My Favourite Christmas Traditions

Everyone has their own Christmas traditions, from decorating the tree to the movies they watch during the winter break. Here are some of my personal favourite traditions that I’d like to share!

1. The Polar Express

This movie isn’t just my favourite Christmas movie; it’s one of my favourite movies in general. I’m not quite sure what it is about the movie that makes it so timeless; the incredible animation, the heartwarming story, or the characters you grow to love even though you don’t know the names of two of the main leads. I just never get tired of it and I love to watch this movie every single year. This used to be a family tradition, however, my brother seemed to grow out of the movie, so we all watch a different Christmas movie as a family and I watch The Polar Express on my own time. It’s a tradition I don’t think I’ll ever be able to let go.

2. The Nightmare Before Christmas

I mentioned in my Halloween article that I watch this movie twice a year – well, this is where the second one comes in! Every year, I pop this movie in while I wrap my Christmas gifts. It’s a nice little tradition that I have with myself that allows me to take my time to wrap the gifts perfectly!  ☺

3. The Pickle Gift

No, this isn’t a pickle that’s a gift. This is something my family started doing a few years back – I believe it’s an old German tradition. The pickle gift is where a pickle ornament is hidden somewhere in the tree and the children have to search for it and whoever finds it first gets an extra gift! In all of the years I have been doing this with my family, I have only won the pickle gift once. What makes this even funnier is the fact that the gift that year was season 7 of How I Met Your Mother . At the time, I didn’t even watch the show and it’s my brothers favourite – you can tell who they expected to win that year (I’m not salty).

4. Stockings on Christmas Morning

Children get excited on Christmas morning. They wake up at the crack of dawn, eager to see what Santa left them – but the parents don’t exactly want to wake up at 6 AM on a holiday. That’s why they – sorry, I mean, Santa – left mine and my brother’s stockings in our rooms filled with little gifts and goodies. For as long as I can remember, my brother and I made a pact that whoever woke up first on Christmas morning would wake up the other up and we’d open our stockings together. This is still something the two of us still do to this day! Even if that time changed from 6 to 11 AM, it’s still nice to see that some things never change.

5. Family Christmas Party

My father grew up in a family of 8 children – 4 boys, 4 girls. All of them have kids, and some of their kids have kids. Needless to say, we have a big family. Every Christmas since we moved to Canada, we’ve driven down to Québec to have a massive family dinner – my family is so big we have to rent out the same dining hall every year! We always have fun playing games, listening to music, and participating in a gift exchange (and now that I’m an adult, I can finally participate in the big gift swap!). 

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• winter break