Everyone has some kind of traditions around the holidays. With each generation, the old traditions are either continued, modified or abandoned. Also with each new family, new traditions are begun.

I’ve talked about my family traditions that have been continued (cooking coogily for “big dinners”, the Santa box, etc.). The traditions we’ve adopted on our own are:
– Nothing fancy for Christmas: For many many years, Christmas Day was the one day out of the entire year that I could almost guarantee that hubby and I would be off together. The first year we were off together, we made a huge batch of green chili burritos and watched movies all day. When we had a pool table, we invited friends over for the annual “pool tournament”, where everyone shared in the burritos, we ate, drank, were merry…. all in pajamas. Nothing Fancy. It was a great escape from the pressures of family obligations and stresses of the season.

– Pictures by the National Christmas Tree: Since moving to the DC area, we have gone to the National tree to take group pictures in front of it. Every year, this picture is among my favorites.

– New ornaments for our Christmas tree: Every year we get the White House ornament (since 2001) and a new Star Wars ornament (since 1996, I think). Our tree is very eclectic with no rhyme or reason to the theme. It has homemade ornaments, next to antique ornaments, next to nightmare before Christmas ornaments, all with the mayor of Halloweentown as a tree topper. I guess I’d say the “theme” is all our holiday memories stuck on a tree”. We like it.

– Fancy New Years: Ricki came up with this one, I believe. We all wanted to dress up and go to a formal New Year’s party, but they tend to be expensive, lame or just too far away from where we wanted to go. So we host our own “Fancy new year’s party”. Everyone dresses up in their finest clothes, we have a formal dinner (complete with china) and celebrate the changing of the year in style. It is always a lot of fun.

What traditions have you begun with your generation?