornaments, the tiny knitted stuffed animals that find their place under the tree or in the branched. The joy of re-discovery sets the mood for the entire season.
My favorite holiday tradition is opening the stockings 🙂 As kids, my brother and I would get up as early as we were allowed and we’d carry all of the stockings onto my parents’ bed to open them. We would make a mess all over their bed with the wrappings and little gifts!
I really love the season of advent. The advent candles and the calendars are among my favorite Christmas traditions.
Eating Date and Nut bread (family recipe) and egg nog !
First of all, I want to tell you how beautiful those little stockings are. I loved the tutorial you did and they are about my size for a challenge. I am an avid cross stitcher but you work always makes me want to branch out.
My favorite family tradition is Christmas Eve. My parents anniversary was Christmas Eve (1949) so after my siblings an I were old enough to stay alone they would go out to dinner and we would “do our own thing”. We would make a charcuterie board (probably with Velveeta but it was still treat) watch a Christmas movie, drink egg nog and just feel cozy. It really felt like our sibling Christmas. When my parents came home we would all gather and open one present and have a glass of champagne (even at age 10) When I ha my own children I continued this, but didn’t go to dinner. We still do charcuterie board, wrap some presents, watch a movie, carols on the radio and just keep it gentle and cozy. Now they have children and usually I travel their way and they carry this on. They all say Christmas Eve is their favorite time because it is together without the chaos.
Merry Christmas to you, and thank you for all you share. Susan
We now celebrate with everyone on Christmas Eve, so the grandkids can stay home on Christmas morning and enjoy the whole gifts from Santa experience. The hubby and I have our small exchange and then go to the movies in the afternoon.
My favorite holiday tradition is decorating the mantel. We don’t put up a tree every year. But, we always decorate the fireplace!
Good Morning – I am living one of my favorite Christmas traditions right now: the Lemon Fruit Cake is in the oven and smells wonderful. Made with a half pound of butter – how could you go wrong? After it cools I will wrap it in cheese cloth, sprinkle it with a sweet wine and put it in the refrigerator. It usually doesn’t last long!
I also make a Mill Hill ornament each year. My stocking ornament is stitched and beaded – waiting for me to finish it today for the tree.
Merry, Merry
My favourite event is decorating the family Christmas tree. We have many ornaments both purchased and handmade. Our favourite ones are the “Baby’s First Christmas” we bought when our sons were born in 1984 and 1985. The tin star that tops the tree is from 1954. It was purchased by my parents on their first Christmas with their first child – me. The star comes in its original box for 35 cents (!) and is a little bedraggled. But that’s what Christmas memories are made of.
My favorite holiday tradition? Every year, beginning the first Sunday in Advent, my husband reads Dickens’s “A Christmas Carol” aloud, one “stave” each week. Our kids are in their thirties now, and still show up for “the reading of the Scrooge,” as time and their schedules allow. With each reading we all discover new insights, which makes for lively discussions!
Mary – another great giveaway — these stockings are so cute!
My favorite holiday tradition — not something I’ve thought about. I’d say it’s all the wonderful Christmas music I’ve listened to, and sung, over the years. –JoanneP
I love getting the entire (extended) family together for Christmas dinner. After not being able to do it last year, it’s even more important. Can’t wait!!
Christmas stockings for everyone, even the oldest members of the family! We usually open gifts on Christmas Eve now that our children are grown but stockings are always done on Christmas morning.
Thanks for the giveaway! My favorite Holiday tradition is decorating the Christmas tree with my family. Many of our ornaments have great history and sentimental value.
My family background is Polish and my favorite tradition is the Christmas Eve Wigilia. My husband has eagerly adopted my traditions and so I have had Wigilia all my life. It’s a special Christmas Eve meal with much symbolism in anticipation of Jesus birth. As a child we would all gather at my grandparents home – siblings, aunts, uncles, cousins – and enjoy the special meal, sing kolendy(carols) and exchange family gifts. Now parents have passed and children are spread all over. But my husband and I still have Wigilia. A simpler version of the meal and kolendy on the CD player and lots of love and warmth.
My brother (23) and I (28) still put out our stockings on Christmas Eve, and my mom always fills them (and her own stocking, since as kids we insisted she needed one also) with fun little goodies like candy. There’s always a lump of coal wrapped up like a gift in the toe of each one, but the recipient of the biggest one depends on the year! :p
I love the family name Christmas we have. It is never on the 25th. That day is for parents and kids, the nuclear families that make up our larger family. The S_______ Christmas stated because 2 of my 3 brothers and Iyself worked jobs, er doc, sewer district and a continuous shift plant that meant we worked holidays weekends, different shifts . The family Christmas was when we were all free to gather in one house and share the love. Even when we no longer shared gifts we filled each other’s stockings with chocolate and other gourmet goodies, gag gifts and reminders of our shared history plus a fantastic holiday meal. We missed last year with the pandemic but will be gathering on the 26th this year with pleasure.
Love Xmas this would be awesome
Well today, my one and only possible grandchild was born. His birthday is very close to Christmas, so I will want to make everything possible for Bodhi’s tree, this year and every year, to show just how much he’s loved by his doting new grandma!
My favorite holiday tradition is making a big thermos of hot chocolate and driving around to look at the beautiful Christmas lights while listening to Christmas music. It never fails to get me into the spirit of the holiday.
My favorite holiday tradition is attending church on Christmas Eve. After all the activity during the Christmas season I like to take my family with me and attend the service that recalls the real meaning of Christmas. The birth of our Saviour.
What’s your favorite holiday tradition? My birthday is on Christmas Eve and my sister-in-law was born on Christmas Day. My Mother always had a special birthday celebration for the two of us at her home on Christmas Eve. She prepared a wonderful dinner, with birthday cake for desert. My SIL and I opened our birthday gifts (wrapped in birthday paper!), and we were serenaded with “Happy Birthday to You” by everyone. The grandkids DID get to open one Christmas gift each, from Grandma and Grandpa. To this day they all say those are their favorite Christmas memories.
No doubt! Decorating the tree!!! Ornaments that were my grandmother’s, mother’s; and hand made ornaments from family . A wonderful walk down Memory Lane!❤️
These kits are adorable! Thanks so much for doing these drawings, Mary!
Mary’s articles are always so positive & helpful. She has wonderful photos explaining exactly what she is trying to tell the stitcher. I look forward to her emails every week.
My favorite family tradition is now having my grown children spend Christmas Eve at our home & then we get up on Christmas morning, open gifts & have a very relaxing breakfast. There is nothing better than that! Merry Christmas, Mary & to your readers.
Getting together with my kids and then with my hubby’s kids
My favorite Christmas tradition is having my family at my house for Christmas Eve dinner, prime rib and all the goodies
Oops! Forgot to answer the question. I think putting up the tree is my favorite tradition.
Having all my siblings with their partners, children and grandchildren at our parents’ home for Christmas, all at the same time 🙂
Christmas Eve – just before bed about an hour or so; lights are all off or dimmed – Christmas lights only. Quiet classical music, tea, and a sweet. Time to think of all I’m grateful for, happy to have the work done, and a slow build of anticipation for Christmas day.
I so enjoy Christmas stitchery. This looks like fun!
Our family makes a human pyramid every year our extended family gets together for our Christmas celebrations. The babies/youngest are always on top. The older you get, the further down the pyramid you go!
Decorating the Christmas tree in the evening with the lights low so I can see the Christmas lights as we put the ornaments on the tree. While we decorate, we have eggnog and listen to Christmas songs.
What a special giveaway. Who can resist all the bling! Favorite holiday tradition : the handmade ornament I give to my granddaughter each year since she was born. One day she will have enough to start decorating her own tree.
My favorite holiday tradition is getting together with family and friends and remembering the story of Jesus’ birth.
This is such a great treat for Christmas. I was also trying to find this item in case My name is not chosen. These stockings are right up my alley. Thank you so much for all you do all year long. I embroidered years ago and got away from it. My wish to get back to it is inspired by your instructions and beautiful work. I live is a mostly rural area so the availability of classes are not close. Your tutorials and lovely photos are an inspiration. Thank you.
My favourite Christmas tradition is Christmas baking. I love shortbread and I make a few different cookies and squares and then I eat it all. Lol.
I love to uncover and thoughtfully place all my assorted Christmas decorations while listening to Christmas music and baking shortbread and fruitcake, but my most favourite thing to do at Christmas is to gather with my family members during the holidays.
My favourite holiday tradition is the decorating of the tree, complete with Christmas music playing and holiday appetizers and festive drinks.
My favorite Christmas tradition is making ornaments for my tree. Thanks for the chance.
My favorite tradition is family all together. Open gifts, dinner, and then we all play games. Ages six to 93, no one is left out!
My favorite holiday tradition is sending Christmas cards. I hand stitch them and personalize each one. I love sending some holiday cheer especially to my elderly friends.
My favorite holiday tradition is decorating the tree and… putting up stockings!
Putting baby Jesus in the manger on Christmas Day! We never did that as kids (he was just in the manger all December) but we’ve enjoyed it so much with our own children!
Watching White Christmas during the first snowfall of the season. Of course, hand stitching is done at the same time.
My favorite holiday tradition is…everything! Love it all!
The mini sampler stockings are so cute! A fun little project to do! Samplers are one of my favourites to stitch.
Hi Mary,
Thank you for your fun posts for the season!
My favorite holiday tradition is decorating the Christmas tree with many handmade ornaments from my Mom. She did crocheting on the satin balls, plastic canvas beaded stars, a church, a mailbox, perforated paper angels, and much more. She did these ornaments for decades for her 7 children, their spouses, and the great grandchildren. I have missed receiving a new ornament for the last 2 years since her passing at 101 years. Each ornament was made with her tremendous love.
My favorite holiday tradition is baking and decorating cut-out cookies with my mom. we always use her grandmother’s recipe. So tasty!
Christmas jigsaw puzzles and Mexican food on Christmas Eve! For more than 30 years (may be nearer 40 years these days!), I’ve bought a new Christmas jigsaw puzzle. 500-750 pieces. We start them Christmas Eve and finish them on Christmas Day. While puzzling, we indulge in home made chili, tamales, various fresh tortillas, various tortilla chips, and various dips (always guacamole, varying cheese dips, and a creamy jalapeno). While snacking and puzzling, we watch one of multiple “A Christmas Carol” movies. My favorite is George C. Scott, but the Muppet one generally wins. I swear my sister’s very grown children know every word of the Muppet Christmas Carol movie.
Answering this question prompted to pull out the puzzles (some years we have choices) for this year to take to my sister’s and BIL’s home – family Christmas central.
I would LOVE to win this prize!
When my children were young, we started the tradition of no cookies or eggnogg until the Christmas tree was decorated. Sometimes the wait was hard, but the tree got finished and the eggnogg and Christmas cookies with the family by the decorated tree were the best all season.
Love your newsletter ❤
My favorite holiday tradition is fruitcake!
My favorite holiday tradition is a Christmas sing-along started 30 years ago by my husband’s sister who is a talented singer/guitarist and is always a lot of fun.
I love baking all the special treats to share with friends.
Due to just moving, I couldn’t locate the Advent Wreath.
I was surprised at how much that bothered me. So, outside of the family gathering, I guess the Advent Wreath is my favorite tradition.
My favorite holiday tradition is choosing and then using our Advent calendars. Many years ago, we used to get the Kinder egg 24 door calendar, which has since sadly been discontinued.
This year, we each have a DavidsTea calendar – caffeinated for me and uncaffeinated for my husband. We look forward to trying out a different tea every day!
i love to make christmas stockings a give them away
Christmas morning breakfast. , with ham, croissants, pineapple and tomatoes. We used to have champagne as well but now stick to sparkling grape juice.
Oh, I would so love the stocking kit. I collect miniature stockings, and one of yours would be extra special!
My favorite holiday is Thanksgiving. First of all because it is more relaxed and peaceful, and second because I have SO much to be thankful for…especially this year.
Okay, the loot has all been opened. All of the dinner is made. The brisket is out of the smoker. (How I love my spouse). So what do we do? Go to the movies!
With the living room already converted to host the ravening hordes, there’s nothing for it but to bundle everyone up and drive 3 miles to the theater.
One rule….no food! Yup, no popcorn or candy. (Really, we already had Hors de’ouveres.) What are we seeing? No one knows till the day. Then I get to choose. Hey, it’s not a democracy. We always hold our holiday on the 24th or 26th.
We see a matinee. 2 hours later we are back and the feral kids are still trying to swipe cookies from the kitchen. We wash up and go straight to the table.
After eating, everyone helps return the house to it’s normal configuration. Some years we even take down the tree and ornaments, and group by group folks head home.
This year, my spider senses are tingling. Shhh! Don’t tell!
My favorite Christmas tradition is baking and decorating cut out cookies with my mom. Mom passed away last year, but the precious memories of spending time with her live on.
My favourite holiday tradition is the approach my husband’s family takes towards stockings. Everyone gets a stocking from Father Christmas regardless of age, and all presents are wrapped in plain red paper (after a smart child commented that Father Christmas used the same wrapping paper as grandma). Efforts are also made to ensure that anyone not involved in cooking Christmas lunch has a stocking present that will keep them occupied until food is ready – small Lego sets are a particular favourite.
My favorite Holiday tradition is the candle light service on Christmas eve.
My favorite holiday tradition is going to Christmas eve Mass where my sons at one time served as altar servers and now my grandchildren sing in the children’s choir.
I love that we all get together and have a great time with lots of laughter and food.
My mom used to make stollen, a German sweetbread, for the holidays. One for each child’s family, she had 5, and each married grandchild’s family. Needless to say it was a lot of stollen! Since she is no longer with us, my sisters, nieces, & nephews if they’re interested are carrying on the tradition. There are way too many cooks in the kitchen, but we have a lot of fun!
My favorite tradition with my family as we are all older, is to have a big meal together. We agree no gifts, but instead we all donate to a charity of one persons choice. This allows a great donation to one site and then next year, another one is chosen.
My favorite holiday tradition is caroling! My favorite caroling memory is from 35 years ago when our church youth group caroled with a small musical ensemble of instrumentalists accompanying the singers. We had such fun!
My favorite Christmas tradition is sending Christmas cards.
Hi Mary My favorite tradition is have a traditional Turkey dinner including Sweet Potatoes mashed with brown sugar, milk and butter. It just tops off our dinner.
Betty MV
My favourite holiday tradition is decorating the house with our old bits and bobs. We use driftwood and shells for the summer, winding ribbons and felt ornaments made by our daughter in Junior School round the banisters at Christmas, and making painted blown eggs at Easter!
My favorite holiday tradition involves cookie exchanges! Or dipping chocolates to hand out to friends and neighbors! It is so nice to share treats with other people, and have treats shared back in return;)
My favourite tradition is the Competition over who gets to my advent calendar first in the morning for chocolate!
My favorite tradition sadly, is one I can no longer do…my father would take me and my sister on a drive through downtown San Diego to see the Christmas lights and decorations. We all live in different states now and my father has passed on, but that is still my favorite tradition.
Cathy Rice
Midnight Mass
Quiet time. Getting up Christmas morning, having a cup of coffee with my husband, while opening our gifts to each other before everyone else arrives.
My favorite holiday tradition is putting out shoes for St. Nick’s day. A bit of fun and some sweet treats in the lead up to the big event.
Baking Swedish and French pastries for Christmas morning breakfast/brunch!
Christmas Eve at my sisters. Family all comes together
My favorite tradition at the moment is to decorate Christmas cookies with my grandkids. They are growing up but so far they still ask every year. It’s bittersweet to see them grow out of things but the memories will always be there for me and them.
My favorite holiday tradition is putting up the Christmas tree. The lights really put me in a holiday mood and the house looks so nice when the tree is lit and all the other lights in the room are turned off.
Christmas is my favorite party! I love all the rituals:
setting up the tree with all the ornaments collected over the years, each one has their memory and doing this with my grandchildren is wonderful; I love to prepare supper and then gather the family around the table to enjoy the delicacies; I love the exchange of gifts between us and seeing children curious about what they’re going to win is priceless…. Anyway, this Christmas party is something that fills my soul and prepares me for the next whole year.
My favorite tradition is our tradition of stockings. We all buy things for each other and on Christmas morning the kids end up on Mom & Dad’s bed or if we are visiting, on Grandma & Gramps’s bed, to open the stockings.
My favorite tradition for the holiday is making Christmas ornaments – Some to give away, and some to go on my tree
That’s such a hard question. Shopping is my least favourite, so making is my most favourite: The process of searching patterns, deciding, then finding the right modality for the right person; embroidery, crochet, knitting, or quilting. They’re works of love, and love is the most important holiday tradition. ❤️
I’m all about the cookies. Bake, bake, bake, eat, eat, eat, and share!
My favorite holiday tradition is to read the story of Christmas on Christmas Eve and enjoy some quiet time remembering the reason why we celebrate – the birth of our Savior Jesus Christ.
Setting up the tree with a particular theme. But next year I want to create a tradition of giving my daughters a hand embroidered Christmas tree decoration each year… I have Mary’s trees and still haven’t started. Should probably start early in the year so they will be done for Xmas.might be a New Year intention instead.
Christmas Eve at my sisters. Family all comes together for a night of laughs
My favorite holiday tradition is getting together with my family – my daughters, grandkids, husband, step-son, one daughter’s husband, and my ex-husband (who is part of the family!) for dinner and gifts. My grandkids are 13, 5, and 2, so there’s a wide variety of gifts and merriment for the three of them.
I tell my daughters that I don’t need/want anything for Christmas other than to spend time with them.
Christmas Mass, beautiful music, joyfulness
Going to midnight mass with my mother. I love to hear the message and the music. Close second is playing in the Handel Messiah when I get the chance.
Still love decorating the tree, and these little stockings would be a fun addition to the ornament collection!
My favourite Christmas Tradition is decorating the Christmas tree.
Thank you for all you do for others, and your generosity. Wishing you the happiest of festive seasons.
Helen Woods
I like your ideas to put a note in the stocking ornament. That is something I would do.
Cathy
Traditionally, I watch the Muppet Christmas Carol and the Claymation animated Christmas special on Christmas eve, followed by Die Hard on Christmas Day-we watch the entire Jurassic Park movie collection on New Year’s Day-not everyone’s idea of Christmas tradition but boy, do I get a lot of stitching done!
My favorite holiday tradition: Christmas cards!! I love writing & reading them, especially when they include the “Christmas letter” & photos. I’m sending 158 this year. Hurrah!!
My favorite holiday tradition is leaving little gifts for my children on St Nicholas day, December 6.
My favorite Holiday tradition is baking Christmas cookies. I also like to stitch small gifts.
My favorite holiday tradition is making Christmas gifts for as many people on my list as I possibly can.
For each new arrival to our extended family I make a Christmas stocking, and everyone in the family receives a chocolate letter, first letter in their name. I purchase close to 50 each year, and the family is growing. Its a Dutch tradition.
Hi Mary,
Our favorite Christmas tradition is for family and friends to gather at our home the Saturday before Christmas for a sleigh ride followed by games and refreshments (hot chocolate and finger food). It is the one time of the year where we are all present to enjoy each others company… a lot of good memories!
Watching christmas themed movie on Christmas eve. Polar Express one favourite of many
My favorite tradition is Christmas Eve dinner. Since our girls have been little we have watched the movie A Christmas Story while eating Chinese food like the family does in the movie. Now our girls are married and with children of their own the tradition has grown and became a huge event. I decorate our home with all kinds of oriental decor, Chinese lanterns hanging, a dragon, Chinese hats that each of us wear, Chinese food buffet, and we still watch A Christmas Story.
Our family has always done a big Christmas Eve dinner. It used to be my extended family complete with a visit from Santa (a neighborhood widower who visited and passed out gifts our parents had secretly delivered previously). These days it is smaller but includes family and friends with each family contributing to the meal something special they make!
My favourite holiday tradition is going to the movies on Christmas eve. I have done it since a child when it helped to make a long exciting night pass quicker.
My favorite holiday tradition is enjoying with our family a large decadent breakfast on Christmas morning. So much fun and delicious!
Favorite holiday tradition is hard to narrow down, I love them all. One that stands out is decorating our home with decorations I have received over the years from family and friends many who are no longer with us. Merry Christmas to everyone.
My favorite Christmas tradition was when I was a child. Family would gather at my grandma’s house and play games and then I’d stay overnight!
I’m not sure I have a favorite tradition since I try new things every year. Sometimes with fewer people in my life now (no kids and just getting older!) it’s nice to change things up. I’ll always put up a tree and do a little decorating, but other than that it’s open season (so to speak) on every thing else.
I have a small tree dedicated to my granddaughter. Every year I give her a handmade ornament to put on her tree. This kit would start a new tradition for us – making the ornaments together!
The start of the Christmas season is just so wonderful… unpacking the boxes of decorations and reminiscing over when/where/why they came from is such a pleasure as they’re brought out again. And packing them all away again by Twelfth Night in January is definitely NOT such a pleasure! (….although new additions are always welcomed )
Hi, Mary,
Thanks for your blog posts and embroidery tips!
My favorite Christmas family tradition is our snack night on Christmas Eve. My husband, our daughters and I wrap gifts, eat yummy appetizers, and play games. There are so few evenings that we are all together, and this is one we always look forward to! There are certain appetizers and desserts we equate with this event because we only have them on Christmas Eve (including homemade baklava!). At the end of the evening, we enjoy some Christmas cookies before setting out a plate for Santa!
My favorite tradition is my annual holiday open house. It’s a chance to see everyone during an afternoon of food, drink and fun.
My favorite Christmas tradition is decorating the tree. We listen to quiet Christmas music and set out the ornaments. Many are gifts from friends, sometimes hand stitched, and other ornaments are souvenirs from travels, and of course there are the ones hand-made by the children in our lives, now mostly grown with children of their own. Many happy memories!
My favorite holiday tradition is watching A Muppets Christmas Carole. We think it’s the best one to watch and sing to when sipping hot cocoa
Getting in the car with what is left of my close family and going thru the light show located in a state park high in the mountains….at that time when we are all together, everything surrounding us all bright and shiny,it seems as if even for a small period of time everything seems all right with the world.
Sitting by the fire on Christmas Eve, after the presents have been unwrapped
and feeling the peace and love of the season. The glow of the fire and the time to relax
makes this tradition special for me.
My favorite holiday tradition now that I’m older is to drive around at night looking at all the Christmas lights in town!
My Christmas Day tradition is drinking tea from a mug I got for Christmas in my first apartment out of college (1976). For New Year’s Eve is always nacho dip made with “real” Velveeta cheese and Rotel diced tomatoes and green chilies.
After our tree is decorated, I spend a few moments every night right before bed admiring it. The lights are all off, the house is quiet, and the tree sparkles with years of collected ornaments and the memories of the people connected to them. It’s my own time to be grateful for everyone and everything in my life.
What an extraordinary offering, the idea of an ornament from you hanging on my tree makes me giddy to think about it.
My favorite tradition is decorating the tree and remembering where the ornaments came from. So many from friends over the years, that warm the heart with memories of good times shared.
My favorite tradition is a round Christmas morning Bellinis with my family.
Hi Mary, my favorite tradition is the turkey my brother makes for Christmas (most of the time is a little overcooked 😉 ).Every year is an event because most of the family gets together and he cooks so much stuffing that we freeze it until September .
My favorite tradition is listening to our recording of Dylan Thomas reading his wonderful poem A Childs Christmas in Wales.
Such a warm and lovely reading.
My favorite holiday tradition is getting out all the handmade decorations from previous years and remembering who made them and when (sometimes a bit sad, but that’s ok …….).
My favourite holiday tradition takes me all year. I make ornaments for each of my children, their partners and someday (fingers crossed) grandchildren. I so enjoy planning, making and giving them, but it’s even better to see them on their Christmas trees in their own homes, and reminisce about past years’ ornaments. Warm Christmas wishes to all stitchers and their families everywhere!
While I like most all of the Christmas holiday traditions it is the gathering of family members that I enjoy most.
Our family gathers together, and we exchange gifts, then have a holiday dinner.
The visiting is also very important as we catch up on what is going on with each member.
I have been ‘eyeing’ this kit of the Christmas Stockings and would really like to make them.
I often make an ornament for each family household, and these would be perfect for 2022.
I really enjoy your Blog, Keep It Coming.
Lorri Ferguson
our traditions include many weeks of menu selections, Christmas baking and the tree goes up earlier and earlier! but who cares….Christmas is but once a year.
My favorite holiday tradition is getting my 4 grandkids together to bake cookies for the afternoon. This year, we’re also planning on popcorn and a movie after dinner, maybe a sleepover.
Putting ornaments on our tree is my favorite part of Christmas. Many of them are handmade and others are gifts from long-gone friends. Memories triggered by each and every one are always a part of my Christmas.
It’s hard to pick just one. The best ones revolve around family. I’ll pick a blast from the past rather than a current one. As a child we would always go to my Grandparent’s house on Christmas Eve. I can see the punch bowl with Grandma’s Christmas punch in it. (The adults added a liberal dose of whiskey!) They had one of the early artificial trees and I can still remember how to put it together.
I love opening my stocking Christmas morning. And then having breakfast.
Sadly, I have to find a new holiday tradition because my husband died in September.
But I have lots of friends and a dog, so am very lucky.
Perhaps I’ll stay up all night and stitch. That I would enjoy.
My favorite holiday tradition is thinking of the absolutely perfect gift for others. If I win this drawing, I will give the kit to my very good friend and stitching companion who makes the most beautiful miniature Christmas stockings, and always has a lovely display of her collection.
My favorite Christmas tradition: Decorating the fireplace mantle with the small stores & houses a friend gave me a few years ago. It’s a sweet reminder to be a friend to others & let others into my life & heart.
My Favorite Christmas tradition is to have our children and grandchildren in our house, have dinner with them and open the Christmas presents.
My favorite Christmas tradition is when the family all gets together to decorate the Christmas tree. Grandparents, parents, children, grandchildren and great grandchildren all together to join in the fun. Afterwards, we sit around the tree and sing Christmas carols. What fun!
I love sharing Christmas cookies and tassies. Beautiful trays of scrumptious flavors!
Each year our Embroidery Group does a Handmade Christmas Ornament Swap. I have such a beautiful collection of tree ornaments and many lovely memories of friends past and present.
Not too much tradition – but the first thing I thought of was green bean casserole. Sometimes the simple things are appreciated.
I never make it until Thanksgiving to keep it special.
My favorite holiday tradition is Christmas Eve service. Many, many things have changed but the Christmas Eve service is a constant and beautifully represents the season.
My favorite Christmas tradition is the Christmas Eve service at the church which always ends with lighted candles and singing Silent Night.
My favorite holiday tradition is watching the movie White Christmas” with my wife, drinking hot buttered rum and laughing at the alley scenes. She died in June so will be watching it alone this year.
My favorite holiday tradition would have to be having the youngest member of the family (that honor now goes to my sister’s 5-year-old as my grandkids are teenagers already) hand out the gifts when we gather for gift opening on Christmas Day or Boxing Day (whichever works to have the whole family available). It’s always fun to watch the youngster struggle with reading the tags on the gifts and trying to figure out who “Mom” is… oh my, we forgot, there are technically 4 moms in the room counting Great-grandma, Grandma, and 3 aunties. 😉 The greatest delight comes, though, when the youngster realizes the biggest box of all under the tree is… “Oh.. it’s for me! Yay!”
My favorite holiday tradition is baking cookies and doing a Christmas gift puzzle with the family
My favorite tradition is decorating a tree (or three or four)
I love to have our stockings filled with small gifts and goodies to open on Christmas morning!!
My favorite holiday tradition is actually a pre-holiday one. Every evening from the first Sunday of Advent, we turn off the lights and light the appropriate candle(s) on the Advent wreath. Then, we take turns choosing our favorite Christmas carols, singing them together as a family, and sharing memories or stories about anything.
We always include “Deck the Halls with Boston Charlie.” I have no idea who or what Boston Charlie is, but a long time ago, when Dad was a kid, he, Grandpa, and Uncle saw that in the comics. When Grandma asked why they were singing that, their response was, “The turtle sang it!” and it became a bit of a tradition. We’ve forgotten most of the lyrics, but they include “Walla-Walla, Washington, Kalamazoo! Nora’s freezing on the trolley,” and then they turn into whatever works.
My favorite holiday tradition is early Christmas Eve mass and then an early Christmas Eve dinner.
Merry Christmas and a very Healthy Happy New Year!
For me, it is decorating the Christmas tree – I have a mish mash of gifted, hand made and traditional decorations and seeing each one brings with it a lot of happy memories. I remember the people who gave me the decorations, some who have since passed away and the special times their gifts represent. It is always a tradition I relish.
My favorite Holiday tradition is going to church on Christmas Eve, then going home making the last minute items and then having all the family around for a great meal.
Thanks again.
Melinda
my favorite holiday tradition is the reading by my Dad, of the birth of Christ, from the book of Luke before opening presents
I’ve been eyeing this stocking pattern for a while now, I’d be thrilled to win one! Especially since my favorite holiday tradition is making ornaments for loved ones.
The top favorite tradition is baking cookies. My mom would bake so many different kinds; I can hear the ‘chunk’ ‘chunk’ ‘chunk’ of the cookies gun as she made flowers & wreaths & such. She saved the 3lb coffee cans during the year to store the cookies in, as they were then stored in the chest freezer in the garage. Sadly, cookies would go missing . . . . hmmmm. It is from her that I bake today & give most of them away. Over the years I have culled favorites, but I am always ready to try something new.
The most interesting one, was the one that was made from crushed potato chips. It was my job to crush them & I got to use the rolling pin! My stupid older sister had to wash the dishes.
My favorite holiday tradition is Christmas caroling with friends and family and then hot cocoa and cookies afterwards.
The favorite Christmas tradition is the family barbeque at my daughter’s house and for me, followed by a quiet peaceful boxing day doing either stitching or lace.
Thanks for the opportunity to win the beautiful stockings. Hard to pick a favorite tradition, but going to Christmas Eve service is very special, and the last hymn with lit candles brings tears to my eyes. Happy Holidays and time to stitch that last ornament!!!
I can’t pick just one holiday tradition……. I love decorating the tree, baking cookies with loved ones or our Christmas Eve feast before midnight mass. They are all great fun. How can you choose just one?
recevoir mes enfants 4 plus les 3 petits enfants
merci sylvie
My favourite holiday tradition is sitting around the table with family and friends.
Getting together with my sister, my mom and various cousins (and later nieces and nephews) to make pierogis to serve at Christmas eve dinner. Oh and the dinner was fun too.
I love this question! My favorite holiday tradition began when my (now 51-year-old) 9-year-old daughter said that, “Since Adam came before Eve, the 23rd of December is Christmas Adam.” Ever since then we have celebrated the holiday for three days, beginning on Christmas Adam! This year will be our eighth year to attend The Nutcracker with our daughter, son-in-law, and two granddaughters, followed by dinner at a favorite Italian restaurant. It’s a fabulous time, and a great start to the three-day weekend.
Susan Brooks
Wait, I can only have one favorite tradition? Of course we have a pickle, or three, on the tree…and my kids would find them and move them around on me! And they would get to open one gift on Christmas Eve, which was always my ornament for them that year…not that they have taken them all with them when they left home…sigh…but the one tradition that my daughter has kept (yeah!)… was little stockings on the tree… and Santa somehow always finds a Santa or snowman chocolate that he can squeeze in! I’d love to win – I need a stocking for her youngest…we didn’t manage to get one made last year! Yikes! Almost forgot about it, thanks for the reminder! Merry Christmas and have a happy new year too!
Putonghua the angle on top of the tree is our tradition. . My mom is no longer with us, but every time I get it out, I feel her presence.
One of my favorite traditions is pulling out the box of Christmas tree decorations, and reflecting on the memories of so many of the ornaments, such as who made them or who gave them to me as gifts. It’s sort of like going through a box of old photos!
My favourite tradition dates back to the early days of our three children’s Christmas, where they each put out a Santa pillowcase which was filled during the night. Now I still have these, and each year when they are with us, fill them out with bits and bobs I’ve collected through the year. Sometimes there is a theme, such as kitchen or garden, sometimes just whatever takes my fancy. And of course, the favourite sweets, chocolates etc. Each year I say it’s the last, and each year I can’t wait to fill them! They are in their late 30’s and early 40’s and also love it.
My favourite Christmas season endeavour is by far baking! Lots of old family favs and always a couple of new ones to try. Luckily there are kids and grands so we don’t eat it ALL by ourselves!
My favorite holiday tradition is to come to work: I work helping newborn babies come into the world and nothing is more special than meeting the sweet little Christmas and New Years babies each year! My birthday is during this time too so when I get to share a birthday with with a baby it’s happy time.
My favorite holiday tradition is making Christmas ornaments for everyone who comes for Christmas Eve.
For 14 years I lived in my grandparents’ house so my mom’s entire extended family came to our place for Christmas Eve every year. Every year I lived there (and a few years before I moved in, I think) I made enough Christmas ornaments to allow everyone who came to pick one out to take home. My grandma died last year and we had to move out of the house, plus with COVID-19 we couldn’t all get together anyway, but I still made ornaments for everyone and we dropped them off at everyone’s house (along with Swedish meatballs and other goodies that we’d normally serve on Christmas Eve).
This year Christmas Eve will be at my aunt’s house (provided the omicron variant doesn’t shut things down) and I’ve made forty-two of the Mill Hill beaded cross stitch ornament kits this year. One for myself and another forty-one that I’ll bring to the Christmas Eve party so everyone can have one. (We’ll have around 35 people, so there will be enough extra ornaments so nobody gets stuck with one they don’t like.)
Putting up the Christmas tree on thanksgiving day when turkey is in the oven
Making cookies with my grown up daughters is one of my favorite holiday traditions. Singing carols, new and old recipes, a few burned always, and wine and eggnog. Every cookie eaten during the season brings smiles and memories of together time!
Fave tradition? Putting up the Christmas tree, each year unearthing memories of each ornament as each one has a story. And regardless of what someone may tell you – there are NEVER too many ornaments on a tree!
Merry Christmas Mary!
My favorite holiday tradition is collapsing on the couch after a long Christmas day to watch A Christmas Story with my son.
My favourite festive tradition is decorating a small tree with ornaments that I’ve made, have been made by friends and, most special, were my Mum and Dad’s – a tangible and lovely connection to them and my childhood
My favourite holiday tradition is to give and receive advent calendars. I’m more so talking about the old fashioned kind with little pictures in. It’s amazing how opening a little door each day helps to feed the anticipation of the approach of Christmas!
When I was young, my siblings and I would line up as my Dad passed out an ornament to each of us to hang on the tree. When you hung yours, you got back in line.
My favorite holiday tradition is getting up Christmas morning, getting cup of coffee, and opening presents (in jammies) with my son & family.
Thank you, Mary, for the wonderful opportunity to make your beautiful Christmas stockings!
My favorite Christmas tradition is sadly no longer an option.
When my grandparents became elderly, my children were old enough to stay up late, and we lived with a lot of likely snow & ice between our houses we changed our entire Christmas tradition. We madly made our preparations up until time for Midnight Mass (anything not wrapped by then was given in a bag!). After Mass, we unwrapped our gifts. The kids were delighted to be able to open them early! We could sleep in a bit, have early brunch, and research the roads up to Grandma & Grandpa’s house. If it looked like safe travels for the day, we called see if they wanted guests for a few hours. They were always delighted! To keep my Grandmother from working hard and cooking until we arrived, we stopped on the way for “Chinese food”, her favorite. We’d spread the “feast”, open packages after, chatter away for several hours and leave for our 3 hour trip home in the evening. My grandparents loved the Christmas chaos & “Chinese” food. We loved not having to worry that they would overwork themselves and get too tired. The kids loved every bit of it plus had a nap on the way home. We, the parents, usually were exhausted but so, so happy – family means so much!
Thanks again, Mary
laura
One of my favorite family traditions is holiday baking – especially my mom’s Buckeye recipe. We share our treats with friends and family. Have passed the family recipe to my daughter and grandchildren who also love to bake.
My favorite holiday tradition is opening one gift on Christmas Eve – new pajamas!
My favourite holiday tradition is the stirring of the Christmas pudding on stir-up Sunday. everyone stirs the pudding and makes a wish before its put in the mold and steamed.
Thanks again.
My favourite Christmas holiday tradition is that all the family gathers together for good fun, good food and love.
My favourite holiday tradition is when the whole family get together on Christmas Day for dinner. Everybody brings part of the dinner so that no one person is responsible for preparing all the menu items. It seems that is the only time that the whole family gets together.
Favorite tradition? Getting the tree right after Thanksgiving, getting it up and decorated, and being able to enjoy it for almost a whole month.
My favourite holiday tradition is when the whole family get together on Christmas Day for dinner. Everybody brings part of the dinner so that no one person is responsible for preparing all the menu items.
I really enjoy learning the beautiful techniques you show us!
My favourite holiday tradition is when the whole family gets together on Christmas Day for dinner. Everybody brings part of the dinner so that no one person is responsible for preparing all the menu items.
Our family always orders Chinese for dinner on Christmas. A gift to all the cooks in the family so they can have the day off. Ditto on Easter..
I love Christmas Day dinner with the whole family
My favorite holiday tradition is making ornaments with my family (usually paper) and cooking with my son. He’s a marvelous cook and has a family of his own that he cooks for. I mostly make meals alone now so cooking together is a real treat. I love hanging out in the kitchen discussing the flavors and textures and trying to make the best meal possible together. My grandchildren are in and out of the kitchen bringing laughter and joy to a house that has become pretty quiet in the past 6 years.
It is just my husband Kevin and I at home. Our favourite holiday tradition is to get things ready for our big dinner of the day. We then put our turkey in the oven to roast and head out onto the nearby trail for a short walk in the woods. It is peaceful and so good for the soul. A wonderful place to count our blessings.
My favorite Christmas time is always the candlelight Christmas Eve service at church, with fresh greens, lit tree, and everyone singing carols. So peaceful, beautiful, and joyous.
One word – COOKIES!
My favorite holiday tradition is lighting the candles of the Advent wreath. I love the anticipation in the weeks leading up to Christmas, and the candle lighting gives something small to look forward to each week during the season of waiting.
My favorite Christmas tradition is decorating the trees and my home. I only use decorations or ornaments that my husband or I have made or purchased on vacation or that we received as a gift. The collection grows and grows.
Merry Christmas and Blessings for the New Year.
Since my kids were little and we first saw The Nightmare Before Christmas at the cinema, it has been a tradition that we watch it on Christmas Eve – together if possible. Now they’re in their 30s and we all live in different parts of Australia, but we still all watch it in our respective homes.
My favourite Christmas tradition is going to our daughter’s home for Christmas lunch – her husband is a chef – he cooks, so we can spend special time with our daughter. (He even washes up after we have all finished – he does not like anyone in his kitchen.) What a blessing at this time of the year.
Recieving cards with letters from long time friends in different parts of the country.
Our Christmas tradition is to have Christmas Dinner in my studio overlooking the Frankland River. A full family gathering every 3rd year when all the kids come home, a quieter one the other years with just close family.
My favorite Christmas holiday tradition was on Christmas eve we’d leave cookies and milk for Santa and then read Twas the Night Before Christmas book. My daughter now has carried that tradition on with her 4 children!
My favourite holiday past time is to get lots of stitching done. I always have a couple of small projects with me that can easily come out when I am relaxing on a beach, in a plane, on a train or in a hotel room.
As a child, we decorated our tree on Christmas Eve. As an adult, I continued this tradition. However, when my daughters were young, I started having appetizer dinner to go with the tree decoration. When my daughters become adults, appetizer dinner switched to Christmas day. Instead of gifts for the adults, people made special appetizers tailored for another adult (and child). (The kids still gave and received gifts.) By doing this, everyone still received something special and the host/hostess did not have to cook a meal.
My favorite Christmas tradition is creating items for friends and family. I have made crocheted snowflakes, quilted and embroidered ornaments, Christmas tree skirts, too many items to remember, also I have been making apple butter every year since 1974! My family and friends are always happy with that! These are my ways of showing God’s love!
My favorite holiday tradition is baking (and eating) cookies. Chocolate is part of that as well, of course.
Dear Mary,
I love the excitement leading up to Christmas It is a period of reflection for us. We chose a work each day during Advent to focus on, such as hope, peace, compassion, kindness, truth, humility, etc. I love the introspection and calmness of this reflection leading up to the celebration of Christmas Day.
Thank you.
Kind regards
Louisa
Oh it is just a joy to remember:
My favorite holiday tradition is:
When we are visiting my friend, ( we have had studying together! ), who lives with her family in Mallorca/ Spain it is our tradition to have a „sundowner“ together at the PLAÇA MAJOR where she lives. I love the feeling of being around all this people and kids, love watching them…. and then people who live there, talk with her kids in MAJORCIEN (the Spanisch slang that’s used and tought there) ….. that is so international and likeminded…. and it it warm there!
Maybe you should have a „sundowner“ with a friend too, just because…..?!?!?!… you are friends!!!
Eating a Pandoro
My family always opened presents on Christmas Eve and we would have a finger food buffet for dinner and then plates of cookies and candy while we opened the gifts.
Christmas Eve late church service with special music.
My favorite holiday tradition is sitting around the Christmas tree with those I love, singing Christmas carols, nibbling on goodies, and chatting about the day to come.
My favorite holiday tradition is on New Year’s Eve when we sit by the fire with a glass of wine or a cup of cocoa and share our memories of the year, and discuss things we would like to do in the coming year.
Our favorite thing for Christmas is having a feast with food we don’t have all year. Everyone brings something and we all have such a wonderful time.
Family is everything!
My favorite holiday tradition is the gift-giving part. I enjoy choosing gifts for my relatives, especially the children. Watching them open my gifts is fun too. Last year I got my 4-year-old great-niece a set of Russian nesting dolls and she played with them for hours! I love those stocking ornaments!
My favorite tradition is using the music box Christmas tree stand, that came from Germany many years ago, that also turns the tree ‘round & ‘round. That latter bit makes it somewhat safer for another reason I love this tradition so – we use real candles when there are enough adults present who promise to stay in the room and pay attention to any kids and pets also present.
My family’s favorite Christmas tradition is getting together to bake everyone’s favorite cookies right before Christmas. It does not matter which house we are at, the weather, etc. As grandchildren get older, the type of cookies may change but everyone participates. It is a day of chaos, fun and being together as a family. We then make up gift plates so we can take the cookies to neighbors, teachers and other special people in our lives.
My favorite Christmas tradition is going to church on Christmas Eve and lighting the candles as we sing Silent Night! I am 69 years old and last year was the first time I was not able to go to a Christmas Eve service (Covid). The service was online, but not the same!
We always have croissants with ham and cheese for breakfast at Christmas time – best tradition!
One of my favorite holiday traditions has been the Christmas Eve service at a little Lutheran church near where I grew up. The service was always very simple and non-denominational: several Christmas carols, sung either a capella or with a string quartet, a reading of the Christmas story from the Gospel of Luke, a candle-lighting, and ending with singing “Silent Night”. Sadly, I have yet to find a similar Christmas Eve service in any of the places I’ve lived since.
I love baking Christmas cookies and decorating the house with the family while listening to music.
When our sons were little, I would set the table the night before with the special-occasion china my mother gave me. We have a favorite make-ahead recipe that the boys called “Christmas casserole”. Christmas morning, the pan went in the oven before we opened gifts. That way it was ready to eat when we were ready to eat it! I loved those special holiday breakfasts. Our sons are grown and out on their own now, but they still come over on Christmas morning with their girlfriends, to open presents and eat Christmas casserole. This year will be special because our military man will be here for the first Christmas in years.
Favorite holiday tradition? Eating more than normal serious amounts of tamales, baked goods, and munchies. Holiday pig out!
My favorite holiday tradition is actually one for Thanksgiving. Many years ago there was a sweet potato that escaped my notice which ended up sprouting vines. Instead of trying to eat it, we planted in in a tub. Next Thanksgiving we went digging and of course found more potatoes! We never got many nor were they big, but they always had to be included in our dinner – except the one that we planted for next year’s crop.
My favorite holiday tradition is gathering with family
My favorite holiday tradition is sharing the memories that each ornament brings as it is hung on the tree. The most important to us and our adult kids is the home-made construction paper angel that graced our first Christmas tree 54 years ago. We made all our own ornaments that year, and somehow the angel is the only one that has survived all these years, and is the first one the kids make sure is present and accounted for. I guess she reminds us all that no matter what we have gone through this year, even if we’re a little more tattered worn, we always have each other.
My favorite holiday tradition is eating cake for breakfast on Christmas morning because it’s my birthday!!! I started it 32 years ago when my very small children tried to make me breakfast in bed. I got cold toast, rubbery eggs and decided to start the very next year eating cake for breakfast tradition. They are in their mid-thirties now and we’ll be doing it again this year!
We watch the Grinch cartoon and then go driving around to see Christmas lights.
My favorite holiday tradition is colored lights reflected in water. Also Cherry Cordials.
My favourite holiday tradition is my family gathering together for a few days of merriment.
My favorite holiday tradition is our family’s Christmas Eve party after Christmas Eve Mass.
The best is midnight mass. However, Grandma’s Christmas Casserole, and presents are darned good as well.
Thank you for a lovely giveaway Mary. I bought the pattern but haven’t started it.
One of my favourite things is embroidering decorations for family and friends. I began this custom some years ago. It would be lovely to stitch the mini stockings and see their smiles! Happy holidays!
My favourite holiday tradition is our Christmas morning brunch. We open our stockings while the food finishes cooking/warming and then have an amazing meal. We spend the afternoon opening the gifts. Up until Covid, we would have up to 18 people around the table.
I enjoy making Christmas gifts and Christmas cookies with my grandchildren.
I absolutely love this stocking and been wanting to try it for awhile so hope to win this. It is just gorgeous and would help me to learn new stitches, which I am really trying to do!!! Merry Christmas Mary and thanks for all you do!!!
My favorite holiday tradition is anticipating Christmas with an advent calendar. Our advent “calendar” is a pretty wooden house with 24 doors and a little wooden ornament behind each door. Each day we open a door and place the ornament on a small table top tree. On the 24th day the ornament is always the nativity. Wishing everyone a blessed Christmas!
My favorite holiday tradition is getting the whole family together for a meal. Everyone brings something to share-it’s a big family so there is always a lot of good food.
When we were growing up we had two traditions that have stayed with me.
We always got to open one package on Christmas Eve. It took us a long time to figure out it would always be pajamas so we would look picture perfect on Christmas morning.
The other one was on Christmas Eve going to bed, Mom and Dad always played Christmas music on the intercom system we had. We would go to sleep dreaming of a wonderful Christmas.
Favorite tradition is watching White Christmas. It is a classic and always gets me in the mood for Christmas.
…attending a small olde-worlde church with a choir singing carols, then having cold roast chicken with crusty bread and a simple salad
My family has an ornament exchange. It is always great fun.
my favorite holiday tradition? Decorating the tree? All the desserts? Getting together with family? Baking cookies? I think it’s all of the above!
Our family’s favourite tradition was started by my Canadian grandmother whilst we were living in England, now we are all in Australia and the tradition lives strong across all the generations and the continents. After we have finished our final meal on Christmas evening, we bring out the Sleigh which sits proudly in the centre of the table. Each family member has placed a small gift in the sleigh as they arrived during the day. It works like a Kris Kringle, we all have a nominated family member to purchase a gift for. Each gift is randomly taken and handed out, the gifts can be funny, specially target to the recipient or more generic, it doesn’t matter, it’s just the last gift giving for the day and always a lot of fun. Thank-you to my Grandma, and now I am a Grandma it is still so much fun. My brother’s family follows the same tradition – they live in a different state, but it is a much loved tradition for them, memories of family live on forever.
My favourite Christmas tradition has to be decorating the house. I’ve collected Christmas items my entire life and have an amazing assortment. I can’t wait to get them out in December and enjoy them.
Thanks so much for your Christmas give-away!
Mary- Thanks so much for the giveaway! I especially love our Christmas Eve tradition. We start by attending a service at church or the reading of the Christmas story at home. We then gather around for appetizers, punch and cookies and open one very special gift.
My favorite holiday tradition is making butter cookies, almond biscotti, peanut brittle, chocolate almond toffee and eggnog with my husband. We usually take on the prep a day or two before Christmas Day (the eggnog is better if it sits) and then on the holiday we spend the whole day in our pj’s sipping the nog & noshing on the candy & cookies. It’s the ultimate in relaxation and indulgence and a time for us to just be together without any distractions from the outside world…complete bliss…I cannot wait!!
My favorite holiday tradition at the moment is doing jigsaw puzzles over Christmas. This is a tradition I inherited from my paternal grandparents who always had a puzzle out on a spare table so that people could work on it and chat while visiting.
One tradition is hard to name. We have our routine…no children around anymore, so we turn on the tree, have special yummy breakfast, and then open our gifts to each other over our second…er maybe third…cup of coffee.
My favorite Christmas tradition is celebrating the Polish Wylia with my familiy.
Holiday traditions are so fun and there are so many… there is just so much to do during the weeks leading up to the holiday. My favorite is technically after Christmas. After the gifts are given the services attended, the meal cooked and eaten, things calm down (food comas are a thing). Since we cook for the families, my best friend and I sneak out while the others watch whatever is on TV. We pile into her car and spend a couple of hours sipping cocoa, chatting, and looking at Christmas lights. When we get done we will clean up from the day, but those 2 hours are our “run away from being adults time.”
my favorite tradition has always been Christmas Eve at Grandma and Grandpa’s. Of course Grandma and Grandpa have changed over the years as loved ones pass on.
Merry Christmas Mary. Thank you so much for another year of useful instruction, quality products and helpful reviews. I have learned so much from you, and it is deeply appreciated. I have many favorite holiday traditions, and they all seem to center around food, especially baking, decorating and eating Christmas cookies!
On Christmas Eve my husband and I enjoy a special dinner and then watch a Christmas movie. Then we put our cookies and milk out for Santa and head to bed! Our inner child is still alive! Lol
My husband and I love decorating, especially with handmade ornaments.
My favorite holiday tradition besides the baking has to go driving out to other neighborhoods and look at all the beautiful lights outside. And admire the hard work and time that my neighbors did to make the neighborhood so beautiful.
What’s your favorite holiday tradition? My favorite holiday tradition is that when everything else is done for the day, we will sit down and play 42 for the evening. We will also have conversations and tell stories of past holidays. We really enjoy playing dominos together.
One of my favorite holiday tradition is having many family and friends over on Christmas Day. We have a bit of cheer , play games, and eat way to much. Then when all gone I put on a oldie but goodie Christmas movie on –Its a Wonderful Life and/or White Christmas.
Merry Christmas to all
My favorite holiday tradition is being with all of our family on a day that we can get together. We make a huge pot of gumbo, big bowl of potato salad and tons of snacks and sweets. After eating we watch the little children open all their gifts then the adults play a game that we call steal the ornament. Each of the adults bring an ornament with no names on the package. These grown children act more like the little ones, some get mad, some are so funny, and so much negotiating how they are going to get the best ornament. It is so much fun and normally they all go home laughing!
Mary, I have learned so much from your blog. I have made some beautiful pieces with the stitches I have learned from you…….Thank You!!!
My favorite holiday tradition is watching terrible Christmas movies with my mom. Thanks for offering this great giveaway!
My favorite holiday tradition is filling stockings! My Mom knit stockings for my sisters and I as well as numerous nieces and nephews. I’m the only knitter in the family and I’ve been unsuccessful at converting requests for knit stockings to hand stitched stockings :(. I am not nearly as good a knitter as my mom and I find needlework a million times more relaxing!
Darlene L.
My family’s favorite Christmas tradition started when the We discovered THE CHRISTMAS REVELS productions in the early 80’s. A live performance (with some audience participation) of singing, dancing, and a play of various cultural Christmas traditions (including historical times) found worldwide. It is a joyous production and we always leave imbued with Christmas spirit.
Will it be possible to purchase the printed book mentioned in this article????
These giveaways are such fun, Mary, and such a creative idea on your part. I love that you require we answer a question; perusing the replies is a delightful pastime.
My favorite tradition of the season is one we borrowed nearly 50 years ago from a parish priest: Instead of laboring over a big, time-consuming Christmas dinner (and the associated clean-up), we graze throughout the day on foods such as Mary and Joseph might have had in the stable in Bethlehem – various breads, cheeses, fresh and dried fruits. It helps us focus on”the reason for the season.”
I would love a stocking kit. My favorite holiday tradition is Christmas with family, and having a meal together.
G’day Mary, and thank you kindly for the offering the prize,
Air con on. Ham in the fridge. Cold potato salad with homemade dressing. Other salads.
Pavlova with plenty of diced fruit and very think cream.
Watermelon for arvo tea.
Cheers, Kath
I love these stockings! I’ve never made anything like this but I would love to try to.
Aside from celebrating Christmas with my family (which is the most important tradition, to me), my favorite Christmas tradition is listening to “All Classical Portland” (our local classical music station) streaming the Festival of Carols for the 3 days before Christmas and also Christmas day. I’ve always loved Christmas music, and I’ve found so many new favorites over these past few years since I started listening to their Festival. I highly recommend it, if it sounds at all interesting.
Some of the best things come in small packages! Small stockings would be great projects to get a jump on Christmas 2022!
Best of plans … and intentions
Thanks for this opportunity!
The Christmas Eve dinner & celebration we have is a favourite tradition. We usually have some classic Scandinavian foods like lutefisk & lefse included in the feast. Our leisurely Christmas mornings spent sitting around the table eating the oranges, nuts & goodies from our stockings is also a fave. Christmas cookies are considered perfectly acceptable breakfast food as well!
Our favorite holiday tradition is driving through the neighborhoods that out out luminaries on Christmas Eve. We play Christmas music and slowly drive through. We feel like we are welcoming Christmas.
Anticipate and enjoy your excellent projects. Don’t attempt most but gain reading all your tips and hot-tos. Thank you, Mary.
Know that this holiday will be different and You are in my prayers.
My favorite Christmas activity is filling the stockings with fun little gifts. I would love to gift myself something in one of these cute little stockings!
OHSue
My favorite part of Christmas is eating my Aunt Plunk’s lemon icebox pie!
My favorite holiday tradition is setting up our Christmas Nativity set and attending Midnight Mass!
My favorite holiday tradition is putting up and enjoying the Christmas tree. Also drinking eggnog and looking at Christmas lights.
The Mini Sampler Stocking looks like a delightful project.
My favourite holiday tradition is to start the new stitching project I gave myself for Christmas.
My favorite holiday traditions are decorating the Christmas tree, baking fruit mince pies and having scrambled eggs and bacon for the Christmas morning family breakfast
What a wonderful prize!! Especially the homemade aspect from your house to a lucky winner. Thank you for the opportunity to win this beautiful stocking and kit.
It is hard to pick just one because I love Christmas. Attending Christmas Eve service with the family ranks way up there. It is a time when we can all take a breath from Christmas preparations and remember the reason we celebrate through beautiful music and service. Cookie baking is high on the list as well. It brings us all together in the kitchen. Really there are just so many wonderful traditions at Christmas.
Thank you for this chance. My favorite holiday tradition is preparing a Christmas Eve dinner for my brother and his wife and two daughters, giving gifts afterward, and then going with them to midnight Mass.
My favorite holiday tradition is Midnight Mass. It’s just so special!
I admit it, my favorite holiday tradition is exchanging gifts!!!
My favourite tradition in sunny Queensland is having carolers visit, usually a local family, to sing a couple of Christmas carols and share some hugs and cold refreshments. Sadly, it’s happening less and less.
In our family we have a special gift called” the Whitney Xmas present. During the year I pick up on things like I would like ……… for Xmas. That person that said it will get a special gift . Next year they are not in the running for the whiney gift to give everyone a chance to have it
My favorite holiday tradition is drinking eggnog on Christmas Eve while watching a holiday movie
My favorite tradition is Christmas breakfast when we open our stockings. We have very small presents and the stockings have oranges in the toe. My mom said that when she was young, fruit was a special treat. They had very little and made a big deal of what they had. It is nice to have a tradition passed down.
My sister, Judy, and I have traded off holiday cooking for the past 10+ years. Part of my own family fun was her helping me (and me helping her) whoever was doing the cooking. Unfortunately I lost her in February this year and am a bit adrift. New traditions will include our other sister who lives in another state… technology makes that a lot easier. LOVE these stockings … thank you for the opportunity!
I look forward to attending the late church service on Christmas Eve and especially enjoy the special Christmas music.
My favorite Christmas tradition is attending Midnight Mass with my family.
My favorite Christmas tradition has the family together at Christmas Eve service at our church.
My favorite holiday tradition is the family gathering at my house on Christmas Eve. My daughters and their respective fellows and my granddaughter all come. We eat and talk and open presents and always have a wonderful time. I’m no spring chicken, so I’m delighted we can still do it at my house.
My fave Christmas tradition is baking! Using cookie cutters on rolled out dough, it’s the best.
My favorite holiday tradition is hanging my stocking. It was handstitched for me about 60 years ago. I do not remember the lady, but I know she was a stitching friend of my mom’s. My hubby and my kids all have stockings made by me, and I guess it all started with that dear lady.
My favourite holiday tradition is the holiday video call with my son and his family in south korea, it was previously the movie binge we did as a family, starting the afternoon of christmas day through boxing day, usually watch the first star wars trilogy, or sometimes the lord of the rings extended version trilogy 🙂
On of my favorite things to do is to decorate the shelves where my family of small wooden Hitty dolls live. They have a tree, gingerbread houses and many Christmas decorations. The other best ever thing is the Gumdrop Cake my sister bakes for me every December!!!
I think these mini stockings are great! Since i was a small child we were
Able to choose a gift to open on Christmas eve, and it is still being done,
By my kids and grandkids. Then we have hot chocolate and the older
Folks tell about childhood Christmas memories. The youngsters always
Find this fun, although I dont think they really believe we got an orange
In our stocking! Regards, Sue in Bermuda
Thank you for all the work you put into these giveaways Mary!
My favourite Christmas tradition is Boxing Day board games. There are so many special events throughout the holidays, but it can start to feel a little rushed at times. Hanging out at the kitchen table playing board games and eating leftovers is the perfect way to relax for us!
Chantal B
My favorite holiday tradition is getting together with family, singing, playing
games, opening gifts, eating.
My recent Christmases are spent alone so I have my own new/old traditions-
On Christmas Eve old movies followed by midnight mass from the Vatican (this was my mother’s favorite tradition). On Christmas Day some special sweet pastry and coffee, with favorite Christmas CDs and presents. Then a Bloody Mary, a small rib roast, fruitcake, a good book and my own good company.
Eggnog is my favorite tradition
I just love these stockings and would be thrilled to win this one! Our of all our traditions I think my favorite for our family right now is taking our Baby Jesus figurine out (we have an outdoor Nativity) to his manger on Christmas morning and singing Happy Birthday to Him ! It is such a humble and joyful thing for my children and us parents to do, and it really sets a joyful and celebratory mood while reminding us the reason for the day.
My favorite part is spending time with family. I do like most aspects of the holiday season such as decorating the tree, the music, the lights, and, of course, the food.
My favorite tradition is creating the Christmas cards. My husband and I have fun with the process. A close second is baking the cinnamon rolls for Christmas morning to share with the family as we open packages.
My favorite holiday tradition (this is more of a family tradition as well) is celebrating Christmas before Christmas day. This started when my son was a toddler, he used to see all the gift getting placed under the tree and wanted to open them. as a toddler he would cry since we wouldn’t let him touch them. As a family (including grandparents, aunts, and cousins) it was decided that the presents would be open early that year and since we were all getting together for that, we started having Christmas dinner early as well. Well almost 18 years later we still get together early. We have celebrated Christmas as early as December 2 and as late (for us) as December 20.
My favorite holiday tradition has to be the opening of gifts, which we always do on Christmas morning at my in-laws house. It’s so heart-warming to see the thought and care that has gone into the gifts, and to know that even amidst all the usual little squabbles and disagreements, as any family would have it, everyone cares so much for each other.
My favorite holiday tradition is how my family puts all the packages under the tree and we pull out one at a time and everyone watches while the recipient opens it. It takes a long time, but is so much fun.
Our favorite Christmas tradition is family breakfast at 8. All are welcome and PJ’s are acceptable attire. We never really know who or how many, but it always works out and a wonderful surprise….. on the menu baked French toast, quiche, sweet rolls…..and whatever takes my husband’s fancy when doing the shopping. Usually we find several have brought their current needlework project and the generations set up in the sunroom for after breakfast
Nothing like slices of plum cake with a nice hot cup of chocolate to keep me happy in this season.
My favourite holiday tradition is a candlelight carol sing. My other favourite tradition is baking an obscene amount of cookies and then giving them away as a treat to people I know who haven’t got the ability to bake. I always ask them to enjoy to baking and the joy of being able to put some home baked goodies out for family and friends.
One of my favorite traditions is when my husband and I get in our car and drive around town to see all the Christmas lights. Some folks are very creative! It just feels more like Christmas after we check them all out.
My favorite tradition was always a family gathering on December 23, which we refer to as Christmas Eve Eve. It began with my maternal grandparents and their three children and 11 grandchildren and eventually included great grandchildren and great great grandchildren. As each generation got older, younger cousins took over various parts of the event. Mine was making the figgy pudding : ) That tradition ended in 2020, so this year I’m hoping to start new ones.
When I was little, my dad use to make homemade cinnamon rolls. He would set his yeast rolls on the stove to rise, for the second time, just before we went to Midnight Mass. When we came back from mass, they immediately went into the oven and while we changed out of our Christmas dresses and into our pjs, the smell warmed the house. Then we all had “giant” cinnamon rolls (4-5″ across) and then went to bed. Of course, with so much sugar in us, no one slept, but we did all get some rest just to be up again in another three or four hours. We still have our cinnamon rolls on Christmas morning, but I am afraid I’m not the baker my Dad use to be. But the coffee and hot cocoa and the Pillsbury baked rolls are great anyway. Thank you Mary.
Hi, all! My favorite holiday tradition is making tamales for Christmas—enough for all of our friends to get at least a couple of dozen each! I also love to sit and stitch while listening to Christmas carols. Such a wonderful time of year!
My favourite family tradition is making ground beef pierogi with my husband and two grown kids while we listen to Christmas music. We set up a bit of an assembly line ….end up a few hundred pierogi which we freeze to enjoy on Christmas Eve accompanied by a yummy butter onion sauce. Taking that first bite is the epitome of true comfort food and not to be missed. My Scottish mother developed the recipe from my Polish father’s rather vague instructions to just mix flour and water. Needless to say it took her a few attempts but she aced it and I feel honoured to continue the tradition into the next generation!
My favorite holiday tradition happens on Christmas Eve. We watch the Yule Log on TV while wrapped up in cozy blankets & sipping eggnog topped with freshly grated nutmeg. We open one gift each on Christmas Eve & save the rest for Christmas Day. Thanks for the chance to win!
My favorite is our Christmas morning pancake breakfast. The breakfast has recently veered to vegan to respect our youngest member.
My favorite holiday traditions include new Christmas jammies and fuzzy socks. I also love our traditional seafood chowder on Christmas Eve.
Our Christmas tradition is meeting the whole family on Christmas Eve. (Big dinner, gift exchange, crazy games with everyone together.)
Every October I make fruit cakes and our Christmas eve tradition is to cut the (first) cake. If the family is all here the first cake usually lasts a couple of days and the second cake is cut for New Year’s eve.
When family members cannot get to ours for Christmas, I send them a cake in time for Christmas. This can mean a very busy October.
Food coma naps. After all is said and done and you have a full tummy, curling up for an afternoon nap prior to eating left overs is one of the best tradition.
Making my Mom’s favorite Christmas treats, peanut brittle, peanut butter fudge, and peppermint bark.
My favourite (U.K.) holiday tradition is putting silver three penny coins in the Christmas Pudding. Whoever gets the slice with a coin in it gets good luck in the coming year.
Putting up all the Christmas decorations, which for us mostly consists of lots of lights, tinsel and of course all my homemade bits and pieces from over the years. Everywhere is then just so sparkly !
My favourite Xmas tradition is the mounting with my kids of the nativity set that every year we bought some new pieces (shepperds, animals, houses….) . I also like too to decorate our xmas tree .
Our favorite tradition is to make at least a double batch of my husband’s grandmother’s cinnamon knots, basically a sweet dough which gets grabbed and rolled into a snake, dunked in butter and a cinnamon-sugar mix, then tied into a double knot and placed into a pan with melted butter and sprinkled with more cinnamon-sugar. Forget your diet for one day out of the year! My eldest son and his wife have taken over responsibility for making them for the entire family, so Grandma Oma, the future of your recipe is in good hands!
Favourite tradition – easy-peasy! Our family gathering around the Christmas lunch table.
My favourite holiday tradition is seeing my friends and family all together round a table playing cards.
My favorite Holiday Tradition is midnight mass at a 100 yr old church relocated to a mortuary.
My other favorite tradition are lights…and more lights.
thank you for helping many people create a needleNthread tradition.
Thank you for this offering! The different stitches on the stockings are lovely. Won’t get bored doing this!
Christmas is my favourite! It celebrates the birth of Jesus!
When the turkey is in the oven, and everything else is ready to cook later, we go for a walk along the beach. It gives us some exercise before all the feasting, and we exchange Christmas greetings with everyone we pass.
My favorite part of Christmas is family gathering together. Second is enjoying all the needlepoint Santas I’ve made and planning which one to add for next year.
Getting out special decorations: antique ornaments from my parent’s first Christmas tree (1950s), a bottle brush Christmas tree music box that sat on my Grandparent’s counter every year, each gifted piece of a Lenox Nativity set.
My favourite Christmas tradition:
So many! But I do love stirring the Christmas cake mixture, and having a wish – weeks before Christmas!
And probably the best one is going to Midnight Church on Christmas Eve. The time beforehand has been full of hurry and bustle, organising and making sure everything is ready. When we get to church, it all becomes calm and peaceful, and so full of love and joy – being with family and friends – singing a few of the old carols, joy and hope for our world.
One of my favorite holiday traditions is pulling out all the Christmas decorations and remembering where they came from, where I was in my life when I obtained them. That looking back is special, and makes decorating take a lot longer than it should!
I love singing the O Antiphons with our kids each evening the week leading up to Christmas!
Thank you for your generosity! This would be a lovely package to win. Wishing you a creative year, and happy holiday.
My favourite holiday tradition would be gathering with family and old friends to watch carols from either Sydney or Melbourne. We all sing along, chat then head off to midnight mass after exchanging small gifts. I even might stitch as I sing along and as a Christmas tragic, its usually one of next years embroidered decorations – nothing like getting a head start for the coming year.
My favorite holiday tradition is St. Nicholas’ Day. My father brought this tradition with him from Germany and I’ve continued it wit my family. Now my daughter is doing it with her husband and our first grandbaby!
I love this cute kit! My favorite family tradition is making spaghetti on Christmas Eve.
Favorite tradition Going out for dinner on Christmas Eve. Started by my mom who did not want to cook after working all day . Christmas Day she cooked and I stirred the gravy for HOURS.
I so love watching my grandchildren decorate the tree while listening to holiday music. That’s the only gift I need!
With no holiday gatherings happening last year, I’m looking forward to my favorite tradition – getting together with my siblings.
Every Christmas Eve we have held an open house for family and friends. It was a major event that took much time to arrange but was always worth the time and effort. Sadly this will be our second year without it due to Covid 19.
Having the youngest person in the household place the angel on top of the tree. It signals the tree is up and let the holiday begin.
My favorite holiday tradition keeps changing. Right now it is to have four generations of my family together to celebrate the holidays. This involves cooking and crafting. The oldest three grandchildren
are 5, 6 and 7 and this year I started them working a little with wool. Have simple projects lined up for the two weeks of holidays
My favorite holiday tradition is gathering at my mom’s with all of my family. There’s over 30 of us now.
Where I live, it gets quite cold in December and only 9 hours of daylight on Winter Solstice. Our tradition is to play music that celebrates the winter season along with some Christmas music, Every year, we get out the same old CD’s and listen to them; they are comforting.
Il y a toujours qelques jours pour les parents. Mes parents ont 89 ans tout les deux et ils vivent dans leurs maison. Nous commencons nos vacances d’été et d’hiver en leur faisant une visite.
Les parents c’est important.
Joyeux noël.
My fave tradition is coffee and mince pie with my best friend on Christmas morning. My very best friend : I made her graduation dress her wedding dress and Christening robe for all three kids.
My favorite Christmas tradition is setting up the Nativity scene and Midnight Mass on Christmas
Decorating. My grandchildren come over when they know we are decorating. They think we need help and can’t do it without them. Greatest feeling in the world. Also cookie day . When my children were small we decorated gingerbread cookies every year . Now they still come along with their kids. Been going on for over 50 years.
My favourite Christmas tradition is going Christmas tree hunting with the entire family ( three generations) and then coming home to have homemade shortbread and hot chocolate.
My favorite tradition is finally having a few days off to work on stitching projects that have been put on hold.
It’s hard to decide which one with so many choices to pick from. Especially now since I am obsessed with this site!
Family together for turkey etc, stockings before we eat, gift opening after we eat!
My favorite holiday tradition is making and eating a dessert that comes from a recipe of my Grandmother’s. I only make it at Christmas but, could eat it every day of the year. My husband as nd daughter love it too, so I have to make a huge amount. It’s called Heavenly Hash!
My favorite holiday tradition, besides spending time with family, is unpacking all of our memory tree ornaments from friends & family collected over many years!
My favorite holiday tradition is going to our local museum’s Home for the Holidays exhibit. My EGA guild decorates a Christmas tree every year for their Christmas forest.
As Christmas, New Years, and my Birthday all happen within 8days, my holiday tradition is to start a new embroidery project on each of those days.
My favorite holiday traditions are the ones making things with my husband and kids (now adults) Every year we paint ceramic ornaments and of course we bake and decorate cut out cookies. It’s fun to see how their creativity has evolved over the years
Favorite holiday tradition is baking cookies
My favorite Christmas tradition would have to be gathering at my daughter’s home for Christmas Brunch and spending hours with my son, daughter and their families while laughing, remembering, making new memories and exchanging gifts (especially for the grandkids and great-grandkids).
My favorite tradition at Christmas is decorating the tree. I love when the lights come on and fill the tree with a joyful glow.
I have the Pfaltzgraff 12 dessert plates with the 12 Days of Christmas lyrics beautifully imprinted on them, one day on each plate. For instance: on the first plate there is a partridge in a pear tree and so on. My family uses those plates when we gather for our Christmas celebration. Before we eat dessert, we sing the 12 Days of Christmas song. Each person “sings their plate”. It’s great fun! Our grandkiddos love it!
Thanks, Mary!
Jude Jones
My favorite holiday tradition is mixed ( unshelled ) nuts and an orange in the stocking. It brings back memories of sitting around the kitchen table Christmas day with my dad, eating our oranges and opening the nuts with the nut crackers.
One of my favorite Christmas traditions is going for the ride around town to look at all the lights — we all pile in the car – bring a bunch of snacks and look around. Our town is famous for the Christmas balls https://youtu.be/Hkf2DmF_-3w — we call them cheese balls. Since this video was created in 2009 even more cheese balls have been created.
My father would write crazy notes from an ever changing cast of Santa Clauses on Christmas. One year we got the French Santa Closet (pronounced Clawz-ay) and we all got cleaning supplies as part of our gifts. Another year was MummyClaus, all our gifts were addressed in Egyptian Hieroglyphs. While I am not the creative genius of my father, I still try to carry this tradition on with my own family.
Oh, and blueberry muffins for breakfast Christmas morning. The best!
My husband and I always seem to be on the road for the holidays, never at home, so we started a tradition of watching Christmas movies every evening starting at Thanksgiving. That way we can bring them with us and we have gotten several friends/ family members to start the same tradition, so we watch with them on our travels.
It’s funny, one of my favorite traditions is that we don’t put the Christmas tree in the same place two years in a row. I didn’t even realize that it was something we did until this year!
Also, a Christmas ham for the feast.
My favorite Christmas tradition is on Christmas eve the whole family goes to church, out for dinner and then walk through our small town where (almost) every house lights up luminaries on the sidewalks. Its so peaceful and magical.
My favourite Christmas tradition is attending our church’s Christmas Eve Choir Concert. Not only is it an uplifting time of singing and verse, but a time when the church family gathers together, those who have come home to spend Christmas with their families and we haven’t seen since the previous Christmas. Unfortunately, with Covid we have missed this event last year and possibly this year as well.
My favorite holiday tradition – Having mimosas while opening gifts. Ahhhh an adult moment.
Starting on Christmas Eve morn with family
My favourite tradition is dinner with my husband on Christmas Eve. We started this tradition when we met back in the 70’s. Christmas was always such a rush with visiting family and friends that we barely had time to celebrate together. So we decided to make Dec 24th a special day just for us.
My favorite holiday tradition is getting together with my family to decorate cookies. We get quite silly (yellow snowmen, etc.) and have a lot of laughs.
I have so many favorite holiday traditions, but tipping back that first cup of egg nog spiked with a splash of Maker’s Mark and dusted with a bit of nutmeg holds a special place in my heart 🙂
My favorite holiday tradition is baking cookies with my sons. They are grown now, but we started out when they were very young. Lots of times there was more dough, frosting, and sprinkles on them and the counter top than there was on the cookies, but the memories of those days are priceless. Today, they still enjoy the cookie making process and it’s a treasured time of the year for me. One day, I hope to pass this tradition down to a grandchild or two.
My favorite tradition is driving and or walking around seeing all the beautiful Christmas decorations with my family.
I would love to put my gecko in these!
My favorite tradition is designing and making a paper/cardstock Christmas decoration for my family and close friends. This year, they are getting a tiny house (14 mm high or ½ inch) with a tiny tree on a wooden platform. I can’t cut this small :), so I’m using a cutting machine.
Oatmeal . Mother served oatmeal for breakfast every day of the year. “Not on Christmas, too” we cried. “Eat up” she said . I’m 95 years old. It wouldn’t be Christmas without my bowl of oatmeal.
My favourite Christmas tradition is music! Most years (pre-Covid) I have enjoyed singing in one of our local community choirs. Our director puts on a big concert every Christmas that includes on the stage what feels like about 500 young fiddlers along with the choir, band and special guests. It’s a big hullabaloo!
I live in Scandinavia and my favorite tradition is 0n Cristmas Eve when the whole family is gathered around the Christmas tree and my husband (=the father in the house) is reading by candle light the rhyming verse and address on each gift before handing them out. The rhyming verse gives a hint about what’s in the parcel. Then we all wait until the first person has guessed and opened his or her gift before the next verse is read.
Every year (apart from 2020) my friends and I book a cottage for the week between Christmas and New Year. We spend the days hill walking then have big communal meals in the evenings and sit round the fire telling stories and making jokes. We’ll be in the Scottish Highlands this year, provided the virus doesn’t get too bad first, so I’m hoping for lots of snow.
Love this idea. I would love to purchase a copy of this booklet.
I love the mini stockings! Before I retired, I would sew mini stockings for my pre-K class each Christmas. My favorite Christmas tradition is attending Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve.
Can I say all of them are my favourite? But, one of them is decorating; making the home have that Christmas feel.
I’m enjoying these posts so much; the stockings are really darling! I love *all* the traditions of Christmas, but I’m thinking my favorite would be our family gathering on Christmas Eve. We enjoy a lovely, sumptuous dinner (we generally go out to eat at a really nice restaurant), then go back to our daughter’s house for dessert — everyone contributes something special (think figgy pudding, Christmas cookies, and Buche de Noel), we bundle up and trot out to the corner of the road at 7 p.m so the kids can see Santa drive by on a fire truck and catch candy canes, and then we go back for a reading of the Christmas story out of Luke, and read whichever Christmas book the grandchildren have agreed on, tell stories from Christmases past over hot chocolate and cider, exchange presents (though we don’t open them until Christmas morning), and laugh, love and hug each other. It’s a sweet celebration to usher in our favorite holiday!
Wow, I really love the white stitched stocking!!! My favorite Christmas tradition is the reading of Luke 2. We’ve read that for the last 55 years of our marriage and will read it again this year!!
Thanks so much for the giveaways!!
My favorite holiday tradition is to make my families favorite holiday cookies.
Snow balls snd kolache. I am making ginger/molasses cookies from a recipe my sister in law gave me. They are delishous.
The food. I have celebrated a lot of different types of Christmases with different types of people. We all eat something special on Christmas.
Alice
My favorite holiday tradition has to be the wonderful food that only seems to be had at this time of year! Of course, always best enjoyed with family and friends! Merry Christmas everyone!
I have a couple of favorite traditions; The first one is from my childhood, we would all get together on Christmas Eve and have snacks and read a passage from the bible about the birth of Christ. The second is a newer tradition that I started with the grandkids and extended family. We have a Santa party. Santa comes to the house and gives all the children a present (which is always a book) We have a couple different types of homemade soups and visit.
Hi Mary
Merry Christmas and thank you for all you do to inspire all of us!!
My favorite Christmas tradition is making candy with my 4 granddaughters. We temper chocolate and make a variety of truffles, dipped pretzel rods, chocolate bark and dipped cookies. We used to donate half to the senior living facility but since Covid we haven’t been able to.
My favorite Christmas tradition? I am not really sure. Maybe opening gifts with family? Candlelight carol sing services?
Santa sacks – our children go and have a photo with Santa every year – if no Santa photo then there is no Santa sack ( they are 25 and 22 years old and now their partners also sit with Santa)
My favourite holiday tradition is decorating gingerbread cookies and making homemade Christmas tree ornaments with my family. Every year is a little bit the same, but a little bit different.
My OLD favorite tradition is making/decorating gingerbread houses from scratch every year — and including friends/families that have never done such a thing before. My NEW favorite tradition is those battery operated candles that look real and you can set them to go “on” automatically for 4 hours at the same time each day. As the sun sets, my candles magically switch “on”, all over the house! I love it!
My favorite holiday tradition is making Christmas cookies with the grandkids. Love the stockings!
My favorite holiday tradition is the Christmas Eve Holy Supper. We always had it as kids, after dinner as we cleaned up the kitchen with our aunts, we would sing Christmas Carols in Russian and English. ( We celebrated Rusyn Orthodox Christmas January 7)
Alas, all the elders are gone but one in a nursing home, kids grew up and the tradition went south…(sort of speak). Memories hold me during that time of the year
My favorite tradition is the food. We try to fix a turkey the day before so we can just easily fix leftovers on Christmas day and spend the whole day together.
My hometown has a Santa truck as well as a Rudolph and church truck. Every Christmas Eve it drives around town playing “Santa Claus is Coming to Town” and elves throw popcorn balls. After midnight just the church comes around playing “Silent Night”. It’s not Christmas Eve until you see Santa and it’s not officially Christmas until you hear “Silent Night”. I think this is the 87th year. Lots of other traditional stuff, too, but this one is special to a lot of people.
What a beautiful giveaway!
My favorite tradition is family and friends together on Christmas Eve and making my grandmother’s traditional Canadian meat pies……
What a generous offering! I love these little stockings. Thank you, Mary! ( I could kick myself! I didn’t have time to respond when I first read about your offering of your tea towels, and then life intervened, and I missed my chance!)
I have to say two favorite traditions (among many!): attending Christmas Eve services with family at a small Episcopal chapel so dear to our family; and having all my family gather around the tables for Christmas dinner with presents and games following.
Favorite tradition is making cookies with my daughter like I used to do with my sister and mother and this year my grandson will be helping – he’s 3. Then we share with visiting family over the holidays.
Putting up the outside lights…now that children and grand are far away putting up our greenling hits tree and the scallops around the roofline signals the start of the festive season.
Our family likes to load up one evening and drive around town looking at the Christmas lights. We take popcorn and hot chocolate in thermoses to snack on. It’s a favorite Christmas tradition!
My favorite Christmas tradition is hanging the stockings on the mantle. Of course they were hand made and embroidered.
My favorite holiday tradition is putting all my Needlework ornaments on my tree.
My favorite holiday tradition is watching the youngest grandchild place baby Jesus in the manger on Christmas morning.
Favourite tradition – everything. But if I had to choose it would have to be stitching a new Christmas project or a new beaded bauble, no it’s dressing the tree. No food and family. Best of all being reunited with my needle on a quiet Boxing day. Thank you Mary for a wonderful informative website.
Merry Christmas to all stitchers.
Setting-up the tree after going and cutting it down at a tree farm
Liz Gerleliz
My favorite holiday tradition is decorating the tree. As you unwrap ornaments memories come and that sense of long tradition. Last year we had no tree,. REALLY missed it, but we were traveling.
Merry Christmas!
My favorite holiday tradition is having a family tamale making season. We all get together and make tamales, and then have them for practically every meal for the next few weeks. Which really isn’t as bad as it sounds because we only make them once a year since they take a lot of work and nobody wants to bother doing it any other time.
My favorite holiday tradition is our church’s Christmas Eve service. At the end, we carry our candles outside and sing Silent Night under the stars.
One favorite holiday tradition is making eggrolls and watching The Grinch every Christmas Eve. We started when our son was a baby, he’s 36 now and we still watch it every year.
My favorite holiday tradition is attending the Christmas Eve candlelight service tosing much loved carols.
My favorite holiday tradition far and away is gathering with family for a special meal featuring certain foods we eat traditionally only on holidays.
My favorite holiday tradition is walking or driving around with my family, looking at the Christmas lights and yard decorations.
My favorite holiday tradition is letting our two boys pick the christmas dinner. Over the years we have had some really interesting meals (like Turducken!)It does not matter if the meal is on Christmas day (one year we had Christmas in November) because our sons are not always close on December 25. But whatever day we celebrate the meal is usually memorable and it is all about being together.
My favorite Christmas tradition was born when my kids were little. At that time, my mother was still cooking Christmas dinner for the whole extended family, so we decided to invite everyone over for Christmas brunch. There are certain recipes used every year thereafter, with names such as “Christmas Punch,” “Christmas Cookies,” and “Christmas Bread,” along with a few others.
In this family, food often sets our traditions. 🙂
My traditions are very traditional. With the fireplace on and Christmas carols setting the mood, I decorate the tree with all the handmade ornaments I’ve made over the years. I try to make a new ornament every year.
Among many family traditions, I like decorating the house and tree.
I love listening to Christmas music.
Having tree decorated for 1st December. Would dearly love to have Mary’s stockings for the tree. Merry Christmas.
Hanging a pickle ornament on the tree; the first person to find it gets the first gift to open. Grandkids begin searching the tree immediately on arrival. Fun to watch their eager joy.
Putting up the crib. Same one for last 25 years. Once crib is set up, I don’t mind how or what way tree and decorations/arrangements are placed or by who!!!!
My favorite tradition is decorating the tree with my kids, while listening to Christmas music; reminiscing who made which ornament or who gave us which ornament.
My favorite tradition is staying up on Christmas Eve after everyone else has gone to bed and sitting in my rocking chair by the tree in the quiet, with just the glow of the tree lights. I like to think back over the past year’s good times with gratitude and think ahead to exciting things I have planned for the new year. It’s a nice reflective respite from the flurry of activities before and on Christmas Day.
After Christmas Midnight Mass (which usually is at 8pm), our family turns out all lights with only the tree and other Christmas lights in each room to see by. This tradition started way back in our family, mainly because they didn’t have electricity, and my grandparents continued the tradition. And now, my adult grandchildren make sure that all other lights are out except the tree. I think they will continue the family tradition.
my favorite holiday tradition is having my extended family over on Christmas Eve. I cooked a ham with scallop potatoes and everyone brings a dish. We have a lovely meal then gather in the living room, Christmas music playing and everyone opens a gift from my family. they are usually a bit of fun and everyone has a great laugh at the gags and playing around with them.
My favorite holiday tradition is the unwrapping of my childhood stuffed Santa, then passing it to my sister so she can open it next year!
Favorite Holiday tradition: decorating the Christmas tree with the family
My favorite Christmas tradition has to be the setting up of the manger at out home. And I’m not talking about taking the little figurines out and putting them on the mantel or a table, but we recreate an entire Bethlehem scene with houses, people, animals, a river (with actual running water). It’s a process that takes a few days but it’s totally worth it.
Favorite tradition is eating leftover dessert for breakfast on Christmas day. I look forward to getting up early and enjoying my favorite dessert in front of the fire and tree before the craziness starts.
Favorite tradition…several families getting together to make dozens of cookies all day and ending with chili over rice
My favorite tradition is decorating the Christmas Tree by myself. Having only males in my immediate family, it’s not been their thing to decorate the tree. So I do it by myself, I put on Christmas music and pull out ornaments. Each one reminds me of a friend, or a business associate, or our country’s leaders. I take time to pray for each one represented, sometimes with laughter and sometimes with tears. Very special time.
My favourite tradition is simple, but can be overwhelming. Lights! Christmas lights! Lots!
My favorite holiday tradition is the decorating gingerbread houses with my granddaughters and grandson. Because of Covid, I watched them on my cell phone last year. It was so very nice to be included. This year we are all vaccinated so I can watch in person.
MY FAVORITE HOLIDAY TRADITION IS BAKING FRUITCAKES! FOUND THE RECIPE IN A MARTHA STEWART MAGAZINE AND HAVE BEEN MAKING IT FOR 15 YEARS!
Just getting together with the family. As family members have passed on and now the pandemic, we don’t gather as often or with the same group of people, and it reminds of how this simple tradition contains so much meaning for me.
My favorite holiday tradition is the baking and eating of my mother’s traditional cookies. She passed on years ago, but her cookies were her legacy. The Italian cookies are everyone’s sought after highlight and her butter cookies, well, it just isn’t Christmas without them!
My favorite Christmas tradition is making my grandmother’s sugar cookies with my own children, grandkids and now great grandchildren
Staying home on Christmas Day with my immediate family for a lazy day. When we were kids my sister and I often set our alarm clocks for somewhere in the 6am range (I distinctly remember one year when I went for the 5am hour and was told in no uncertain terms that if I didn’t get back in bed RIGHT.NOW. Santa was going to take all my presents back). Now that we’re older it’s a late morning wake up, delicious brunch, then stockings and gifts followed by holiday movies and games. Leftovers from Christmas Eve supper will come out at some point and mulled wine makes the rounds. And no real clothes allowed! Comfy duds only. The day is fluid and low stress. It’s basically the concept of hygge all wrapped up in one beautiful day.
Christmas eve candle light service. There is something so peaceful about singing Silent Night with only candles lighting everyone’s faces .
My fave is driving around to view decorated homes in the evening after Christmas dinner is over and guests have gone for the day. Peaceful and happy.
My current favorite holiday tradition is The Elf on a Shelf through my grandsons eyes. Nothing is better then watching the sparkle in his eye and the huge smile each morning when he finds the magical elf.
My favorite tradition is all my family together enjoying a good time.
My favorite holiday tradition iiiiiisss…. Hmmm. Probably opening presents myself and watching others. Especially when you’ve managed to get what they really wanted.
I love going to traditional Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve, so beautiful, then celebrating with family and friends on Christmas Day.
What’s not to live with the holidays … most favorite is cooking baking!
My favourite holiday tradition with the family – after lunch sitting altogether and listening to the Queens speech. then its opening present time.
This is such a lovely kit. Thank you so much for including it in the give-aways this year!
Our family has a number of traditions that always make Christmas special, but I think my favourite is celebrating Christmas day at home with my family. There really is no place like home for the holidays!
Merry Christmas!
My favourite tradition is trimming the tree and making a new beaded bauble to go on it.
Merry Christmas all.
My favorite holiday tradition is going to the Christmas markets around NYC.
These stockings are so cute!!
My favorite holiday tradition is everyone getting together at a very nice venue. We all get dressed up, including the little children. We reserve a room so we can visit together for as long as we like. It’s so convenient and easy.
I can’t believe I missed the deadline! I’ve been making hexie coasters for presents and sales. My favorite holiday tradition is making all the gifts myself, though I don’t always accomplish this goal every year.
My favorite holiday tradition is making fudge to give away to friends! I have been making fudge every holiday season since I was very little, when I first started creating this holiday magic in the kitchen with my mother!