Friday, December 2, 2011

Fa-La-La Fridays!

Hi, Friends!
I love Christmas. It is my absolute most favorite time of the year! So, I decided to do something fun on my blog to celebrate! It's a new series called Fa-La-La Fridays. Every Friday from now until the end of the year, I will share some of my favorite Christmas traditions, recipes, gift ideas, songs and more! I guess it will kind of be like the Super Summer Saturdays series that I had going all summer, but it will be cooler because it's Christmas!

Today I'll share one of my favorite traditions with you.

You may remember reading about my little cousins and the fun times we had together when my college hosted Sibs' Weekend last February. You may have realized that I really, really like doing fun things with these two cute little girls pre teens. Our most favorite thing to do together is our annual Christmas party.

We started this when they were quite small. It started as just an afternoon spent together making Christmas cookies and watching How the Grinch Stole Christmas (our favorite!!).

The next year, we made it a sleepover. More time for crafts, games and a few additional movies.

Then we started tacking several hours onto both the beginning and end of the sleepover, making it practially two full days. We made fun crafts, like fun holiday pillows. For the pillows, we used two pieces of fleece and put them on each side of a plain white 12x12 pillow. Then they used the cut and tie method that you often see people use to make blankets. They tied their fleece all around the pillow, and they turned out so so so cute!

We also always included a trip to Burger King. (If you read the Sib's Weekend post you'll know that we went there that weekend too. We really like Burger King!) After our lunch, we went to Dollar Tree (everything's a buck) so that the girls could pick out gifts for parents, friends and siblings. The things that they purchase always bring a smile to my face. The very first year we did this, Riley, just 3 at the time, picked out a Disney Barbie for her mama and a red bowl for grandma. As they've gotten older, they really, really think about the recipients interests and pick out the most thoughtful gifts that they know will be a hit.

It makes me sad to say that my freshman year of college (Christmas 09), the party did not happen. I was just so ridiculously overwhelmed with the new life chapter that I didn't have time to plan anything. I felt so awful.

Last year, I was still pretty busy, especially since Ihad taken a new job that took up a considerable abount of my free time. But I still wanted to do something for them. I knew it had to be easy to plan (for me) and more grown up than the past parties (for them).

I decided on a lunch at Applebees. My best friend was working in a nursing home at the time, and already knew that she would be working the morning shift on Christmas Day. I decided to use that as an opportunity to bring a smile to someone's face, plan a fun craft for the girls and teach them about giving as well. We decorated cards for the residents. I asked my friend how many we would need and counted out an index card for each person. Then I gave the girls crayons and Christmas stickers and let them go to town. They worked on these while we were waiting for our food. I told them how some of the residents don't get a lot of visitors, and my little empathetic sweethearts worked so hard to make them smile. I gave the cards to my friend and she delivered them on Christmas morning. She said they brought lots of smiles! :)

I'm not sure what our get together will entail this year, but I'm sure it will be fun!

Well, that's my favorite tradition! I'm a tradition girl, for sure. I can't wait to start some traditions with my own babies someday. I already know that I want do do Elf on the Shelf with them. I also want to give them new matching pajamas on Christmas Eve.

What are your family's favorite Christmas traditions? Stay tuned each Friday this month for more fun traditions, recipes, activities and more! Merry Christmas!

1 comment:

  1. Such a fun Christmas tradition! My favorite is decorating our Christmas tree - http://adventuringsmiths.blogspot.com/2011/11/hodge-podge-christmas-tree-of-memories.html.

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