Special Traditions

I know the holidays are over, but I have some friends that thought I should share some of our Christmas traditions on our blog. Hopefully one of these traditions will be something that you can add to your Christmas celebrations!


First of all, 'Ebenezer the Elf' visits our home shortly after Thanksgiving. Ebenezer is very sneaky and we have never been able to catch him or see him in person! He's one of Santa's elves that creates mischief! He checks in on the kids to make sure they're being good for Santa. Ebenezer brings strange candy, writes poems about being good and remembering that Christmas isn't just about Santa and toys. This year he did several funny things. One day he lined the stairs with candy canes, (note picture!) another night he put huge candy canes on the kids beds, one morning Brandon woke up with red vine licorice all over his blankets! And on Christmas Eve was the biggest shocker of all - he moved our Christmas tree from the front room upstairs to by the fireplace downstairs! Then he left this poem under the tree:

It’s Christmas now and I’m shedding a tear
I won’t come around again until after Thanksgiving next year.
You’ve been good kids, in my heart you are dear
I made sure to put that into Santa’s ear.
I’ll be back for more mischief, more tricks and more fun,
But for this year my spying for Santa is done.
Always remember, I’m not far away,
Because the magic of Christmas can be in your hearts to stay!

(yes, I'm brilliant, I know...) I mean, Ebenezer is brilliant!

Another fun tradition is on Christmas Eve, we make 'magic' Reindeer food. It is basically a cellophane bag with oatmeal and silver, red and gold glitter! Reindeer love oatmeal, but you must add the glitter for magic, and so the reindeer can see it through the snow!

Santa Footprints - we're not sure how he does it, but Santa leaves footprints in the house that look like this! Must be powdered sugar or flour, or something! ;)

Scoping for Santa! We keep the wrapping paper tubes, and the kids decorate them on Christmas Eve and they make great telescopes to watch for Santa in the sky!

One final tradition is that instead of candy in our Advent Calendar, we have a scripture a day. Every night, the kids pull out the scripture, look for it in the Bible or Book of Mormon and we read it as a family. They are all centered around Christ and his birth. It really helps them (and us) remember what Christmas is really about...celebrating the birth of our Savior, Jesus Christ!

I hope some of these traditions are something new and different that you can do to make your Christmas season even more special! If you have any fun traditions to share, please comment, I would love to hear what they are!!