Do you have certain crafts that you do together? Do you have a large family and everyone gets together each year?

1. I make Christmas sugar cookies and the girls help me decorate them. They then deliver a plate to our neighbor.
2. Drive around and look at Christmas lights.
3. Pumpkin carving is a one-night activity that the girls enjoy. They love pulling out "the guts". (although going to the pumpkin farm is not a frugal experience, but it is a fun one).

We go to the used bookstore and trade in a bunch of books for 25 kids christmas books and read one every day starting dec. 1 thru christmas day. We have a birthday party for Jesus complete with cake or cupcakes. We also like to drive aroun and look at christmas lights. We attend a lot of churches holiday performances. At thanksgiving we draw a persons' name and tell what we are thankful for about them. We go to parades. We always put up our tree the day after thanksgiving. Thats all I can think of right now.

This is a holiday tradition at our house when we were kids. I so wish I could do more of this with my kids but given we live half way across the country it just isn't possible!


My grandfather used to get the team of Belgian horses out and hook them up to a sleigh and give all of us grandkids an old fashioned sleigh ride. We would ride it up and down our country road, stopping along to pick up enighbors and sing carols and Christmas songs as we go! It was so much fun

We normally attend a local parade and sometimes drive to a big park that has a drive through Christmas light display.
The last 2 years we visited this little shop that decorates the outside like the Candyland game, and inside the bottom 1/2 of the shop they have people dressed up like the gingerbread man from that game and sell the old fashioned candy and homemade popcorn, fudge, and other treats. Then upstairs they have a gingerbread house contest, which is really neat, and you get to vote for your favorite. My kids have already asked if we are going back this year!

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We do the bontiancial gardens parade of lights.

The granddaughters come over and we string popcorn and make colored paper chains for their tree.

We bake cookies for the elderly people at the church.

The girls go thru their stuff animals and old toys and donate several to our church toy drive. Dh fixes or paints them if they need it. I usually make clothes for the "naked baby dolls"

Well, my sonis only 6 months,but we did a "thankful tree" that I think I'm going to start doing every year. I filled his in that hes thankful for daddy, mommy, and apple sause, but Im sure it'll get better as he gets older. We're also gonna do putting up the christmas tree together and maybe open up one present on christmas eve

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Jessica Nichole! Mommy of 1 little boy!
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