Christmas Traditions—Old and New

Early on in our marriage, Nicholas and I decided that we wanted to create a family legacy full of traditions. Our first year of marriage, we researched—yes researched—all sorts of traditions. We asked friends and family what kinds of traditions they had, we tried to incorporate as many of our family’s traditions as we could, and we thought up some traditions on our own. Now, seven years later, we find ourselves at the close of yet another wonderful holiday season. Our family has been richly blessed this year, and as our final post of the year, we thought we would share some of our favorite ongoing Christmas traditions, as well as a few special activities that we enjoyed for the first time this Christmas.

As mentioned in an earlier post, we were very fortunate to spend Thanksgiving in Fairfax, Virginia with some of the McArthur side of the family. Our Thanksgiving celebration was outstanding; however, bright and early (actually dark and early—I think it was about 4 a.m.) Friday morning, the Christmas season officially began for us. After safely returning to Eric and Jenny’s home from the Black Friday chaos (a rather crazy tradition), we packed an overnight bag and headed down to Colonial Williamsburg for a taste of some of the Colonial festivities. The decorating was simple, yet beautiful, and we picked up a few ideas that someday we can incorporate into our own decorating. For now, we’ll just dream about fresh fruit wreaths and window treatments. Here is a photo of my favorite pineapple arrangement.



After a few delightful days in Williamsburg, we returned to Eric and Jenny’s home and were spoiled with another few days of wonderful food and fun Christmas activities. One of these activities was decorating gingerbread houses—a first for me and my children. It was a big it with the kids—thanks Aunt Jenny—and since I found out that you can buy gingerbread kits at the local bakery for fairly inexpensive, it is an activity I would like to make into a new Hoskins family tradition. Perhaps next year we can tie it into Hansel and Gretel and follow bread crumbs to our gingerbread project—who knows.

After a week in Virginia, my parents and children bid good-bye to their Aunt Jenny, Uncle Eric, and cousins Mikey and Matthew, and we set off on a few more first time holiday adventures. We began by detouring through Amish country for a look at the Amish Christmas decorations, and then made our way up to New York City for the famous lighting of the Christmas tree in Rockefeller Square. It was a night of pure chaos and a million too many people, but we decided we would face the crowds for either the tree lighting or the dropping of the big apple on New Year’s Eve. Since my parents were in town, the tree lighting won out. While Christmas in New York City may well become a Hoskins family tradition in future years, my guess is we won’t ever make it back for the spectacular tree lighting ceremony. Here we are by the tree a few days later during daylight hours.

The Radio City Christmas Spectacular featuring the world famous Rockettes, on the other hand, which we returned to New York City to see a few days after the tree lighting, will merit a return trip or two—maybe even a yearly visit in our family traditions dreams! The children loved the show, and we were moved by the incredible Nativity that closed out the performance. Spencer couldn’t believe there were really live camels up on the stage, and honestly, neither could I! Here we are before the show.

And here are a few pics of the show—though pictures can’t do it justice.

Although the tree lighting, the Christmas Spectacular, and the hustle and bustle of the New York City streets and shops at Christmastime were the cherry on the top of our east coast travel sundae, the quiet snow that fell back in Pennsylvania a few days later as we set out for the Christmas tree lot reminded us of the joy of some of our good old holiday traditions. While our budget in St. Louis required the purchase of a fake Christmas tree, I made Nicholas promise that during residency we would find a way to go back to having a real tree—perhaps even one that we cut down on our own. Although we didn’t have much luck finding a place to cut down our own tree, the perfect tree we found at a nearby Christmas tree lot was almost as good.

And for the first time in a few years, we actually carried out oor family tradition of stringing popcorn and cranberries during the First Presidency Christmas Broadcast. (Since our kids have been so young, we’ve cheated the past few years by saving the garland each year and re-using it.)

Emmie was still a little too young to help this year, but we found a way of keeping her “contained”.

She didn’t mind it too much!

After lighting the tree and stringing it with our homemade garland, Maddi and Spence hung Christmas balls all over the front and bottom of the tree…

and just as quickly Emmie pulled them off. Finally, the kids' decorating was complete and we got to their favorite part of putting up the Christmas tree—setting up dad’s new Electric Train. He purchased the train for his birthday back in August just to put under our little Christmas tree. I think he felt a little crazy for spending all of his birthday money on something so impractical, but the sparkle in our kids eyes as he sent that little train a-chugging around under our tree erased any of the doubts he had.

With our Christmas tree all decorated and our big holiday traveling behind us, we set out to find some Christmas activities to attend in our area. We went to the ward Christmas party, (they took family pictures as part of the evening

and one of just the kids because they looked so darn cute in their little Christmas vests!)

we attended a production of Pip the Mouse before Christmas at the Church in Allentown where they hid the Liberty Bell during the Revolutionary war,

we drove through the lights on the parkway, went to the Pennsylvania Christmas Light Village,

rode with Santa on the Strausburg Santa Express down in Lancaster county,

and spent an entire day over in Nazareth and Bethlehem—or as the locals call them—Christmas City USA. While there we learned all about the Moravian Church and decided that if Mormon and Amish were out of the running, that joining the Moravian Church wouldn’t be so bad. We especially liked the Moravian tradition of having a “Christmas Lovefeast” on advent Sunday and plan to look for a congregation we can celebrate with next year. In honor of our true respect for the Moravian people and history (They were founded by John Hus, a reformer who broke off of the Roman Catholic Church about a hundred years before Martin Luther. He organized a new church based on “Covenant Christian Living” as outlined in the sermon on the mount. This type of living must include: faith, baptism, personal scripture study and prayer, family devotions, missionary work, Sunday worship, and ultimately a consecration of “our time, our talents, and our financial resources.” Sound Familiar??) we bought a Moravian Star to hang on our porch just as the one pictured below at their Nazareth Visitor’s Center.

Needless to say, our December was full of fun and festivities, traveling and traditions. No family Christmas traditions, however, are more close to our hearts than our Christmas Eve traditions. While decorating Christmas trees and holiday fun make Christmas magical, Christmas Eve is the time when our family reflects on the “Christ” part of Christmas. Though the day begins for us with baking Santa’s Christmas treats and last minute wrapping, once evening approaches our hearts focus on Christ. We begin the evening with my favorite holiday tradition, our Sheppard’s Dinner. Nicholas and I have been holding our Sheppard’s Dinner since the first year we were married, and it is our most sacred tradition. We dress as the sheppards of old and prepare a special dinner of fish, unleavened bread, and other traditional foods. We then eat dinner by candlelight on our living room floor (someday we’ll maybe brave it outside) and pretend to enjoy an evening much like those blessed sheppards did on that first Christmas Eve. When we are done eating, Nick reads the Christmas story from the Bible and we talk about how the sheppards must have felt. Then for a moment we leave being sheppards and instead take on the role of the wise men, each choosing a gift that we will give to the Savior for the following year. We write our gift on a little scroll and keep it in a special box to open and review the next Christmas Eve. Here we are (don’t laugh) in our sheppard’s costumes.

Once we complete our Sheppard’s Dinner, it is time for our family to celebrate a time in Christ’s life other than His birth. In order to do this, our second Christmas Eve tradition is to open up the first gift of Christmas: Christ Himself, or in other words, some kind of representation of Christ. In years past we have opened pictures of Christ, Christmas nativities, etc. This year we opened a statue of Christ with outstretched hands. After opening the gift, we then turn in the Scriptures to that part of Christ’s life and read and discuss the Savior’s life as well as His birth. The kids especially liked our celebration of Christ this year and our statue. They all just wanted to “feel the nail prints in His hands and feet”. Children are so sweet and innocent. It’s no wonder the Lord told us to become as a little child.

After opening our gift of Christ, it’s time for a few more light hearted Christmas Eve traditions. First, we open a new Christmas tree ornament and hang it on our tree. Then the kids open new Christmas pajamas and we take their photos sitting by the tree.

Finally, we hang our stockings, set out our treats for Santa and his reindeer, tuck our little ones into bed and settle down for “a long winters nap!” We wish!

Each year is a holiday to remember, as I’m sure it is for you and your families. We hope you’ve had a wonderful Christmas and that you each have holiday traditions of your own that will outlive even your children’s children.

Merry Christmas Everyone! And a Happy New Year to all!

P.S. Do you suppose there will ever come a Christmas morning when the kids will wake us up instead of us waking the kids up!

P. P.S. I couldn’t close this post without including a few shots of the kids in their Christmas outfits—a rather frivolous Christmas tradition that Nick would be happy to do without! Here’s our handsome little Spencer,

Our beautiful little Madison,

and our silly little EmmaLee.

And of course, one of the three of them together.

P.P.P. S. If you are reading this and you didn’t get our traditional Christmas photo and letter, it probably means we do not have your mailing address. Make sure you drop us a line sometime and get it to us, and always send us an update when you re-locate!