New Christmas Traditions

 

http://www.katescreativespace.com

My children are all grown with families of their own. Some days I really long for the days when we had little ones around at holiday time. Then again after having the grands for an afternoon helping with my Christmas decorating, I'm glad for the quiet when they leave.

Anyway, while tripping down memory lane and reading my favorite blogs at the same time (I'm good at multi-tasking☺) I came across two very special Christmas traditions. 

The first from Kate (Kate's Creative Space) is described in this post. She calls it The North Pole Repair Shop. She has her son pick toys that he no longer plays with. The toys are boxed up and given back to Santa to fix up at his Workshop. Her son is tickled that someone else will get to play with them.

Of course there has to be a way to let Santa know about these toys. This is how they contact him. 
 
"Five flashes of your torch, by the way, will alert Santa and the Elves that they need to swing by in the night to make the collection. Leave your boxes by the back door or in the hearth, and in the morning you’ll wake up to find a candy cane as receipt of your package."

The second one is a tradition of only giving the kids three presents.
This represents the gifts of the three Wise Men to the baby Jesus.
I wish we had thought of this when our children were little. It would really have helped to eliminate some of the commercialism that goes along with Christmas. Nancy (Ordinary Miracles & the Crazy 9) writes in her post that her children have never made an issue of it even when they've noticed that their friends got more gifts.

So sometimes I wish we could have a do-over and my children would once again be those innocents waiting to open their gifts on Christmas.  Or...I can have them read this post and see if they can start some new Christmas traditions of their own--and maybe let me take some photos!


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