Random Thoughts of a Romance Blogger: Holiday Traditions

You’ve heard from some of our favorite authors this week but you get to hear from us too!  Here’s getting to know the UTC gals a little better this holiday season…

Suzanne

I’ve been wracking my brain to come up with some of my Christmas traditions but I have been coming up short. I don’t have any heart warming traditions, like singing carols to the elderly, dressing my tree with family eggnog in hand, nor do I make any world famous baked goods. Frankly I can’t sing and putting up the Christmas tree normally results in a lot of bickering and someone walking off in a huff, adding alcohol to the mix might instigate a family feud, as for baked goods… it would be kind of boring if I did the same thing each year.

So, lets move on to the real Christmas traditions, over indulgence; spending too much, drinking too much and eating too much. Those tend to be my Christmas traditions, if I haven’t eaten my weight in chocolate and gotten trollied it hasn’t been a proper Christmas. Which, although heart warming, an indigestion tablet normally clears that right up. But, although these very modern Christmas traditions may be slightly uncouth, sometimes the cookie cutter just don’t fit and who doesn’t love an odd shaped cookie anyways?

Annie

By the beginning of December, all the Christmas decorations are up. The cold wind threatens to tear the house down, but at least it’s warm and cozy inside. To get into the Christmas spirit, I try to read as many Christmas themed books as I can but this year for some reason, I haven’t read as many as I would have liked. I am, however, ahead of the game in terms of presents! I’ve bought all the gifts I need and have even wrapped them (although it looks as if a three-year-old had done it) and put them under the tree. This year I’ve gone a little crazy with advent calendars. Chocolates nail polish, jewelry – I can’t seem to resist them! I have a feeling that these will be a new Xmas traditions in the years to come!

When December 24th rolls on, that’s really when the traditions kick in. My family celebrates Christmas Eve with a big dinner with family and friends. There’s Christmas music blasting in the background and around midnight we all gather around for some wine, cheese and crackers. But the thing that most people go crazy over is the homemade hot chocolate. This paired with the chance to start opening your gifts? BEST. FEELING. EVER.

Yeah, we don’t wait until Christmas morning to open our presents. We aren’t a very patient bunch!

So that’s it! Not too many typical Christmas traditions there but that’s how my family does it. Hope all you guys have a wonderful Christmas! I’ll see you in the next year.

Francesca

I guess I’ll be the one to share a pic here.  My one tradition that I can’t do without every year is setting up my nativity scene.  It’s been tradition in my family to recreate the whole town instead of just doing the traditional scene for generations.  Over the years it’s gotten a lot more elaborate, at least for me.

When I was a kid and we lived in Panama we had access to a lot of supplies to do this with because it’s also a tradition they follow there.  But in the US this is not as common.  So since I’ve started creating my own stash of stuff I discovered this one company that creates figurines and houses, etc.  They are gorgeous with such attention to detail and over the years I’ve managed to gather quite the supply.

I’ll be honest and say I got a bit lazy this year and didn’t set everything I have out.  There should be a sheet of plywood over my buffet to give me the extra room to add more elevations and more “businesses” and houses and towns-people.  🙂  I’m also still on the hunt for more pieces and I literally stalk the site that sells them for sales throughout the year.  Can you tell it’s an addiction?

When I see this set up it just makes me happy and makes me think back on childhood memories of setting this up with my parents.  Wouldn’t be the holidays without it for me.

Angela

Too many little traditions to mention but I have to say my favorite is one we can’t skip. It’s totally sappy, don’t judge. Every year, we add a new personalized ornament to our Christmas tree. Since we started sixteen years ago, we have collected ornaments such as just-married ornament,signed ornaments from a Christmas parties we’ve hosted, first house, and my favorite youngest/oldest daughter ornaments. What I love the most is that we know where it came from. We all take part in putting them up on the tree while Christmas music plays and usually do it the weekend of Thanksgiving. Told you it’s sappy. 🙂

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