save all our change all year and then donate to charity.

special cookies and candy that I only make at Christmas time.

Zoo Lights is fun. My 3 YO loves to make gingerbread houses and announced last night that Christmas is "the celebration of gingerbread."

We listen to the cable music channel called "Sounds of the Season" and he shouts for joy when the picture of decorated cookies comes up. That reminds us that we should make cookies...

....and Chex mix.

Every year we go out to a Christmas Tree Farm and chope down our tree as a family. It's become a big tradition for us.

Watching It's a Wonderful Life.

Drive around the nieghborhood and check out holiday lights on the various houses. Not sure if that's big around here as we just moved to MD. It was a big deal where we used to live in NJ.

Handel's Messiah. We catch it anywhere we can. Sometimes churches, this year I think it will be Strathmore or possibly Kennedy Center or Nat'l Cathedral.

Pancakes and bacon on Xmas morning after stockings and before unwrapping other gifts.

Drive around and see what store is open.

Anonymous wrote:So what special family tradition do you have that is not gift or religion related, we celebrate Christmas as a secular holiday and I want to create family traditions that are about family, not gifts. Anyone?

I have a "Letdown" party on Dec. 26. No presents and serve chili, garlic bread , salad, beer.

Oh, and as he gets older, I definitely want to take him to see the Nutcracker.

And if my parents are in town (they spend most of the winter in FL), we do a big dinner (like Thanksgiving) on Xmas Eve. I always do a Bloody Mary on Xmas morning and we stay in PJs as long as we can, watching our new movies and playing.

I have a 3yo and we're doing an activity Advent calendar instead of a traditional one with chocolates or presents. I'm not religious, but I like the idea of a countdown and wanted to get the focus off presents.
Each morning he checks his calendar and there's an activity for the evening/day tucked inside.

Here's our list (not in order), most of which we'd do anyway:
Eat a candy cane on the way home from school
Make and mail cards
Make and hang snowflakes (from coffee filters, easier than paper)
Decorate the tree
Pick 3 toys to give to Goodwill
Make salt-dough ornaments
Paint ornaments
Take silly pictures in Santa hats
Make a video of us singing a Christmas song and email it to aunts/uncles/grandparents
Make cotton ball snowmen
Go see the trains and miniature buildings at the Botanic Gardens and the Capitol tree
Go see the White House trees
Zoolights
Pick out and drop off a toy for Toys for Tots
Picture with Santa
Watch the old How the Grinch Stole Xmas in Mama's bed
Make a present for teachers
Wrap family presents
Make a thaumatrope
Make cookies
Go ice skating (I hope, we're trying this next week, he might be too little)
Make a gingerbread house
Go for a drive to look at the lights in our PJs
Hot chocolate for breakfast
Open new PJs and a Xmas/winter book on Xmas Eve

Wander around your neighborhood with hot chocolate admiring the lights and decorations

The Messiah at the Kennedy Center

Any performance of the Nutcracker, even at your local ballet studio

Adopt a family - if your budget permits. Otherwise, find a Giving Tree or other way to donate items to a shelter for families.

Cookie baking day with your friends. Alternatively, a cookie exchange. If you have girls, you can make this an all-female event.

We kick off the holiday season watching National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation on Thanksgiving weekend.

Read "The Night Before Christmas" on Christmas Eve. My dad read to us until we were in high school and we loved it.

Some sort of traditional meal on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day. I've instituted soup on Christmas Eve evening, mostly because we go to Mass on Christmas Eve and I want something simple. Our breakfast alternates between my grandmother's traditional poteca and DH's mother's cinnamon rolls.

-Brookside Gardens for the lights
-decorating a gingerbread house
-sing-alongs in the car

12:59 again- last year, we were here for Christmas day (left the next day to do the family rounds). It was so mild that day, in the afternoon, we went for a walk on a nature trail and then picked up Chinese takeout for dinner. It was LOVELY. If only that could be a yearly tradition.

My mom tried to making eating lasagna on Christmas Eve a "thing" but unfortunately, she absolutely sucks at making lasagna, so that never took.

We watch A Christmas Story on Christmas Eve/Christmas when TBS runs it for a full day. Out of those 24 hours, my TV is tuned to that movie for probably 12 of them.

00:02 is your cheesy movie Sleepless in Seattle?

We have a special meal on Christmas Eve (we spend Christmas with family), we go to the local lights festival together, and cut down a tree together. Our kids are now teens, but when they were younger, the liked to help me make cookies, we made gingerbread houses, and they helped decorate the tree.

We make a gingerbread house.

It started out simple and small, and each year has grown larger and more elaborate.

Special meal with some dishes we only make this time of year and of course an extra special dessert

Decorating some indoor and outdoor-we stick to winter themes-snowflakes, snowmen, penguins

We watch the same movie every year on Christmas eve. It's not holiday themed, but it's cheesy enough I'm not going to say which one We love it.

Baking gingerbread and having it with hot cocoa. (We do this more on snow days).

Try to entertain at least once during holiday season-always good to see friends!

So what special family tradition do you have that is not gift or religion related, we celebrate Christmas as a secular holiday and I want to create family traditions that are about family, not gifts. Anyone?