I have only the best memories of holidays past with my family as I grew up and I feel strongly that we create some traditions of our own for little bug to remember now that she is old enough to start understand the season a bit.
Our first tradition we are starting this year is our 'advent calendar'. Its a stack of new books she gets to open each night of December leading up to Christmas eve. We have done two nights of this so far and it is magical to see the excitement in her eyes. I don't think she knows who Santa really is...but she sure is excited to count down til his visit. "Santa is going to come soon! He is bringing me a tree and presents!" *He isn't bringing our tree (I know some families do that) we just have not shopped for a tree yet this year. **Fingers crossed I can talk hubby into a fake tree since I was vacuuming up needles daily last year. :(
We don't do religion. So Christmas for us is about family and the gift of giving. In the spirit of giving we have gathered coats and gently loved toys to donate as well as packing up ziplcok bags to pass out to those we see in need when out and about. I hope we can instill a charitable bone into our daughter (and any future kids). I come from a very well off family and we always had more than enough to give back. Even though this was a tough year for us (no income since March) we are still lucky enough to have everything we need.
Our last tradition that I have not started yet (and it might get put off til next year) is the elves. Most of you will be familiar with the "elf on the self". I have not been sold on this item despite the popularity and the fact that all of L's friends have a family elf. I just can't get behind an elf that tattles to Santa on bad behavior. There will be plenty of gifts for L under the tree despite behavior. She doesn't have to earn her gift, we give because we love her. Tattling is not something we want to teach our kids and pointing out negative aspects of our day is something I actively try to avoid. I make a point a 'million' times a day to tell my daughter how much she is loved, how much she makes me happy, how I love to see her smile, how proud I am of 'x' action she just did, how she shared with friends/the dog, how smart she is to know new vocab words, etc, etc (you get the idea).
I cam across these Kindness elves on a favorite blog I follow. I don't think we will track down the same elves but I can really get behind the idea of positive elves. This concept just flows better with our parenting style and I hope sharing her idea with the my parent friends will get the idea out there. Kids deserve to have a postive elf infuence around such a happy season. Link to The Imagination Tree blog and her idea for Kindness Elves.
If anyone has some fun traditions for young kids I would love to hear about them.
