a href=”http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_PoXHVGzLUGI/SGwdWqhxArI/AAAAAAAAAXo/7GZOLmzBu1k/s1600-h/Cow+Wants+to+See+Baby+Jesus!+%E2%80%93+Sonlight.JPG”img id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5218578343425802930″ style=”DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center” alt=”" src=”http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_PoXHVGzLUGI/SGwdWqhxArI/AAAAAAAAAXo/7GZOLmzBu1k/s320/Cow+Wants+to+See+Baby+Jesus!+%E2%80%93+Sonlight.JPG” border=”0″ //abr /div/divI really love family traditions. To be honest, I don’t have the greatest memory, and I don’t remember as much as I wish I did about my childhood (or even a few years ago, truthfully), but a lot of the things I do remember have to do with traditions or special holiday celebrations.br /br /A couple years ago, when Pumpkin Doodle was 2 and Monkey Doodle was 8 months old or so, I decided that we needed to pick some Christmas traditions and actually write them down so we’d remember them. Fortunately, at the time I was part of an online homeschool forum hosted by a href=”http://sonlight.com/”Sonlight Curriculum/a (hi, any SLers reading this – I miss you all!!!), and a thread was started to share Christmas traditions.br /br /Sean and I went through the list together and decided which ones (as well as some of our own) we wanted to add to our list, and I saved them all in a Word document in my Christmas folder.br /br /It was fun last year to pull the list out and start planning to celebrate with our traditions again, although it was such a busy year that we were only able to do some of them. I’m looking forward to pulling out the list again this year, and I definitely encourage you to put together your own list of traditions (which you probably already have even if they’re not written down). While you don’t necessarily need to do it in July, it’s a good idea to do it ahead of time so that you don’t run out of time during the Christmas season.br /br /Here are some of ours:br /ulliMake a paper chain on December 1st. Tear off a loop each day to countdown the days until Christmas./libr /liRead the Christmas story each day, focusing on a different part of the story, with activities to go with each one./libr /liWrap a special ornament each year for the girls so that they’ll have their own collection when they have their own tree./libr /liOpen Christmas pajamas Christmas Eve and then drink hot chocolate while momma reads “Twas the Night Before Christmas.”/libr /liFor the first snow of the season, make hot chocolate and popcorn to celebrate./libr /liHave lots of age-appropriate nativities available for playing with and acting out the night of Jesus’ birth./libr /liOn Christmas morning, cuddle on the couch upstairs and read the Christmas story from Luke before coming downstairs./libr /liOpen Christmas stockings while momma makes breakfast. Presents after breakfast./libr /liOpen presents one at time, each person taking turns./libr /liHave a cookie decorating swap for kids where they all get to decorate an assortment of cookies./libr /liMake candy cane cookies with Nona (my mom)./libr /liHave a birthday cake for Jesus on Christmas./libr /liPlay lots of Christmas music./libr /liEnjoy the Christmas movies on TV for family movie night, especially the classics (at our girls age, we most enjoy the Rudolph and Frosty movies)./libr /liMake cookies and other goods to take to nursing homes, as well as the librarians, firemen, police officers, doctor’s offices, etc./libr /liWrap a Christmas book to open each day from December 1st through Christmas./li/ulbr /There are other things that I guess I would consider traditions that aren’t on my list that I’ll tell you about throughout the month, so stay tuned!br /br /br /a href=”http://www.mylivesignature.com/” target=”_blank”img style=”BORDER-RIGHT: medium none; BORDER-TOP: medium none; BACKGROUND: none transparent scroll repeat 0% 0%; BORDER-LEFT: medium none; BORDER-BOTTOM: medium none” src=”http://signatures.mylivesignature.com/54486/128/0E4A8EA9D2A4A002FC32D3D163051882.png” //abr /br /––––-–––––-––––––––-–––––––-––––-––––––-–-––––––-–––-–-–––br /span style=”font-size:85%;”Check out /spana href=”http://mythreedoodles.blogspot.com/2008/06/did-someone-say-tastykake-this-weeks.html”span style=”font-size:85%;”this week’s giveaway/span/aspan style=”font-size:85%;”: An assortment of yummy fresh Tastykakes!/span