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The Christmas traditions I remember most weren’t necessarily extravagant, although my mother certainly never did Christmas halfway. They were the familiar rituals repeated year after year—the ornaments, stories, recipes and Christmas Eve celebrations that made the season feel magical.
My childhood was Norman Rockwell-ish in many ways. Does anyone even know what that means anymore? If not, Google it.
My mother had an idyllic childhood of her own, and she wanted to recreate some of that magic for my brother and me—and even for my dad. He had grown up on a farm without a lot of extras, which was very different from my mother’s upbringing.
No one could have accused her of doing Christmas halfway.
The Christmas traditions she created became some of my strongest childhood memories. At the time, they simply felt like Christmas. Now I understand how much thought, work and love went into making the season feel so magical year after year.
Christmas Began the Day After Thanksgiving
At our house, Christmas began the day after Thanksgiving. It was a marathon, not a sprint.
I have never seen anyone get as much joy from lugging out Christmas decorations as my mother did. She had more than 20 boxes, all labeled and listed on a sheet in the order they needed to be removed from the basement or attic.
Lots of people claim Christmas is their favorite time of year, but my mother put them to shame.
One decorated room and one beautiful tree would never have been enough. The entire house was filled with Christmas cheer, and every box held something she was genuinely delighted to see again.
Our Handmade Christmas Advent Calendar
One of my favorite childhood Christmas traditions was the Advent calendar my mother and Aunt Roxann made for their three children—my brother, my cousin and me.
It was a large felt Christmas tree with 24 red pockets. Each pocket held a Hershey’s Kiss and a small ornament to place on the felt tree. Every night, there was also a book to read that somehow related to that evening’s ornament.
My mother read Christmas bedtime stories to us every year, and we still have many of those books. My favorite was Santa Mouse. I can still hear her animated voice reading it to me.
Our copy even had red crayon scribbles inside, courtesy of my little brother. Somewhere between my adulthood, several moves and my son’s childhood, that well-loved book disappeared.
I eventually bought a new copy of Santa Mouse. It doesn’t have my mother’s hands on its pages or my brother’s red crayon marks, so it can never be quite the same. But opening it still takes me back to those Christmas nights and the sound of my mother’s animated voice bringing the story to life.
Our Christmas Eve Traditions
Our family opened gifts on Christmas Eve because that was what my mother’s family had always done. It also suited my very German father, since opening presents on Christmas Eve is a German tradition.
We gathered for a family dinner made mostly of appetizers and snack-like foods before opening our presents. On Christmas morning, we still had gifts from Santa and stockings waiting for us.
My mother continued this tradition well into my 40s—even during the last Christmas she was alive.
Traditions evolve as families change, but I think their repetition is what gives them meaning. We remember the anticipation: the familiar food, the gathering together and knowing what would happen next because it had happened every Christmas before.
The Christmas Recipes She Made Every Year
My mother loved making Christmas candy, cookies and cakes.
Every year she made peanut butter wheels—not the kind made with potatoes—along with bourbon balls, peanut butter balls and Christmas cookies pressed with her antique cookie press. There were sausage balls and cheese balls for our gatherings, too.
My dad loved her fruitcake cookies. Does anyone really like fruitcake? Apparently my father did. He was the only person in our family who ate them, but she faithfully made them for him every year.
The foods we make repeatedly become Christmas traditions of their own. A familiar recipe can bring back a person, a kitchen and an entire season in a single bite.
When Santa Came to Our House
At the time, we had something almost no one else we knew had: Santa came to our house before Christmas.
He brought us a gift and stayed to visit for a while, despite presumably being fairly busy that time of year.
Eventually, I learned that Santa was a family friend who dressed up each year and visited his friends’ children. He did such an amazing job that even after I was old enough to understand what was happening, I still looked forward to his visit.
Having a little brother who was four and a half years younger turned out to be a gift, too. I could keep playing along for him and hold onto the magic for a few more years. There is something especially sweet about being old enough to know the secret, but still young enough to enjoy helping someone else believe.
Heirloom Ornaments With Stories to Tell
Some of the Christmas decorations I treasure most are ornaments that once hung on the trees of my grandparents and great-grandparents.
My mother was wonderful about preserving family history. She wrote on the original ornament boxes who each ornament had belonged to and approximately how old it was. Because she took the time to record those details, they didn’t become anonymous old decorations. Their stories stayed with them.
She often told me how much she had loved decorating the tree and wrapping gifts with her grandmother. Those memories were one reason she enjoyed wrapping Christmas presents so much.
Our decorations also included the wonderfully nostalgic chenille pixies I still associate with childhood Christmases. I now collect and make them myself, and I’ve shared more about vintage chenille pixies and how to make your own.
Gift Wrapping Was an Event
I couldn’t begin to calculate how many hours my mother spent wrapping presents every Christmas.
She shopped throughout the year because she wanted to finish early enough to leave herself several weeks for wrapping. And the gifts were beautiful.
An entire room would be dedicated to paper, boxes, ribbons and bows, as though we were elves gearing up for the big haul. Wrapping wasn’t a last-minute chore to her. It was part of Christmas.
She took a fair amount of lighthearted ribbing for the scale of it all, but she loved every minute.
Why Our Christmas Traditions Still Matter
I could go on and on about the Christmases of my childhood—and perhaps I will.
Mom and me, sometime in the 80’s. Mom is holding our dog, Jellybean. We got her from my preschool teacher when I was 4 years old. She lived until I was 21.
My mother worked incredibly hard to make the season memorable for us. As a child, I saw only the magic. Now that she is gone, I understand more fully that she created that magic through hundreds of thoughtful choices made year after year.
Not every meaningful Christmas tradition needs 20 labeled boxes or a room dedicated to wrapping presents. It might be a favorite story read aloud, an inherited ornament, a recipe made for the one person who loves it or a familiar Christmas Eve meal.
The details will be different in every home. What matters is the love and repetition behind them.
Those are the things that become part of a family’s story—and the memories we carry long after Christmas is over.
