Our holiday traditions

Christmas has always been my favorite time of year. While I am not a fan of cold weather, I am a fan of the Christmas traditions passed down through our family.  Each year, as a child, my uncle and I would venture out on the 22nd of December to find a Christmas tree from the woods behind my grandmother’s house.  We would chop it down -more of him chopping and me getting in the way- and drag it back to the house where I was in charge of decorating.  I loved carefully placing the antique ornaments on the tree.  It’s a tradition we carried over to our family. Each year we drive to the local Christmas tree farm and the kids would fight over who got to chop down the tree, even though we made them take turns so “everyone would get a chance.”  Another tradition I carried over from childhood was the annual Hickory Farms gift basket.
Hickory Farms

My son claims his Christmas is not complete unless he receives Hickory Farms goodies in his stocking.  He also says he knows it is time to shop for Christmas when the Hickory Farms kiosk comes to the mall!  One of the kids’ favorite traditions, aside from gathering a tree, making Christmas cookies and reindeer food, was planning a tea party using the goodies we purchased from Hickory Farms. We would set up a table with cute Christmas decor and use our Christmas plates, cups and napkins.  I look forward to carrying on the tradition with my (eventual) grandchildren. How much do you want to bet the kids will find a way to be included in the tea party too?
Hickory Farms Holiday Traditions

Our other Christmas traditions include building a lopsided gingerbread house and reading the Christmas story and “Twas the Night before Christmas on Christmas Eve.  If I tried to skip a tradition, my kids would call me out on it, so I learned quickly to make sure I planned these.
Hickory Farms gift basket

Did you know Hickory Farms has been around sixty years? You can find their food gifts are available at Holiday Market locations nationwide, on hickoryfarms.com and at leading retailers.  What are some of your favorite holiday traditions?

155 Comments

  1. Creating traditions with your little ones is so necessary.

  2. Such an essential to have around the house during the holidays, because you never know when family members are going to stop by!

  3. My favorite holiday tradition is baking snickerdoodle cookies.

  4. Letting the kids open 1 present Christmas Eve.

  5. My father always made sourdough pancakes on Christmas morning.
    Thanks for the contest.

  6. I enjoy decorating the Christmas tree with my son.

  7. We like watching movies.

  8. I like it when my family gets together for a holiday dinner.

  9. On Christmas Eve each family member opens up one gift.

  10. Decorating our tree!

  11. My favorite family tradition is going to Christmas Eve service, baking cookies, putting up the Christmas tree, and looking at Christmas lights!

  12. My favorite holiday tradition is staying up all night with my mom baking and wrapping gifts.

  13. My favorite holiday tradition is going as a family to the Christmas Tree Farm and picking out our tree.

  14. I love pumpkin hunting and carving 🙂

  15. Mine is decorating the Christmas tree with my family.

  16. My favorite holiday tradition is having my parents over for Christmas eve dinner.

  17. Decorating the Christmas tree with family!!

  18. Everyone comes to my house for Christmas Eve! I love that and I love Hickory Farms! Thanks so much for the chance!

  19. we like to go to church on Christmas eve and then open a present before we go to bed after church

  20. My favorite holiday tradition is the family going to the local tree farm to pick out our perfect tree.

  21. My favorite holiday tradition is caroling!

  22. This one’s kind of odd, but I live in a town in Georgia where everyone gets around by golf cart. One of our family traditions is to take the golf cart out one evening before Christmas and go look at all the Christmas lights in the area. We take blankets and hot chocolate. The kids really look forward to it!

  23. we eat pizza at Christmas

  24. We like making tamales for Christmas.

  25. My favorite tradition is going to my mom’s on Christmas Eve for a big taco dinner and lots of homemade cookies.

  26. We like decorating cookies.

  27. I like the family getting together for Thanksgiving dinner.

  28. we have always watched the movie Christmas Vacation after dinner and opening presents

  29. I like to decorate the Christmas Tree.

  30. We go to early service on Christmas Eve, then go out for dinner and come back home and open Christmas presents!

  31. We like going to church on Christmas Eve then celebrating with family on Christmas Day.

  32. My favorite holiday tradition is riding around looking at Christmas lights. We go out late on Christmas night. It is always so peaceful and hardly any traffic out. It makes for a fun late night family activity and it also gives me time to slow down and relax after busy family dinners.

  33. I like the decorating the tree.

  34. Candace Galan-Calderon

    Baking with my mom and kids!

  35. I like to make holiday cookies and pies.

  36. I love decorating the house for the holidays.

  37. My favorite holiday tradition is our Christmas Rock.

  38. We make a big affair of the opening of the gifts.

  39. My favorite holiday tradition is baking cookies with my girls

  40. My favorite Holiday tradition is baking cookies with alll of the children.

  41. We make Christmas tamales

  42. My favorite tradition is the all day cookie baking marathon, followed by driving around town admiring the Christmas light displays.

  43. i love to bake cookies with my mom

  44. We love to make pumpkin roll cakes and give them to our friends and family.

  45. Opening that one small git on Christmas Eve!

  46. My favorite family tradition is meeting with the rest of my family at my Grandparents house for food and gifts.

  47. Mu favorite holiday tradition is going to Christmas midnight Mass.

  48. My favorite tradition is filling the stockings hung at the fireplace.

  49. My favorite tradition is decorating the tree.

  50. I love our tradition of baking cookies and candy together.

  51. My favorite tradition is the cookie exchange that I have with friends. It’s more than just getting a lot of different cookies, it’s sharing friendship.

  52. I love baking pies and eating with my family!

  53. One of my favorite traditions is decorating the tree together.

  54. Patricia treskovich

    We have a christmas eve party

  55. My favorite holiday tradition is taking down the tree and having the holidays over with.

  56. My favorite holiday tradition is getting together with the family. We all live in different parts of the state and don’t see each other often. So, I love spending time with them during the holidays.

  57. My favorite holiday tradition is we go to a local tree farm-chop down our tree and decorate it

  58. We watch a Christmas Story every year!

  59. W bake cinnamon rolls on Christmas morning while we open our socks!

  60. Visiting the original Christmas Story house in Cleveland with my family!

  61. My favorite holiday tradition is that all of the family members help to make the holiday breakfast.

  62. Opening one present of our choice on Christmas Eve. Sometimes we get really into it and put something like socks in a huge, weighted gift box just to trick each other

  63. I love that we have Christmas on Christmas Eve, and have Santa come check on the kids in bed.

  64. I like playing games with the family for gifts.

  65. christmas dinner with family

  66. Decorating the tree together

  67. Christmas Eve with my extended family is always hosted at my house. we cook together for dinner and we exchange gifts after.

  68. I love baking and cooking with my family!

  69. Love having off work and being able to spend time together

  70. I love hickory farms!! One of my favorite traditions is going to the live manger scene on Christmas Eve after grandmas house!

  71. I love baking cookies!

  72. I love reading about others holiday traditions and wow what a fun giveaway from Hickory Farms. We love cutting down a Christmas tree each year, I have fun watching my trio work together to choose one!

  73. Elizabeth Fitzmaurice

    I love the season of Advent in preparation for Christmas, the Advent Calendar, the Advent Wreath. Adorning my apartment with some Christmas lights and my Nativity Set, and other small festive things.

  74. My favorite holiday tradition is driving around the neighborhood looking at the Christmas lights & decor.

  75. We like to make homemade Christmas ornaments.

  76. putting up the lights around the house and the tree we love this

  77. We love to cook our favorite dishes and watch old home movies!

  78. Baking cookies and spending fun, quality time with my family

  79. My favorite tradition is riding around looking at Christmas lights with my son.

  80. My favorite tradition is watching the kids in the Christmas Pageant and baking cookies with them.

  81. My favorite holiday tradition is having all extended family come together for a big Christmas Day meal followed by gifts and just spending time together

  82. going to the festival of lights

  83. Pingback: Time For Tea Hickory Farms Gift Basket Giveaway | Just Sweep

  84. My favorite holiday tradition is having various seafood dishes on Christmas Eve.

  85. Decorating the tree while we watch christmas movies. Thank you for the chance.

  86. Going to the local Christmas parade, stopping on the way home for hot chocolate and then decorating the Christmas tree.

  87. My favorite tradition is getting everyone together for Christmas dinner.

  88. Putting up the tree and watching Christmas movies

  89. we watch Christmas movies as a family

  90. We always open one present on Christmas Eve.

  91. We love driving around the city looking at lights. Our local botanical gardens has a beautiful display every year.

  92. My son opens a new Christmas tree ornament each year on Christmas eve, one that commemorates his year.

  93. We sit at the table and tell what we are thankful for.

  94. I like baking cookies with my family.

  95. I love baking with family.

  96. We decorate a Christmas tree every year.

  97. my favorite holiday tradition is decorating my little tree while listening to Christmas music visitng friends family -driving around too see all the neighborhood lights

  98. Turkey ranks #1.

  99. My favorite holiday tradition is the beautiful twinkling lights on the long dark nights.

  100. Christmas Eve dip in the Bay.

  101. We always go to a tree farm to select the perfect tree.

  102. My favorite Xmas tradition is driving around looking at the holiday lights with hot chocolate.

  103. I like getting the car, putting on Christmas music, and heading out to see the local light displays with my family.

  104. We always bake cinnamon rolls on Christmas morning!

  105. We exchange family gifts on xmas eve every year

  106. we live in East Texas where we seldom get snow, or really cold weather, but we love a firepace so every year before Thanksgiving we get out the fireplace DVD and our TV becomes a fireplace, we love it! It doesn’t feels like the holidays without it!

  107. I love all these ideas! Those food are so yummy! These would be perfect for Christmas eve!

  108. I like all the gatherings with family and with friends.

  109. i love doing peel and eat shrimp at midnight on christmas eve.

  110. a tradition in my family is getting Hickory Farms meats and cheeses! They are the best. I’ve never ventured away from that though so I haven’t tried anything else. Maybe this year I will be different!

  111. The whole family going to my mom’s for Christmas. All the families and grandkids come together at her house.

  112. Our big family gathering/dinner at my house on Christmas Eve!

  113. holiday music, lights, and food!

  114. making cookies for relative with my kids

  115. Cookie exchange!

  116. Making our adorable Santa cookies!

  117. I love hickory farms. They have the most awesome gifts for those hard to shop for people.

  118. My favorite holiday tradition is opening presents and then watching Christmas movies with my family on Christmas Eve.

  119. Going to look at Christmas lights on Christmas Eve, then opening one present each.

  120. Favorite tradition is having a pot luck for holiday dinner

  121. Holiday tradition is making Christmas cookies.

  122. I like driving around to look at the Christmas lights in the different neighborhoods!

  123. We like to pile into the car and drive around town looking at all the pretty lights and decorations around town every year.

  124. We go to my parent’s house to open gifts. Then we have a nice dinner and go out driving around looking for Christmas lights.

  125. We enjoy our family’s Christmas bake day.

  126. I love Hickory Farms products! We received one a few years ago and it was delicious!
    Mitch

  127. My favorite holiday tradition is making Christmas cookies with the kiddos…..I love seeing their creations with the cutout cookies

  128. ice skating with my sisters

  129. My favorite holiday tradition is decorating after Thanksgiving and watching all the Christmas movies.

  130. My favorite holiday tradition is driving around looking at Christmas lights with the kids. There are two house close by that program their lights to a radio station. Super fun to watch.

  131. Having a gift wrapping party early in the month.. Pizza and presents..

  132. Kimberly Flickinger

    My favorite holiday tradition is taking a drive to see the Christmas lights on Christmas Eve night and going to church with my family on Christmas Day.

  133. my favorite holiday tradition is making gingerbread houses and home made ornaments

  134. My favorite tradition is going out and looking at the lights. Some people in our area really go all out.

  135. Mary Beth Elderton

    I am sort of “the keeper” of my grandmother’s Sweet Potato Pie recipe. I make several every holiday season so everyone can take home a whole pie. It will soon be time to pass this tradition down to the next generation.

  136. My favorite holiday tradition is the entire family going to my parent’s home Christmas Eve for a big meal & gift exchange & to enjoy each other’s company!

  137. we go an cut down our own tree and have pancakes for breakfast on Christmas morning

  138. My favorite tradition is putting our christmas tree up the day after thanksgiving and decorating it as a family 🙂

  139. Watching Elf!

  140. Our favorite tradition is baking cookies together, my children get to pick a new recipe to try every year.

  141. My favorite holiday tradition is baking Christmas cookies with my daughter like I did with my mom and grandmother

  142. We count our blessings before we count our calories, or anything else. We take turns sharing those things for which we are most thankful.

  143. We will open one present Christmas Eve, and then get together on Christmas morning as a family.

  144. My favorite holiday tradition is when my whole family gets together and we take silly family photos. They are hilarious and we usually turn them into our Christmas Cards. Love it! We have so much fun together.

  145. My favorite holiday tradition is spending time with family that I do not see very often.

  146. So many favorite Holiday traditions; love baking & decorating Christmas cookies, listening to Christmas music while wrapping presents, watching Charlie Brown Christmas show.

  147. Mine would be baking cookies & making Christmas candy!!

  148. Family dinner.

  149. Brunch at moms

  150. the family getting together to make cookies

  151. Hickory Farms has some great gift baskets. One tradition we have is going to the luau at the Polynesian resort at Disney for Christmas Eve dinner.

  152. Midnight mass with the whole family.

  153. One thing I do… is after Christmas. I hide an ornament on my grown Daughters tree. It usually contains money. When she is taking the tree down, she finds it.

  154. My favorite holiday tradition is listening to holiday music.