Gansett Moms Share Their Favorite Holiday Traditions

It’s the most wonderful time of the year!  Sing it with me now! 

We sure would like it to be wonderful, but the majority of us struggle to survive.  Between holiday parties, baking, spending way too much time and money shopping, standing in lines, getting stuck in traffic and decking the halls, we are burned out before the holiday officially arrives.

Worse, come New Year’s Eve, many of us swear we won’t do it like that ever again, but come next Thanksgiving, we’ve already abandoned our plans for simplicity and focusing instead on what the holidays are really about — celebrating our faith, sharing good times with friends and family and not going into debt just because the marketing moguls make us think we need to gift our kids with the highest priced items available.

Our Gansett Mom’s Council has already been feeling a wee bit of holiday stress, but one thing we all agreed on was that a surefire way to combat that is to celebrate the season with traditions.  In a world where nearly everything's disposable or must provide us with instant gratification, traditions remind us that some things were meant to last.   Here are some of ours, and when you’re done reading, we’d love for you to share yours with us! 

St. Nicholas Day

Sabina Franek Dougherty, mom of three, is of German heritage and shares many of her family’s wonderful traditions with her own kids throughout the year.  One of those is the celebration of St. Nicholas Day.

While many children look forward to Santa’s visit on Christmas Eve, children across Europe also look forward to Dec. 6 - Saint Nicholas Day or the Feast of Saint Nicholas. On Dec. 5, children place their shoes outside their bedroom doors or in front of the fireplace hoping St. Nick will stop by. Many sing traditional songs and leave a carrot or some hay for St. Nick’s horse. Children who have been good all year will receive a special treat in their shoes – like candy, cookies, nuts, apples or coins. But those who have been naughty receive an entirely different type of gift - switches or a lump or two of coal! The tradition is similar to the stockings Americans use during the holidays.

“On Dec. 5 my kids leave their boots out (the biggest and deepest they can find!) and St. Nicholas fills them with chocolates, treats, nuts, clementines  and sometimes a little wooden toy like a nutcracker or puppet.  Even my high school kids look forward to this each year,” she said, grinning.

Waterskiing On Christmas Day!

Stephanie Griffin, an eighth grade resource teacher and the mom of two high school teens, shared a tradition that made all of us smile.

“We love seeing Santa and his elf waterskiing on Narrow River at noon on Christmas Day. I do not know the brave souls are who annually perform this feat - once they had to break the ice to ski!  Another favorite of our family every year is listening to music from Charlie Brown Christmas.  Thanks Vince Guarldi!”

Read a Holiday Story Every Night 

Denise Alby, a mom of four, found a tradition two years ago reading a Family Fun magazine.

“Growing up my father always read The Night Before Christmas to us at around 7 p.m. on Christmas Eve.  My brother and I looked forward to it the entire month of December because when he read to us that evening, it officially meant Santa was on his way.  It was so exciting!"

"I read an article that suggested families select a stack of holiday books to read throughout the month of December to help build the anticipation of Christmas or Hanukkah.  "

"The kids decorated a shoebox with holiday wrapping paper, stickers etc. and I wrote the name of 20 different holiday books on pieces of paper that we then put into the box.  Each night (or as often as we can) during December, one of my kids picks a paper out of the box and whatever story is on that piece of paper is the one we read.  This will be the third year we’ve done it and even my 12 and 14-year-old kids like to do it, in fact, sometimes they will read to the younger ones.” 

Creating a Family Scrapbook for the Grandparents

Cheryl jumped on the scrapbooking bandwagon nearly 15 years ago and has every sticker known to man!

Scrapbooking has been quite the rage for the past decade.  When I first caught wind of all those nifty stickers, dye cuts, gorgeous papers and everything else available to capture my kid’s memories, I bought nearly one of everything, regardless of the fact that with eight kids, I never have the time to actually use the stuff I bought!  That was about 15 years ago and my stash of scrapbook supplies is taking up ¼ of our garage!

There is always one set of scrapbooks I know will get made each and every year and that is the one that my kids and I make for their grandparents.  We’ve been doing this for well over 10 years now and each year we manage to come up with some new theme, and the grandparents really do look forward to receiving them each year for Christmas. 

The kids all help and when the 30-page plus book is done, I almost hate parting with it.  With all the online photo shops available these days, you literally don’t even need to lift a glue stick or a pair of scissors because it can all be done via computer if you like.  You know what else?  Someday, I will get them all back, so it’s truly the gift that keeps on giving! 

Recreate Santa’s Workshop

One thing we all face each year is making room for the new toys.  As the kids get older, they obviously don’t ask for the standard dump trucks and baby strollers, and high-tech electronic gadgets are more like it.  In either case, kids can’t play with everything they have and this time of year is perfect for purging and clearing out the items they don’t play with any longer so that they will have a place for the new loot Santa will be bringing or that they will receive during Hanukkah or Kwanza. 

We read a great idea this past week about turning your playroom into Santa’s workshop to prepare their old toys to be recycled for other children to enjoy.  Have each of your kids select a few old toys to rejuvenate and give to a needy child.   Put some holiday tunes on, and get out the clean up items your kids will need such as a damp dust rag (for spiffing up grimy plastic), a bottle of white glue (for attaching googly eyes to a puppet or severed arms to an injured nutcracker) and a hairbrush and ribbons (for dressing up old dolls). Using zip-top bags, your kids can collect small items like doll clothes and action figures and even assemble special themed packages, such as an outer space set made up of miniature aliens, toy rocket ships and glow-in-the-dark stars or a rain forest pack of plastic jungle animals.

When all the toys are groomed and ready to go, arrange to donate them to kids in need. Contact local shelters, church groups and civic organizations to find out how. Your kids will take pride in a good deed well done and you'll marvel at all that extra storage space, at least for a few weeks.

This year if you’re looking for a way to stay grounded and enjoy the true meaning of the holiday season, why not try a new tradition? Unlike most presents, they're inexpensive, need no wrapping and will last nearly forever.  We’d love to hear about any traditions your family shares each year.  Please let us know here in the comment section or e-mail me at CB091987@aol.com or you can reach our editor, Stephen Greenwell at Stephen.Greenwell@patch.com.