Holiday Traditions

The holidays are here and with it come traditions. I don't know about you, but I LOVE the traditions that I have from my childhood that are being passed along to my kids. My husband and I have also had fun adding new traditions to our family.

Growing up, most of my Christmas holidays involved picking out the "perfect" tree, cookies and chili for Christmas Eve, Santa making his appearance after we finally went to sleep and then Christmas dinner at usually one or both of the Grandparents houses. I loved and cherished the family time with my grandparents and cousins.

I moved to San Francisco in my early 20's and was not always able to get home. Slowly things started changing and Christmases started including friends and co-workers, and ultimately, new traditions. When I met my husband and started our family, we changed Christmas again. Our Christmases have evolved as our family grew. We tried new things, kept things and got rid of things. The goal was to keep it magical, encourage giving and share the love of the season with our family and friends.

My husband and I met in the Bay Area. When our first child arrived, we took him to get his picture taken with Santa. We stumbled across this outdoor Santa. I remember Tristian running up to hug Santa when it was his turn and we caught it all on camera. It was the sweetest! What else was cool about visiting this Santa was that we could take as many pictures as we wanted. The next year, we lived in a different area and took my then 2 sons to see Santa at the mall. We got some nice pictures, but this time we had to rely on the mall photographer and had to pay some pretty big dollars to get them We learned that the family tradition, we wanted to create for our kids, was more similar to the first Santa experience. (Just a tip in case you are looking for an amazing Santa in our area, we have found what we refer to as the "real" Santa at the Sidney Log Cabin in Port Orchard.)

Shopping for a Christmas tree has always been one of my favorite things to do! I grew up in Nebraska. When I was little we went to tree lots to choose the "perfect" tree. Moving to Washington opened up more options for finding the tree. If you are on my Facebook page, you probably have seen the pictures of our family finding our tree. Hubert's was an amazing find when we moved here. Not only do you get to find your tree, but you get to cut your tree. They also have a cute little cider house so you can warm up after your search while enjoying the beautiful mountainous scenery of our area.

When our kids were younger, there were a lot of times when we went to other places on Christmas Eve. Slowly we figured out dragging out babies and little kids out to visit family or friends, getting home late and then waiting for Santa to do his magic was too much. Instead of going out, we invited everyone to come to us to celebrate. We kept the chili tradition (super easy meal before Christmas dinner the next day) and we invited our family and friends to join us for our church's Christmas Eve service. That small change really helped Santa arriving by midnight. The main thing was we were able to keep it simple while still being with those we love.

I have always tried to encourage my kids to give during Christmas. Some years were super tight financially so giving wasn't always easy. Those years we looked for other ways to find some way to help out our community. This year, we are trying something new since all my kids are a little bit older. We sat down as a family and talked about some of the organizations that would could give to this year. It was so much fun talking with my kids to learn what was important to them.

We have also had some other activities that we added over the years. Almost every year, we try to drive around the neighborhoods to look at the Christmas lights in our area. We even invented a game to go with our drives. We jumped on the Elf on the Shelf bandwagon. My advice is don't! Well unless you are super creative and won't ever forget. It didn't work so well at my house and he didn't move for days.

Finally, who can forget the Christmas cookies??? I have even incorporated these into our traditions. Like many families, the kids and I make cookies and fudge, as part of the Christmas festivities. I decided to take it a step further and make it even more fun. I will share the recipe at the end, as long as you promise to never share "the secret" with my kids. They are super easy to make and are not time consuming.

Our first batch of cookies every year are these wonderful little white cookies called Coconut Joys, which determines the "Santa Test". Everyone LOVES chocolate, right? It should be an easy test, right? Well this first batch of cookies and ONLY the first batch (very important for explaining the test, as there are no do-overs), is the test to see if the kids have been naughty or nice. If the chocolate tastes good, they have been great, continue on. If it doesn't, well, they better be super good from then on out. (See where I am going on this? LOL) My older kids and sometimes even their friends, if they are brave enough, still come to my house to attempt this test.

The process goes something like this. You explain the test. Sorry, kids can't help with these cookies because they are too hot to touch, but they do get to help with decorating the next type of cookies you make! When the cookies are completely finished, you call the kids in to admire your work~ the first cookies of the season! There is a always little chocolate left, not a lot, but just enough so all the kids can have a taste. Take a spoon out for each kid and put a little of the chocolate on each spoon. The next two steps are the MOST important, so pay attention!

1) Make sure you have a video camera ready!

2) The chocolate will still be warm so make sure it is not too hot so they don't get burnt.

Have them taste the chocolate to find out if they have been naughty or nice!

As promised, here is the recipe!

Coconut Joys

1/2 cup (1 stick) butter

2 cups powdered sugar

3 cups coconut

2 squares (2 oz) unsweetened chocolate, melted

Melt butter in saucepan. Remove from heat. Add powdered sugar and coconut. Mix well. Shape rounded teaspoons of mixture into balls. Make indent in center of each and place on cookie sheet. Fill centers with melted chocolate. Chill until firm. Store in refrigerator. Makes 3 dozen.