Weddingbee boards

My family has so many!  I've tried carrying on as many as possible since I've moved out of state...here they are!

Thanksgiving:  Nothing too fancy, but the night before we stay up late making all of the pies for the next day.  On my mom's side, we would always go bowling before dinner...sounds a bit odd, but so much fun!  On my dad's side, we break out "Christmas Vacation" after dinner for the first viewing of the season!

Christmas:  When I lived up north, we would go to a Christmas tree farm the Saturday after Thanksgiving and cut down our own tree.  Now that I live in FL and there aren't any tree farms down here, I have to settle for picking one out at Home Depot each year...I always get a live one though, it's just not Christmas to me without it!  We also make Christmas cookies each year with the same cookie cutters my grandma used to use!  I actually found exact replicas online and ordered a set for each of my sisters and cousins.  We also make Buckeyes along with the cookies (peanut butter balls dipped in chocolate to look like the actual nut).  We also make my grandma's coffee cake recipe for breakfast Christmas morning each year.

FI isn't nearly as sentimental as I am, so he just goes along with my traditions.  I wouldn't be who I am without them!

We only have a couple traditions in my family. We always put up the Christmas tree the day after Thanksgiving (it's fake, I have allergies unfortunately). We all go out to eat somewhere nice on Christmas Eve as a family, and my guy tags along. Then my sister and I each open one present when we get home.

My guy's family does the tradition where you hide the pickle ornament somewhere in the tree and whoever finds it first gets an extra present. Although my guy has been letting his little brother win the last couple years...good thing they both share their presents.

We always have homemade waffles with ice cream for breakfast. My dad makes them :) And we always include our pets in Christmas - they each have their own stockings!

We already had our Thanksgiving. Usually FI's sister hosts, and we all go out for dinner and an NHL game on the Saturday (the hockey game is FI's favourite tradition, I'm sure, haha), and then turkey dinner on the Sunday at her place. But she had (guess what!) a wedding to go to this year, so FI's brother's new wife hosted instead. She did a fantastic job, especially with cooking her first turkey ever!

I will admit it's been tough balancing his family and my family for holidays. Christmas usually means doing presents with our own families separately in the morning, then him coming to my folks' place for dinner around 2pm, and then both of us going to his parents' place for dinner around 6. Sooooo full.....

His family never did much for the holidays and he LOVES that I brought so many traditions with me, and we have made several together already.

For Halloween we go to a corn or a milo maze and have fun racing to see who can get to the end first. I also make a peanut butter silk cake the night before (his favorite) and then decorate it to look like a Jack O'Lantern. This year I saw a thread on NotMartha about making meatlof to look like a hand, so I did that this year and it was a HUGE hit. We will do it again from now on as our Halloween dinner.

For Thanksgiving we have a huge dinner with pumpkin and apple and cherry pies made the day before and we invite friends who do not have their own family, so we end up with a big crazy time. I make double stuffing/dressing as he never had homemade stuffing growing up, only the stuff from a box, and I think he manages to eat an entire recipe's worth all by himself. All the girls help out with cooking and all the guys do the dishes and then we play Clue. We also have turkey salad sandwiches the next day.

For Christmas we pick out a tree together and he shows off his macho man skills by putting it on top of the car and pretending it is too heavy and he is going to drop it. We get a new ornament every year, and then decorate the tree together. We also have cheese enchiladas for dinner at his sister's house (about the only tradition his family has). Oh, and we open one present the night before which is new pajamas to wear that night. This tradition came from my family where we were allowed to choose one present to open the night before, and it somehow always turned out to be new pajamas! My clever, clever mom.

My mother always has a small party on New Year's Eve where we eat fondue for dinner and play Trivial Pursuit with all the family friends.

We always have breakfast for dinner on Good Friday. We make pancakes with fruit in them, which we have done in my family for ages.

We make corned beef and cabbage on Saint Patrick's Day and we watch "Darby O'Gill and the Little People" after dinner.

Valentine's Day is the anniversary of our engagement, so we go out to dinner at The Melting Pot in remembrance (that is where he proposed), and then we waltz and tango on the tennis court.

For Fourth of July we always get our pictures taken at the Old West photobooth at the fair, and go swimming at the lake.

Yaya! The holidays!

His family didn't have many traditions but he is loving the special ideas he is adopting from me and my family that we can share with the children we have someday.

The day after Thanksgiving we always cut down our tree at the same place where they have hot cider and take us on a sleigh ride with horses to cut down the tree.

Between Dec 1 and Dec 25 we have a list of Christmas movies we have to watch together.

We bake and decorate cookies usually mid-month.

We exchange pajamas and an ornament on Christmas Eve to open.

We hang stockings with plenty of little knick-knacks.

We go to an indoor waterpark the 2nd weekend of every December and enjoy splishing-splashing around and enjoying the decorative Holiday theme throughout the resort.

And we ALWAYS go to a movie on both Thanksgiving and Christmas Day nights.

A few other things my DH and I have done together every year... run the 5k in the city the 1st weekend in December, go to the Nutcracker show (which happens to be in the mansion we got married), build snowmans, go sledding and ice skating.

We have a zillion Christmas traditions!  They've been modified slightly now that my family's in PA and I'm in TX but we still do as many as possible.  Before Christmas, we make "painted cookies" which is just a sugar cookie recipe that we stamp out with cookie cutters and paint with egg yolk/food coloring dyes.  We even have traditional painted cookies that we make every year!  On Christmas Eve, we go to church, and then my mom and I drive around the neighborhoods and look at Christmas lights, picking out the best houses.  We get a peppermint hot coco and come home and watch White Christmas -- oh!  And they always wait for me to set up our manger!  Christmas morning we do brunch with my Dad's family and dinner with my Mom's family.  

A lot of people get down on Christmas because it's all commercialism, but all the things I just listed cost little to nothing.  :) 

We're making our own traditions, based on what we loved best from our own childhood traditions.

For me, I love cooking and preparing food -- so Christmas and the leadup is all about preparing (and eating!) different foods, making food gifts for people, and all that sort of thing. We're already forming our own food-based traditions -- smoked salmon bagels for breakfast on Christmas morning, for instance. And this year I'm making Christmas cupcakes instead of a Christmas pudding, which I hope will become a tradition, too.

My favourite thing has to be decorating the tree together, with glühwein and strudel.