Reply to How to create functional, positive holiday traditions?

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[quote=Anonymous]I know everyone is saying "simple" but only do that if it's your speed and personality. Make the holidays fit your family, not the other way around.

I grew up with raucous, wild holidays and that's exactly what I want for my kids. I'm type A and we have a schedule of fun things to get done every week: decorating, making/painting kid craft ornaments, baking cookies, girls trip to the Nutcracker, seeing Christmas lights, a set of Christmas books that we read yearly. But from the 20-25th it gets really exciting and it's just all Christmas, all the time. We sing songs (we love the hippopotamus Christmas song!), we have special meals (like appetizer dinner on Christmas, crab legs and prime rib on Christmas eve), hot chocolate while we open presents, everyone in matching pajamas, making nutcracker houses, cutting out snowflakes. It's just like a merry whirlwind. We invite anyone who wants to visit to come and stay with us. DH's family refuses and is still waiting for us to visit them, but my entire family comes and is at my door 8am Christmas morning with bells on and in matching pajamas. It is a happy, jolly free for all of presents. When my kids are older (20s) and before grandkids arrive, I look forward to fancy cocktails and appetizers with the cooking being the star of the show.

To cope, I have all my shopping done by Thanksgiving and I take 1-2 days off a week from mid November onward (typically to clean so there's more time for kids on the weekends) and take the week of Christmas off. My mom helps a lot with the cooking. We just do not travel and I refuse to do so while my kids believe in Santa. I have 4 kids and the youngest is one, so I have a while I figure!

I think a lot of "functional" and "positive" is on the adults and parents. NO getting drunk (we drink wine at dinners, but no one is trashed), NO fighting, especially between parents and you just have to go with the flow. [/quote]

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