There are many different reasons to enjoy the holiday season — but I think one of my favorite reasons is the traditions that blend seamlessly into our everyday lives around this time of year.
Is your Thanksgiving meal at noon? At seven pm? Do you always eat turkey and all the classics? Or are there some unique dishes mingled in?
When do you put up your tree? Your nativity? Before Thanksgiving? After?
Do you and your family go to a certain Christmas light display every year?
How do you ring in the New Year? Asleep? In NYC? With friends and family?
Sometimes, I think we feel traditions have to be grand, unique, and exciting, but I don’t think that’s always the case. One of my absolute favorite traditions my family did was pie for breakfast on Thanksgiving — not grand, maybe a little unique, but not extremely — yet I have wonderfully fond memories gathered around the kitchen table each November sharing pie with my loved ones.
Another fairly recent addition to a long standing Christmas Eve tradition has been the game of Loaded Questions. For years, my family, after Christmas Eve church service, has gathered around the Christmas tree with a roaring fire in the fireplace eating Christmas cookies, opening our one Christmas Eve present (no, it wasn’t pajamas — we didn’t do that tradition, although my in-laws did and my husband enjoyed it) and just savoring the time.
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Back to the Loaded Questions game tradition addition though — I think it started because one year our Christmas Eve present was the game of Loaded Questions and my mom convinced us all to play it right then. It’s a fairly simple game where you draw a card with a prompt ranging from simple (Favorite Food) to deep (My most important dream for my life) and write down your answer. Everyone turns their answers into one person (the person right of the guesser) who reads them aloud to “the judge or guesser.” This person then must guess who wrote which answer – points are awarded for the right guesses.
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As you can imagine, the guessing is easier when played with family members if the questions are obvious, known facts about you — but since this tradition started we have played it with Christmas guests as well as our newly added family members – my brother in law and my husband.
It’s a fun Christmas Eve tradition for us that teaches us more about each other and reminds us how thankful we are for family and for the chance to be together for the holidays.
I look forward to continuing the above traditions with my own, newly formed family of two (and someday maybe more) as well as starting some unique to us. There’s nothing quite like a holiday tradition to bring both joy and the holiday spirit to your heart.
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What are some of your favorite traditions? I would love to hear! Feel free to share in the comments! 🙂
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