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The past couple weeks we’ve talked about Holiday Self-Care and Holiday Boundaries and I think Christmas traditions fit right along with those topics. I don’t know about you, but my Christmas traditions include a lot of self-care items and in order to keep certain traditions alive you have to exercise some of those holiday boundaries. 🤣

Another reason I thought a conversation about Christmas traditions would be good is because another mom I follow on Instagram had posted a bunch of questions related to Santa, secrets, and traditions. So, while these are my personal family’s Christmas traditions, I thought I would share to either help inspire you in trying something new and/or solidify to you why you do things the way you do. Also, as I’m learning myself this year, to adapt as your kids grow older or life circumstances change that cause traditions to alter and some straight up fail.

My family’s Christmas traditions actually begin on Thanksgiving. [While I have a ton of traditions that specifically relate to Thanksgiving, I’ll share those another day.] My son, Talon (15), has received a Christmas themed gift on Thanksgiving since he was just a lil’ guy. They started out being a one-use advent calendar or a new ornament, but as Talon got more and more into Lego, it morphed into him getting that years Lego Christmas Village – a tradition we’ve had for the past eight years. Sadly, though when I gave him the set this year, he was honest and said he didn’t want it. I nearly started crying. I tried to convince him that it was a tradition, but he wasn’t interested – he felt like he’s run out of space for his display and didn’t think this year’s set was that impressive, especially for the money (his words, not mine). I reluctantly sent it back and that was the first of our traditions to change.

If you’re an Elf on the Shelf family, then you know the elves return any time between the day after Thanksgiving through December 1st. Our elf, Freddy, joins our family the day after Thanksgiving and returns to the “North Pole” Christmas eve. Freddy is a tame elf, he doesn’t make mischief or cause any shenanigans, he simply changes location from night to night and has gotten a little more clever with his spots as Talon has gotten older.   

The day after Thanksgiving is also when the decorating begins. We have 3 indoor trees. One simple, almost plain, white-lit 4-foot tree that sits on a table in the front window (from the outside it looks like it could be a full-sized tree). We have a 7-foot, slim tree that resides in the kitchen, that is my son’s tree. It dawns his homemade ornaments, ornaments that have been collected from places we’ve traveled as a family and the specialty ornaments that he gets each year that represents something about him and that year. Our 7-foot family tree resides in the basement and shines with multi-colored lights and a large variety of ornaments. I’ll bet you won’t be surprised to learn that Talon had zero desire to decorate his tree this year and despite my begging him, he didn’t hang a single ornament.

On the other hand, hanging the outside lights wasn’t an option. My husband and son are in charge of hanging the lights on the house as I work on getting our lawn decorations setup. We have had a Rudolph scene for nearly two decades. This year as we were decorating, I started realizing that they’ve seen better days. Last year I replaced all the lights in Rudolph’s body, but this year his head went out including his cute blinking nose. There really isn’t a quick fix, I think you have to take his “skin” off to replace the bulbs. In addition, things have ripped, broken, snapped, and otherwise don’t work, so a lot of effort, zip ties, tape, stakes, wires, and lots of love, went into putting them up this year. I’m not sure I’ll be able to salvage them, and already have a neighbor who’s staked claim in them should I decide to throw them away, because I’ve already started looking for the replacements Rudolph characters.  

 

Like most, on December 1st we start our advent calendar. We actually have several different styles of Christmas countdowns, but the reusable/refillable advent calendar we’ve used since our son was a baby also became a thing that our elf, Freddy, used to “do” at night too – fill the drawers. The hardest part was trying to figure out what kinds of things to fill it with. The little, reversable drawers on the red tree calendar I got from Starbucks 15 years ago has forced me (hum, Freddy) to get creative with what goes in it. We’ve gone the typical candy route, as well as Lego’s, money, mini ornaments, and even notes from Freddy too. 

While Freddy is still visiting our family and remembers, most of the time, to move, the advent calendar is another Christmas tradition that Talon didn’t seem that interested in. I think I’ve found a new advent calendar to use. Perfect for kids that are too old to care anymore, but also has fun surprises if you have littles or grands to think about. It still has tiny drawers, but each drawer contains a little ornament that gets hung on the tree that’s part of the calendar scene. This could allow you to get creative and still put something else in the drawer or it’s fully functional on its own – no thinking required.

I’m clearly a huge fan of the secular decorations and traditions of the Christmas season, however I was raised going to church and as a Christian woman I'm raising Talon to know God and the Bible too. And while my family doesn’t have a traditional nativity scene, we do have a fun, 7-day, interactive tradition with a book, What God Wants for Christmas, that builds a nativity scene one bible character at a time. I really wanted to link it up for you on Amazon, because it’s very well made and great way to share the story of Jesus’ birth, but shockingly it’s not on Amazon (at least right now).

I’ll briefly mention that the holiday season always comes with watching fun holiday movies. My family has our staples, A Christmas Story, National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, Home Alone, The Grinch, and Rudolph, The Red-Nosed Reindeer. Some of which simply cannot be watched except for Christmas day. And I am proud to say that, we've already watched Rudolph as a family over dinner one night. Rudolph always seems to spur some bantering between my husband and son about girls. 😍 I'm always on the hunt for new good ones, so I'd love you to drop your favorite Christmas movie in the comments.

Baking holiday treats has definitely been a seasonal tradition, as I rarely do any baking other than the holiday season (being Christmas and Thanksgiving). We’ve done the sugar cookies to decorate, Rosettes (fried dough fritters sprinkled with powdered sugar made with iron molds that look like a flower) that my mom used to make, and now I’ve morphed into making things my family really enjoys – peanut butter cookies with the Hersey’s Kiss, Rolo pretzel bites, white chocolate macadamia nut cookies, chocolate chip cookies, and/or fudge. We also have the tradition of having blueberry muffins on Christmas morning. This year I discovered the super simple and crazy delicious Reese’s peanut butter cup cookies.

Ingredients/Materials: 
1pkg Reese’s Peanut Butter Cookie Dough 
24 Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups 
1 24-count mini muffin pan

Directions: 
Bust out your mini muffin pan, add 1 pre-cut square of the Reese’s Peanut Butter Cookie Dough, bake according to directions on package. While it’s baking unwrap the Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups. When the cookies are finished baking, remove from oven, place a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup in the center and press down. Allow to cool, then pop out of the muffin pan and enjoy.

If you want to make it even easier on yourself, use a silicone muffin pan. It allows you to push the bottoms of the cookies to pop them out in one perfect shape, plus you can just throw the silicone mold in the dishwasher for super easy cleanup too!

 

One of the questions posed by the mom I follow on Instagram was in regards to how you handle “lying” to your kid(s) about Santa and whether or not Santa gifts are wrapped. I know this is a loaded and totally a personal choice, but I’ll share with you what I told her. I played into the idea of Santa because I love the magic of the season. I knew that when the time came, although there might be a few tears, the older and wiser version of my son would appreciate that I/we were actually Santa, Freddy, and the “magic” of the season. I never lied to him. When he would ask questions about Santa, I would simply respond with “He’s as real as you want him to be.” Or “If you want to believe, that’s all that matters.” As far as gifts from Santa go, in our house Santa doesn’t wrap. Stockings are filled by Santa and those aren’t wrapped and we made the “big” gift the Santa gift. When my son was little that meant I didn’t have to wrap the scooter, bike, trampoline, and the like. As he got older, that meant Santa got credit for the maybe-small-in-size-but-pricy-gifts, like an Xbox or video camera. With my son, it wasn’t this big ordeal and there were no tears as I’d anticipated. One Christmas he just looked at us with his Santa gift and said “thank you.” It was a mutual understanding and we didn’t talk about it.

 

The last Christmas tradition I want to share with you has to do with more food! I love Thanksgiving, but ON Thanksgiving. For Christmas I like to make steak. What makes my Christmas steak different than my Sunday night steak is that I serve it Oscar style, or my version of it anyway. I use king crab legs and asparagus, but I don’t douse it in Hollandaise sauce and the asparagus is served on the side. You can use whatever cut of meat you like. My hubby prefers filet mignon, which I will get for him, but I often use NY strip because of the flavor, size and cost.  Here’s how I do my Steak Oscar, inspired by an Emeril Lagasse recipe.

Ingredients: 
2 sticks butter  
¼ c fresh parsley, minced  
3 tsp lemon juice (or 1 drop doTERRA Lemon essential oil)  
salt 
black pepper 
4 steaks – your choice (filet, ribeye, NY strip, etc.)  
olive oil  
fresh crabmeat (minimum 8oz) 
1 bunch asparagus, trimmed

Directions: 
1) Preheat the oven to 450°F.

2) Place room temperature butter in a medium bowl. Add the parsley, lemon juice (or essential oil), ½ teaspoon of salt, and ¼  teaspoon of pepper, stir until combined. Set aside while you cook the steaks.

3) Heat a large cast-iron skillet over medium-high heat. Rub both sides of the steaks with olive oil (about 4oz) and season evenly with salt and pepper to taste. Place the steaks in the hot skillet, cooking 4 minutes on each side, or until nicely browned. Transfer the skillet to the pre-heated oven and roast to the desired degree of doneness. About 6-8 minutes for medium-rare.

4) While the steaks are cooking, toss asparagus along with olive oil in another skillet and cook over medium-high heat for about 10 minutes. Add seasoning about halfway through - salt and pepper for sure. My secret seasoning is to also add The Melting Pot Garlic Wine seasoning, but if you don’t have that I suggest using some fresh garlic. Another trick, if you like cheese, is to add Parmesan. The crispy pan-fried cheese adds great flavor.

5) When cooked to desired temp, remove the steaks from the oven and let rest about 5 minutes before serving. About the time it takes to get everything plated.

6) Heat a small pan over medium-high heat and add 2 to 3 tablespoons of your butter mixture. Add the crabmeat and cook until crabmeat is warmed through.

7) To serve, top each steak with a generous amount of crabmeat, then had their plates over to load with whatever sides you’ve made. I make the asparagus (duh), baked potato, salad, mushrooms, and dinner roll. Plus, for dessert pecan and pumpkin pie. My tip here is to bake an extra of each at Thanksgiving and freeze them. Take them out a few days before and no one will ever know you didn’t slave that day! Unless you tell them, of course.

 

Oh, my goodness, not only is my mouth totally watering now, but as I’m reliving what’s happened so far this year I’m realizing just how much our Christmas family traditions have changed and probably will continue to change. I’m glad I can still pull the mom card to keep some of our family traditions intact. I guess I look forward to learning to let go and lean into the next phases. Who knows, maybe some things will revert when the time comes when my son comes home from college and wants that homey, comfort that he remembered.

Wishing you and yours the most wonderful Christmas. Enjoy creating traditions and enjoy the process as they change (yep, totally talking to myself 😉).