Christmas Traditions

We had so many wonderful Christmas traditions growing up. My mom loved Christmas, and loved having those sweet Christmas traditions.

One of our family Christmas traditions was watching Christmas movies! There were certain ones we watched every year. Some years you couldn't get us all under one roof long enough for a movie, but my mom always forced us to all watch one together! Some years I hated it!! But now it's one of my favorite movies and it reminds me so much of my sweet mom!!

"It's a Wonderful Life!".... This is such a great movie to get you in the holiday spirit! "Teacher says every time a bell rings, an angel gets his wings!" Love it! My family is coming to Dallas this year for Christmas, and I definately plan on making them all sit down and watch this with me! It will be a sweet way to remember my mom!

                                   


Some other Christmas movies we always watched together:

White Christmas! My dad would always sing "I'm dreaming of a pink purple polka dotted Christmas,...." I don't know. Don't ask me! This is a great movie though!

And no Christmas is complete without a little ELF!!! 

                                       

"Christmas Vacation"! This was always my dad and brothers favorite!

                                             

I'm super excited about my family coming to Dallas for Christmas! I plan on making them all watching a Christmas movie with me each night! :) And of course we will have hot chocolate and a fire going through all of them!!

My mom also had a family tradition for Sunday nights in December! She would make us all sit around in the den. Each Sunday night, either her or my dad would read part of the Christmas story from the Bible. Then on Christmas eve, she would wrap it all up with the birth of Jesus! It was a great reminder for the reason for the season!

Speaking of, she ALWAYS made us change our landline voicemail to "Always remember, Jesus is the reason for the season!!!" :) It was our mom's token Christmas phrase.

                                             

When we were growing up, my mom's family always came over on Christmas Eve night. Our family would go to the Christmas Eve service at our church, and when we got home, our mom's family would be arriving from Gadsden to meet us! We would eat yummy food, sing Christmas carols, and play dirty santa. Those are some of the sweetest memories I have of Christmas!! We still get together with them on Christmas Eve, but now it's in the morning. Christmas Eve nights haven't been the same since lala passed! And this is the first Christmas Eve I won't spend with them since I'll be in Dallas. I'm really sad about it!! But I'm hoping that my mawmaw will at least take her iPad so we can facetime and say hello to everyone. :)

We also always had to make Christmas cookies together!! Us kids would crowd around and cut all the shapes out. We'd decorate them using powder sugar icing! They never turned out very pretty,  but they sure were yummy!! I plan on having all the siblings do this again at my house this year. Even though Carter is just a baby, I want him to see some of his Lala's Christmas traditions and this was one of them!

                

Oh, this was so fun re-living some of my mom's favorite Christmas memories! It gave me some great ideas of what my family can do together when they come to Dallas. I'm so excited about having family here and making new traditions! :)

My mom always, always said "I don't care where you decide to live when you grow up. I don't care if we are hundreds of miles apart. But I want you to remember that you should always, always come home to be with your family on Christmas!" Now that Texas is "home", I am so excited that we are all coming together for Christmas! And I hope that my siblings always make it a priority to be together this time of year! I think it's a great way to honor our mom's memory. :)