Monday, November 29, 2010

Holiday Traditions


Our gingerbread houses from a few years ago
ice skating in Santa Monica
Christmas shopping (via) holiday movies
Chicago trip

Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays for all the family, food, and overall sentimental feeling behind it. But I also love that it marks the unofficial beginning of the holiday season. Although I cheated a bit and started listening to Christmas music last week, I've held out on the movies, decorating, and gift wrapping until now in order to truly commence the festivities. Gabe and I have countless holiday traditions that we build on every year. These are some of our annual holiday activities, as well as a few new events that we're looking forward to this season. What are your holiday traditions?

-spending time with family and friends
-ice skating in Santa Monica
-holiday dress up dates
-spiked eggnog
-Christmas movie marathons
-holiday baking with my mom
-building gingerbread houses
-Christmas shopping with egg nog lattes
-a festive trip to Chicago with shopping on Michigan Avenue and ice skating at Millennium Park
-wrapping presents while singing along to Christmas music

28 comments:

Curves Ahead lifestyle blogger said...

ahhh love all this My hubs and I are thinking of doing a ginger bread house , going ice skating in Santa Monica too !!!

Unknown said...

great traditions - i love Christmas movie marathons. are you heading to Chicago again this year?!

xx

kate said...

I've never gotten too into the holidays, but this year I am trying my hardest, thanks for the ideas!
velvet Cupcakes

Gabriel said...

Here come the Holidays! I can't wait to make our way through that list! HoHoHo!

Anna @ IHOD said...

So many fun ones! My family has many traditions and we keep adding some every year! ha ha!
Watching Muppet Christmas, White Christmas, and Its a Wonderful Life are Imperative.
Making a Christmas Music Video
Visiting the Homebound members of our parish
Cookie Deco contest
etc. etc. etc.!

Let the fun begin!

Lisa Lisa Lisa said...

These are great traditions! I love the trip to Chicago idea too. I used to go about once a year through college. Brings back great memories.

Happy holidays!

Nicole Marie said...

i can't wait to watch elf!!!

Ashley said...

Such great traditions Valerie! They put an ice skating rink in the valley by our house so we've added that to our traditions too. And this year I'm going to do gingerbread houses with the kids, I can't wait!

Anonymous said...

I try and wait until the 1 Dec before I start listening to xmas music... love traditions, there is such comfort in doing the same things year after year!

Lindsay said...

I always ring in the holidays with christmas movies and music. :) I want to start some more traditions now that I have a baby girl though! Hope you had a happy thanksgiving!

this free bird said...

I love your traditions: ice skaters beware! I'll be hitting the ice again this year with my (lack of) skills. haha!!

The 25 days of Christmas on ABC is a tradition of mine...I watch those Christmas shows + Charlie Brown and all those puppety ones every single year. And Christmas cookies!! YES!

And trying to avoid my mother. There's another one! AHAHAH!

xo,
Carrie

Jaime @ laviejaime said...

Yes- love Elf! I always need to watch that movie, as well as Love Actually and anything else xmas-y. Hope you had a great Thanksgiving!

Amber said...

holiday dress up dates are being added to my list of things to do this holiday season :)

k said...

aw your weekend sounds so fun :) when we lived in the states we'd always watch football and eat!

Anonymous said...

In my family, we always have a cooking contest and a gingerbread house competition over the holidays. And my grandma is always the gingerbread house judge! Unfortunately, as she's legally blind, these days it seems like the tallest structure usually takes the prize haha.

Also, as you wanted to check out my food blog, here it is: effingdericious.wordpress.com

Not quite as awesome as yours though-- maybe I should add "eat this not that" posts? hehe jk

-Daniel

Anonymous said...

I love Chicago! Being there during Christmas would be amazing!

Annie said...

Those are such fun traditions!! It's so exciting that it's this time of year again already! xo

Alicia Lund said...

I can't wait to put up Christmas decorations - it's on my week's to do list (yay!). And a festive trip to Chicago sounds like so much fun.

STYLE'N said...

oh sounds like we have some of the same traditions. I might have to start the gingerbread house tradition with my daughter. We do a lot of cooking, baking and drinking as well. Hope you had a great Thanksgiving break as well. Hopefully it was relaxing.

Josie said...

I absolutely love your holiday traditions, Valerie. It's such a special time to share with loved ones doing fun things like the ones on your list. I love decorating the tree with my family, wrapping presents while watching The Santa Clause, and drinking an obscene amount of coffee out of the Starbucks holiday cups (the only good thing about the onset of finals is that it gives me an excuse to do this!).
xo Josie
http://winksmilestyle.blogspot.com

Natalie said...

I love your traditions, made me so excited for Christmas!

Lisa Griffin said...

these sound so great! chicago is amazing in the winter as long as you can stand the wind!
www.indramaticfashion.com

torrie said...

Thank you for your nice message today!

We share many of the same traditions (and yay- another eggnog fan! ...spiked and in latte form:).

One big one for us is going out to get the tree, decorating it- while listening to Chipmunks Christmas (a childhood tradition!), and drinking mulled cider. I don't think I could ever go for a fake tree! (My mom and grandma have one, and I totally understand why they made the switch, but I do the chaos of shopping for that "just right" tree each year!)

Marcie said...

I can't wait to go ice skating in SF! It is so fun. I also just watched Elf on TV. What a funny movie. Christmas Vacation is another favorite of mine.

Have a great week, Val!
Marcie

Rachel @ Finding Joy said...

Fabulous traditions!

We love the movie Elf over here. In fact, my family can probably quote the entire movie....

Poppies and Sunshine said...

Love this post! These sound like my traditions to minus the ice skating and Chicago. I absolutely love Christmas traditions!

erica said...

absolutely loving this post! Christmas is my favorite and I think you really hit all the fun traditions!

xo

PursuitOfLLT said...

Great traditions! Are you coming to Chicago again? The city is it's most beautiful during the Holidays :)

I love watching the 25 days of Christmas on ABC Family...seriously it's going to be great. and starts tomorrow! haha