20 Unique Holiday Traditions Celebrated by Local Moms

December is here! With this busy holiday season comes a flurry of events, travel, celebrations, and traditions. Many traditions can be found this time of year. This includes ones that have been passed down from generation to generation or from family to family, new traditions recently discovered, or traditions that become hybrids of new and old ideas mixed together to fit different families or celebrations.

Whatever you are celebrating this season, we want to highlight some unique holiday traditions observed by our own Charleston moms around some of their favorite memories and activities during this time of year. These may spark a new tradition idea for you and your family, or perhaps a variation on a tradition you already do each year.

20 Unique Holiday Traditions

1. New PJs and a game to open and play on Christmas Eve. (Makes for better photos on Christmas morning too!)
2. A timed gingerbread decorating contest, one child and adult per team.
3. Homemade Christmas Day scavenger hunt around town.
4. I designed a Christmas bucket list for my family; we love doing it each year.
5. We get a live tree every year. We cut a small piece off the trunk and we all sign and date it and then we have a piece of every tree we’ve had for over a decade!

   

6. We all unwrap our new Christmas pajamas on Christmas Eve and hop in the car to take one last look at neighborhood Christmas lights before bedtime. Then we read The Night Before Christmas.
7. For weeks before and after, I collect toys (new and slightly used) to give out to those less fortunate. I collect after Santa comes to give out a little more Christmas when the Wise Men come on January 6th.
8. Make homemade holiday sugar cookies and decorate them — being sure to save some to leave out for Santa on Christmas Eve.
9. Collect toys from your children that they no longer play with and place them in a sack for Santa. He will take them on Christmas Eve to re-gift to other children all over the world.
10. We hide the pickle in the tree every Christmas Eve after the kids go to bed. Christmas morning, they know it’s there and whoever finds it first gets an extra present! It’s so fun to watch my older kids (and now their spouses) hunt crazily for the pickle! My young daughter has her own smaller pickle to find so she doesn’t have to fight the crazy older ones.
11. We go out every year and feed Santa’s reindeer on Christmas Eve.
12. We always bake a cake for Jesus. First thing on Christmas morning, we light a candle, sing Happy Birthday to Jesus, and eat birthday cake for breakfast!
13. We do the Tree Fairy! She leaves a small gift for the kids the morning after the tree is decorated.
14. We have a big wrapping paper fight every year.
15. We make hand-print salt dough ornaments every year.

    

16. We host a Christmas Eve party for friends and family. It’s been a tradition in my family for generations and we do a Yankee Swap (White Elephant) gift exchange.
17. My son is 18 this year and I’ve written him a card every year since he was born. I always put it in his “My First Christmas” stocking. It chronicles our year of adventures and his growth.
18. We recently started celebrating Jolabokaflod! It’s an Icelandic tradition of gifting a new book to someone you love and spending Christmas Eve cuddled up reading and enjoying chocolate, hot chocolate, or a non-alcoholic holiday ale.
19. Once our kids became teens, we started a Christmas Night tradition with friends and neighbors of playing various games (Uno, etc.). The winner of each hand can take a dollar from a stack or take their luck on a lottery ticket. It is hours of fun and none of that Christmas Night “it’s over” feeling.
20. Growing up, we would trade off wearing the “Santa Hat” from year to year. The person wearing it is in complete control of handing out gifts.

Do you have a favorite tradition you do every year? Are you planning to try one of these unique holiday traditions this year or next? Let us know in the comments!